Holding All Things in Common...Not So Common Anymore

I had returned to my childhood home between graduating college and getting married. About the time I was planning my wedding, the long-time neighbor on the driveway side of my mom's house put her home up for sale. Grandpa told me my future husband and I should buy it. He said it in a matter-of-fact manner, like it was the most natural and logical thing to do. I had to explain to Grandpa that my future husband, in graduate school some 250 odd miles away, was likely to remain there for some years into our marriage, and then go off to who knows where for more schooling or employment. No, we would not be buying the house next door...

I relate this story because it is the only tiny faint remnant I ever saw in my family of the distinctive Hutterite belief in community of goods, holding all things in common. Buying the house next door would be saying that, yes, I was still here, to share in whatever – meals, work projects, driving Grandpa to the lumberyard. In order to hold all things in common, close communal proximity to one another was necessary. I suppose I could make the case that we did live in somewhat of a communal house, an extended family made up of Mom, my brother and I, and Grandma and Grandpa. I know there was a pooling of financial resources to make ends meet and the free childcare that Grandma and Grandpa provided made it possible for my mom to be the full time breadwinner of the family. I always saw this as a practical necessity of our family circumstances, but perhaps it was made easier by some hereditary Hutterite predisposition to working together. Aside from that, we all seemed to be respecters of private property. We were attached to our personal stuff.

The Hutterites' communal life was difficult to maintain and it flickered in and out of existence depending on their stability of the moment. In towns where they had some peace and freedom from persecution, the communal lifestyle would flourish. When they were on the run from their persecutors, community of goods was impossible to maintain. There were four towns in what is now Slovakia that provided some degree of stability for the Hutterites, and later, for the Haban. Sobotište, Vel'ké Leváre, Moravský Svätý Ján, and Trenčín. Sobotište, Grandma's town, and Moravský Svätý Ján, Grandpa's town, both have areas dating from the 1500s containing the buildings where the Hutterites, and later, the Haban, lived first communally, and then more in an extended family-like way. The Hutterite settlements were called Bruderhofs and consisted of mills and other places of work, clustered together in a small area, as well as large houses where families shared living spaces. Writers of the time likened a Bruderhof to a beehive, a busy place, with everyone working together to create a productive, godly life.   

Grandpa's house, Moravsky Svaty Jan

Grandma's house, Sobotiste

Present day Sobotište and Moravský Svätý Ján both have areas that are called Habánský dvor, translated as “Haban Court”. Grandpa's childhood home was most likely one of the original Bruderhof homes. Grandma's childhood home was most likely not, but built in the style of the Bruderhof home close to the original Hutterite Bruderhof site.

Tomorrow I'll take you on a visual tour of both Grandma and Grandpa's home towns...