People & Culture
A prayer not a protest
The South Saskatchewan River is under unprecedented pressure. Now, a major irrigation project is set to expand.
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History
D’oh Canada: The Simpsons’ hidden Canadian connection
Before Springfield, there was Saskatchewan. As TV’s longest-running sitcom, The Simpsons has deep roots in this Prairie province.
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Ironically, it’s one story The Simpsons hasn’t told. Thirty-six seasons, 783 episodes and counting, but none with Homer in Saskatchewan. Sure, Sask has been referenced in the series (“you’ll get enough drugs to make Regina look like Saskatoon”). And The Simpsons Movie resonates more when you know what scared the real Homer’s family northward in 1918. But it’s mere coincidence. Without Saskatchewan, however, there might not be Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa or Maggie. The Land of Living Skies sowed the seeds for the longest-living TV sitcom.
It all started with 24-year-old Abram “Abe” Groening, grandfather of The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. With the First World War draft underway, Abe sought exemption due to his farm, family and familial Mennonite pacifism. The draft board determined that Abe’s farm near Hillsboro, Kansas, was “of very little importance” and his marriage to fellow Mennonite Elisabeth Nickel was “for the purpose of evading military service.” He was ordered to report for duty.
Abe refused, which, according to Hillsboro lore, roused vigilantes. Anticipating an attack like that done to other Mennonite “slackers,” Abe hid with his family in brother-in-law John Siebert’s home while an armed mob circled. After the mob left, locals claim, the Groenings fled north.
Tipped off about Abe’s desertion, Agent Roy Pickford of the Bureau of Investigation (pre-FBI) journeyed to Hillsboro on September 15, 1918. He interrogated Siebert.
“I want you to tell me what reason he gave for going to Canada,” began Pickford, as recorded in Groening’s file. “Mr. Siebert, I want you to come right out and tell me frankly…”
“He wanted to be farming there in Canada.”
Pickford pressed. “He told you he didn’t want to go to war, didn’t he?”
“No, he didn’t tell anything about that to me.”
Less restrained was George Hagan. An acquaintance of the family, Hagan told the agent that Abe’s father Abraham had mentioned saving not Abe but his younger sons from the draft: “If we can get out of it, why not?”
Hagan also revealed that Abraham had met with a Canadian immigration agent in Kansas City. And one of Canada’s “high government officers” gave Abraham a card that would “let the boys into Canada without any trouble.”
Canada was desperate to replace farmers lost to war with agriculturally adept Mennonites. The immigration agent had advertised free 160-acre Western Canadian farms and distributed a letter declaring “a Mennonite coming to this country now would be exempt from military service.”
The Groenings entered Saskatchewan over multiple trips from August to September 1918 after selling their land and goods for a reported $150,000. They settled in the Mennonite-friendly town of Herbert, Sask., but later farmed about 25 kilometres north around Main Centre, a hamlet below the South Saskatchewan River.
America called on the North-West Mounted Police to find Abe and American Consul J.H. Johnson to bring him to justice. Claiming influenza, the latter was unsuccessful.
Safe near Main Centre, Abe and Elisabeth bore their only Canadian child Homer Philip Groening on Dec. 30, 1919.
Homer’s Canucking was brief. The war had ended — as had support for Mennonites. They were considered pests who had invaded Canadian farms while true Canadians were sacrificed overseas. In 1920, the Groenings returned to Kansas. Only Homer’s uncle Frank stayed behind with his new bride. They had two of Homer’s cousins in Saskatchewan.
America hadn’t forgiven Abe, on whom it placed a $50 bounty. Evading even more punishment, Abe became a professor who remained married to Elisabeth until her death in 1975. He succumbed six years later in Portland, Oregon.
Homer shared his dad’s intellect but not his ethics. “I was born a peaceful Mennonite, but when I grew up, I dropped bombs on Paris [in the Second World War],” the Distinguished Flying Cross recipient told Sightlines, a journal of his main vocation: filmmaking.
During the Second World War, Homer married Margaret Wiggum. They had five children. In the 1980s, their youngest son, Matt, modelled the Simpson family after his own — but in name only. “My dad didn’t even like doughnuts that much,” Matthew Abram Groening told Smithsonian Magazine. Homer died in Portland in 1996. In 2002, Matt incorrectly stated that Homer was from Winnipeg. Recently asked about her family’s fugitive Saskativities, Matt’s sister Lisa replied they were “things I knew nothing about.”
On May 4, 1950, Regina’s Leader-Post newspaper listed farmers with unclaimed earnings from the Canadian Wheat Board. Entitled to $28.21 was Abram Groening from Main Centre. But no need to mourn Abe’s uncashed wheat cheque; his other Prairie crop made billions.
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This story is from the May/June 2025 Issue
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