‘Just your average Manitoban’

Politician put community, faith and family first

By: Nicole Buffie

Harry Schellenberg was always up for a challenge.

Whether it was championing the German language program in the River East Transcona School Divison, navigating his successful career as an NDP MLA in the Rossmere constituency or mentoring a future generation who would take the reins from him, Schellenberg did it all, with community, faith and family at the centre of his work.

“He was not interested in personal glory,” said Garry Bochinski, a former teacher, colleague and friend. “He had a great interest in people.”

Schellenberg died on Nov. 20, 2024, after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 85.

Schellenberg was born and raised on a farm near Boissevain. He pursued a career in education and worked throughout rural Manitoba before landing at River East Collegiate, where he taught history for 25 years.

“Harry was a well-loved and respected history teacher. His in-depth knowledge and love of this subject made him very competent and well-respected,” Bochinski said.

Teaching also connected him to his wife, Irene; Irene’s sister was a pupil of Schellenberg’s, and, while attending his former student’s wedding, he met Irene.

They married one year later.

In 1976, they moved to a home in North Kildonan to raise two children, Angela and Harold.

In the midst of his career in the late 1970s, a group approached him about forming a German bilingual program in the school division.

At the time, the North Kildonan neighbourhood was dense with Mennonite families who wanted their children to learn the language. Thus, was the founding of Manitoba Parents for German Education, of which Schellenberg was the president.

“He very much liked to enrich the public school and have people learn in their own culture. This was highly, highly important,” said Angela Schellenberg, Harry’s daughter.

It was a long process getting approval from the school board and trustees, but the program welcomed its first batch of students in 1981.

Today, the program is bursting at the seams and has had to stop accepting out-of-division students.

Angela has since taken up her father’s torch to advocate for greater access to German language education throughout the division and province at large.

Seeking yet a different challenge a decade later, Schellenberg threw his hat into the political ring.

After being a lifelong New Democrat, he was elected Rossmere MLA in the 1993 byelection and served for two years before being defeated by Progressive Conservative Vic Toews by just 117 votes.

To fill his schedule before the next provincial election, which Schellenberg decided he would contest, he spent several years at Stony Mountain Penitentiary’s learning centre to help inmates upgrade their education.

After inmates were released, Schellenberg stayed in touch with them through the prison’s open circle program. He allowed inmates to use his home address to receive their mail to help them reintegrate into society.

“He had the ability to relate to anybody, from any background or anyone, and he wanted to give these guys another chance and be there in support, that’s how he saw it,” Angela said.

When 1999 rolled around, “Re-elect Harry Schellenberg” signs began popping up on the lawns in Rossmere ahead of the provincial election.

Tracy Schmidt remembers his victory that fall as the “best political comeback story in Manitoba history.”

“He came back from losing the election in 1995… not only in a huge upset defeating a PC cabinet minister (Toews)… and did it by about 5,000 votes,” said New Democrat Schmidt, who currently represents Rossmere and is Manitoba’s education minister.

Schmidt knew Schellenberg from early on in life, albeit in an unusual way: Schmidt’s maiden name is Schellenberg.

“Every few years, the Schellenberg signs would go up all over the neighborhood and all of my friends and my teachers and my classmates would always ask me, ‘Is that your dad?” Schmidt said.

“Sometimes I’d get so exhausted I would just say, ‘yeah.’”

When Schmidt was ready to enter politics, she and Schellenberg often met at his favourite Salisbury House, on Henderson Highway, and he would give her old notebooks and tips about how to connect with voters.

His political savvy aside, Schmidt doesn’t remember him as much of a politician.

“Politicians sometimes are slick and they’ve got high-level speaking points,” she said. “That wasn’t really Harry.”

“Harry was a teacher in our community. He was a parent in our community, a grandfather in our community. He was so great at just connecting with the average Manitoban. He really was the average Manitoban.”

His family agrees.

“He had this natural ability to just engage and interact with anybody. Even if they have differing political views or backgrounds or anybody, he just had this natural ability to connect with anybody,” Angela said.

He loved gardening, reading, sports and regular trips to the coffee shop to meet with old friends and colleagues.

He was also a fierce sports fan and coach.

“Dad always said there’s value in sports: teamwork and camaraderie and working together. I think he really saw a benefit in it,” said son, Harold. “He was always putting 110 per cent into his work and his family.”

After retiring, he travelled to Grigorievka, Ukraine, to find his ancestors’ original home, as well as various other countries, including Germany and Australia.

In recognition of his community service, he received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 — and even got to meet the queen.

“She’s shorter than you think,” mused Irene Schellenberg.

“That was just one of the many things he did. He always said — even when he was sick — ‘I’ve got to live. I’ve got to live to do it all.’”

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca