Edenburg is a living example of the settlement preferences of the
Mennonites, originally from northern Germany (
Prussia) who emigrated to Canada via
Russia. Although governmental policy of the day required the farmers to take up residence on their own
homestead quarter (a portion of land 1/2 mile square), the Mennonites preferred and sometimes were given governmental exemption to live in communities similar to those they had left in Europe. Thus, Edenburg and many other such communities sprang up with narrow frontages on the roadway, yet had their back boundaries set rather far from the edge of the road. The effect is similar to the river lots favoured in
Quebec, and by the
Métis people. In 1902, just as the
Canadian Northern Railways was constructed past Aberdeen, Jacob Unrau and his family came from
Manitoba. He homesteaded the north-west quarter of section 14, township 39, range 3, west of the third meridian but bought 15-39-3-3 of what Canada had given the railways. He founded Edenburg on this section, giving each of his children, as they married, a strip of land and built a church and a graveyard. In 1904, daughter Anna married Cornelius A. Ens and was given one such lot. Anna, who
died in childbirth with her child Isaac in 1913, was an early entry into the graveyard. Ens established a store in 1918. Edenburg was situated on an east–west road, and gradually people settled across the road and completed the community. Until 1921 Edenburg had its own school taught in
German, for its students and Mennonites in neighbouring farms. == Social services ==