A fugitive flight into Canada made Saskatchewan a part of the history behind The Simpsons | CBC News

Imagine this: After war breaks out, Abe claims Mennonite exemption and flees from the military to Saskatchewan, where Homer becomes a Canadian citizen.

That’s not the synopsis for an unaired episode of The Simpsons. That’s what really happened to the real-life inspirations for the long-running animated show before they became big, yellow stars.

Matt Groening may or may not know about his ancestors’ criminal connection to Saskatchewan. If he is aware, he seems not to have used it on the show.

“Had I known that The Simpsons would turn into the series, I wouldn’t have subjected my family to the humiliation of having some of the characters named after them,” Groening told the Toronto Star in 1990 during the show’s red-hot first season. 

A few years earlier, he had quickly sketched the characters for a meeting with producer James L. Brooks, using his own family’s real names, including the nod to his father, Homer. 

“Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father … and just annoy him a little bit,” Groening said in 2010, 14 years after Homer Groening’s death in Portland, Ore. 

“My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts.”

A family with Mennonite roots

The real-world Abe was Matt Groening’s (pronounced GRAY-ning) grandfather Abram Groening. He was born in 1894 in Hillsboro, Kan., to Matt’s great-grandfather Abraham who, at eight years old, left Russia with his Germanic Mennonite family. 

Like their Anabaptist cousins, the Hutterites and Amish, the Mennonites desired peace on the North American Prairies. Abraham farmed, preached and lectured. He married Aganetha Klaassen and they had 11 children, of which Abram was the oldest boy.

Abram followed in his father’s footsteps as a Mennonite farmer and scholar based in Kansas. That all changed during the First World War, when the 24-year-old was conscripted into military service.

Draft notices were sent to Abram. None were returned. He was already more than 1,000 kilometres away in Canada.

A Mennonite safe haven

Herbert, Sask., just east of Swift Current, was a bustling Mennonite town back in 1918. It had been incorporated as a town just six years earlier, offering the promise of freedom and farmland.

Abraham thought it was the perfect place to safeguard his fugitive family from the U.S. government.

Unlike the United States, Canada fully exempted Mennonites from the draft, at least at first.

On Sept. 4, 1918, Abraham, Aganetha and five of their children arrived by train at the Saskatchewan border, destined for Herbert.

His other children, including draft-dodging Abram and Abraham’s soon-to-be draft-eligible sons Frank and Jacob, plus Abram’s wife Elisabeth and newborn Victor Hugo, made for Saskatchewan on different days. The Groenings had sold their land and possessions for roughly $150,000. 

According to Kansas folklore, they had also fled a gun- and torch-wielding mob that wasn’t too happy about German-speaking pacifists in their midst. 

Safe and sound, they settled on a farm near Main Centre, Sask., another Mennonite-heavy community located about 25 kilometres north of Herbert.

America didn’t let the family go without a fight. Calls went out to the North-West Mounted Police and American Consul J.H. Johnson of Regina to bring them to justice.

The Bureau of Investigation, which later became the FBI, interrogated the Groenings’ acquaintances in Hillsboro. A “slackers list” was published across Kansas newspapers, with a $50 reward offered for the capture of Abram and other local deserters.

A return home after war

The Groenings evaded authorities and were still farming around Herbert after the war ended in November 1918.

But Canada, which initially prized Anabaptist refugees for their agricultural prowess, was getting sick of them, particularly as traumatized soldiers returned to find good farmland taken by German-speaking non-Canadians.

In 1920, two years after Canada dropped its conscription exemption and a year after Canada considered mass Mennonite deportation, the runaways were homeward bound. With them was the newest addition to the family: Homer Philip Groening, born Dec. 30, 1919, to Abram and Elisabeth in Main Centre.

Only Homer’s uncle Frank stayed behind. He married a Main Centre resident named Agnes Cornelsen and produced two more Sask.-born Groenings. By 1930, they too had returned to Kansas.

While the Groenings are long gone, many Cornelsens (or Cornelsons) remain in the Herbert area.

Herbert mayor surprised, pleased

“That is the first I heard about that,” said Herbert mayor Ron Mathies with a laugh when asked about the Groenings’ fugitive flight to his town, current population about 800.

Although he knew about Homer’s link to Main Centre, he never knew the reason the family had made the area their home.

“I think it’s a nice story for Main Centre and that they arrived in Herbert and this was their destination.”

He credits Canada’s tolerance of conscientious objectors and Herbert’s dominant Mennonite past as boons to the Groenings’ escape. Now, more than a century later, their story might be a boon to small-town Saskatchewan. 

“It brings a lot of life to our communities.… That is such a famous show,” he said, mulling whether the town could find a way to pay homage to its very own Homer. 

“I wish I had known him, because I find [his story] very, very interesting and intriguing.”

The real Homer, a Renaissance man

Unlike his cartoon counterpart, Homer Groening was described in a 1996 obituary in The Seattle Times as an “absolute creative genius.” More like 2D Homer, he’s also been described as a Renaissance man, having done everything from singing in his school’s a capella choir to perfecting a backwards basketball shot.

According to a 2002 Saskatoon StarPhoenix article that explored Homer’s Saskatchewan connection, he was even part of the D-Day invasion during the Second World War, for which he received a Distinguished Flying Cross.  

Homer married Margaret (Marge) Wiggum, with the pair raising five children in Portland, Ore.: Mark, Patricia (Patty), Elisabeth (Lisa), Margaret (Maggie) and Matt the brat (the anagram making the name Bart), a faux simp’s son.

Grandpa Simpson was one character that Matt Groening, whose middle name is Abram, refused to name after his real-life counterpart, so he left his christening to other writers. Incredibly, they chose the name Abraham.

Whether by history or happenstance, a different Simpsons character also pays ode to Saskatchewan. In the second season, Homer’s half-brother is introduced to the audience. His name? 

Herbert.