Cemetery monument at French Broad Church of the Brethren Tennessee

In sorting files, I found this in my genealogy file, source unknown, but the handwriting looks like my father's and I know he visited cemeteries in Tennessee while visiting relatives, but there is no signature on it. We also talked a lot about genealogy and family stories which makes sense of the final sentence.

"There is a monument in the cemetery at French Broad Church of the Brethren which reads (near Oak Grove, Tenn.) "French Broad Church of the Brethren

Charter Members              Side 1

Jacob Wine, Minister

Elizabeth Wine

Geo. W. Hepner

Martha Hepner

William Finck

Americus E. Finck

Thomas Finck

Sabrina Hepner

Maggie Satterfield

William Silvis

Betsy Forder

JNO. A. Collins

Mary A. B. Sloat

Mary Steadman

J. McClure

---------

Ministers Elder                    Side 2

Jacob Wine

Sterling W. Noe

JNO. A. Collins

Emanuel Newcomer Elder

JNO. Satterfield

W. R. Williford [our family name] Rev William R. Williford (1873-1938) - Find a Grave Memorial

Revel B. Pritchett Elder

                                                        Side 3

In memory of Alexander Mack 1679-1735 Founder of the Church of the Brethren (Dunkers) in Schwarzenau Province of Wittgenstein in Hesse-Cassel on River Eder, Holy Roman Empire 1708

"Dunkers were pioneers of religious education and Sunday School on this continent. Printed first religious magazine in North America and the first Bible in a European language in the new world, 1743, 1763, 1776.

Emigrated to America in 1719-1724-1729

Tennessee in 1783

Jefferson County in 1870"

Thought this might be of interest to you after our conversation the other evening."

NB: On Facebook I found the current name of the church, "Established in 1875, French Broad Community Church (formerly French Broad Church of the Brethren) is about continuing the work of Jesus. Peacefully. Simply. Together."

 

He gets us ad

The "He gets us" ad. Such a kerfuffle. It amazes me that so much misunderstanding and suspicion can ooze from such a simple message--Jesus' message. Mostly I've heard very conservative Evangelicals question it. They see a subtle SJW message. But here's a liberal Catholic:

"Even as I look at the images in the foot-washing ad, I note that several of them feature white Christians washing the feet of people of color—a priest washing the feet of a young gay Black man; a suburban mother washing the feet of a migrant who has just gotten off a bus. It feels patronizing, self-congratulatory: The white people performing humility as a sly power move to cement their authority in this situation.

As charitable as I try to be in watching something like this, I cannot help but wonder if this isn’t a Protestant evangelical sneak attack of some kind. A slick ad that somehow lays down groundfire for something more proselytizing to come in and penetrate our very brains."

The foot washing questions. That seems foreign to many. I was baptized in The Church of the Brethren, an Anabaptist group formed in 1708; foot washing is part of the communion service as it is for Amish and Mennonite groups (there are many different sects). It reenacts a passage from John and symbolizes humility, service and the call to love. If the writer thinks the ad unnecessarily shows whites in the role of being the humble, loving servant, maybe he should think about how that works with your fellow church member--the one you think sings off key in the choir or is a different political party or is the teacher who flunked your kid. Not all sins are about about sex and race--that's media hype.

 
Millions were watching that ad who perhaps had never heard of Jesus except as a swear word. Maybe they will ask a question. Maybe they hate white people, or black people, but maybe they hate their ex-wife, or co-worker, or are depressed about their failures, or are discouraged and suicidal -- and if this ad points them toward repentance and restoration, God love 'em.

Down the rabbit hole on Good Friday

Good Friday morning I only read the hymn in my devotional magazine (Magnificat, v. 24, no.2) for Holy Week, for Good Friday. It was "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" I got no further in the April 15th entry. I remembered the first time I heard it. It was a hot summer day, in midsummer 1953 or 54. I was a teen helper in the kitchen at Camp Emmaus in northern Illinois during an older teen camp week. It was very exciting for me--previous jobs had been baby sitting and corn detasseling. I don't remember why the campers were using this hymn in the summer, but a guy about 5 years older than me sang it to me. I never forgot it. That was the first step into the rabbit hole.

 
Then I had to check out my hymn sources. Another rabbit hole. So I looked at the Brethren Hymnal (c. 1951) and "Were you There" was there. Exact same verse and wording as my magazine (unusual for hymns I've learned). Then I checked my Lutheran hymnals and the hymn was in the 1958 (red), the 1978 (green) and the 1982 (blue) versions. My only Methodist Hymnal (1964) I keep at our Lake house. From the evidence on my shelves I'm suggesting that this hymn began appearing in main line church hymnals around 1950. It's now a standard, but it had been sung for many years in black churches.

I always read the information at the top, bottom and sides of a hymn, about the author, composer, collection, notes for the musician, etc. and of course, there's no information on the author and it's referred to either as a Spiritual or Negro Spiritual.

From there I moved on to my favorite source, "Amazing grace; 366 inspiring hymn stories for daily devotions,," by Kenneth W. Osbeck (1990). He wrote: "The Negro spirituals represent some of the finest of American folk music. These songs are usually a blending of an African heritage, harsh remembrances from former slavery experiences, and a very personal interpretation of biblical stories and truths. They especially employ biblical accounts that give hope for a better life--such as the prospects of heaven. They symbolize so well the attitudes, hopes and religious feeling of the black race in America."

Osbeck suggests: "Imagine yourself standing at the foot of the cross when Christ was tortured and crucified. Then place yourself outside the empty tomb when the angelic announcement "He is not here. . . ". Try to relive the emotional feelings that would have been yours. Allow this song to minister to you as you go through the day---. " For Good Friday, there's no better hymn to put you there.

Note: Although the phrase "down the rabbit hole" is from Alice in Wonderland (1865) over time it's come to mean getting sucked into an endless time search in reading or looking at the internet. I still use books, so it happens a lot.

Anniversary of my baptism--72 years ago

Baptism and catechism for converts to Christianity in the 4th century.

"The candidate for baptism is to present himself before God in true repentance and humility, making sincere confession of his sins, and in the knowledge that there is one God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who together with the Holy Spirit, is the rewarder of those who diligently seek. Him. At baptism the sins of the believer are remitted; he receives the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and symbolically he shares in the burial and Resurrection of the Lord."

That's a brief summary of 28 lectures given by Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, titled "Catechetical Lectures." Eighteen of the lectures are addressed to persons desiring baptism, and 5 are addressed to the newly baptized. Our own baptism and confirmation were not that challenging, but they do have a history, and God does the heavy lifting. This is from the 4th century.

 
It seems the candidate also had an exorcism to be cleaned of evil spirits and it involved some nakedness to symbolize Christ who was naked on the cross. The candidate also went into the pool 3 times as a symbol of Christ's death, burial and Resurrection. He was then anointed with oil as Christ's gift of grace and the soul was sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Then the new believer was ready for the Eucharist which is no longer bread and wine, but the real body and blood of Christ. That was topped off by commemoration of the patriarchs, prophets, Apostles, and martyrs and the Lord's Prayer with a benediction.

 
There is very little agreement among Christians on anything--certainly not baptism or communion. But most of us can find elements of our own baptism in this ancient description. I was baptized on Palm Sunday of 1950 (April 2), and still find elements in that service and the baptisms I see at our Lutheran church in the 21st century.

This information about Cyril's baptismal instructions is from p. 93-95 of Magill's Masterpieces of Christian Literature in Summary Form (1963).

Down the rabbit hole with grandma's Bible

I wanted to check a different translation today for the sermon, so I tried to find my old KJV from 1946, which I received for Christmas that year as a first grader in Forreston, IL. Instead, I pulled out my grandmother's Bible, dated 1901, which was the year of her marriage. Big mistake to read the preface on how this Bible came to be (too long to explain but there was definitely a big battle between the British committee and the American committee in 1885). Then I opened it to the passage I was looking for in John and found a 4-leaf clover pressed at the beginning of the New Testament (another preface with additional information I stopped to read), a purple ribbon to mark the place (which practically crumbled when I tried to straighten it. Then I found an old newspaper clipping from 1934, probably the Gospel Messenger of the Church of the Brethren (I only know this because one of my articles published when I was working was about my grandparents' library and all the journals/magazines they had, and I learned how to read the clues.)

The clipping was a poem "Teach me to live" which begins "Teach me to live! 'tis easier far to die--/Gently and silently to pass away--" and ends with "Teach me to live, and find my life in Thee/ Looking from earth and earthly things away:" On the verso in perfect alignment was the death notices from November 1932 to January 1934 of Brethren probably sent by their home church, and a list of offerings from North Dakota (there may have been all states, but that's what fit on the clipping).

There was no author for the poem, so I went to the internet, and found it, in several versions, often used with funeral notices. I found one reference from 1865, but it still didn't give the author, although I stopped to read the article (a Bible study). Then I found a sad story about a young Jamaican man who died in 1916, with separate notices by both his wife and his parents. The wife continued to post this memorial poem for another 10 years after his death. The editor, who was apparently researching the archives, speculated that the wife and the parents didn't get along and so published separate notices and thank yous to friends of the family and deceased.

I checked "Find a Grave" for a few of the names on the list, but even those names I found which matched the state, didn't have the right year. Oh, and the Jamaican newspaper had a Facebook page, and I noticed FB reminded me it is my niece Jenny's birthday, so I had to look through her page.

This is why it takes so long to do a short Bible study about Nicodemus.

Ronald Spire

 Ronald Spire Obituary 2021 - Farrar Funeral Home

Coverings and bonnets and a new desk

If one of my nieces had asked me, "Who has Grandma's prayer covering," I could have honestly told her, "I don't know, ask your mother." No more. I found it along with many pair of scissors, at least 10 old eye wear, a hand held calculator with no batteries, a 2017 pocket calendar, Museum of Art membership card for 2018, phone # for appliance repair, bags and envelopes of cancelled stamps for donation to an organization that uses them, math compass, rulers 12" and 6", User's guide for my CD clock radio 1999, perhaps 20-30 half used small notebooks, old photos that didn't make the cut for one of our 40+ photo albums, sacks of cards waiting for just the right moment which never comes, decorative magnets purchased as souvenirs of our travels, 20-30 CDs with various updates or unknown information, and an unopened box for a course in Constitution 101. I have several more boxes to go through before the transition to my new desk is finished.  The old Steelcase that I’ve had for over 40 years will go to new home, when pick ups are allowed again. At least 85% of its contents need to leave this house with it.

For those unfamiliar with Anabaptist traditions, a prayer covering is something Christian women wear for communion, or if they are conservative Mennonite or Old order Brethren, they wear them all the time. Mother usually kept a few extras in her desk drawer (neater than mine) in case there were relatives visiting during the Easter season when the twice a year observance took place. The last time I had communion (Brethren Love Feast) in my home church was probably the mid-1990s, so I would have borrowed one. But this one was hers--the tattered envelope is labeled. She died in January 2000.

I found a blog written by a Monica Rice, a 2011 MA graduate of Bethany Theological Seminary, who has studied this tradition in depth. It's not exactly the way I remember things, but it's been over 50 years since I was a member and each locality or congregation sets its own standards. The photo looks like Mom's covering and the one I had. Some are in bonnet form and each style has its own history and tradition. Somewhere packed away I have my great grandmother's black bonnet from the 19th century.

I also own the first yearbook of Bethany because my grandfather was on the Board, but that’s another blog (or I’ve already written one).

http://www.brethrenlifeandthought.org/2012/09/28/what-about-the-prayer-covering/

Twenty years plus

Earlier in January it occurred to me that I should write something on the 20th anniversary of my mother's death, but the 24th came and went and it wasn't until today when I was looking at my bunny coffee cup which was hers, that I recalled it had been twenty years. She died on the 24th of January 2000, her mother on the 25th of 1963 and her father on the 26th of 1968. The bunny cup has a mommy rabbit and eight little brown and white bunnies, and is my favorite cup.  I use it almost every morning.

Today when photos are a dime a dozen and people just whip out a phone to capture the moment, it seems odd that I don't have a photo of the three of them together, except in larger group pictures, like this one from 1949 in Wilmington, Ohio. Grandpa is between his older sister, Alice (b. 1870), and grandma, and then my mom.  My brother Stan and I are squinting in the sun. I'm wearing my most favorite dress of all time--it's yellow, but only I can tell when I look at the photo.  We were on our way to the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, but stopping along the way to visit and spend the night with relatives. As I found out years later from talking with Mother, this was not a happy trip--my grandparents were trying to find out information on the death of their son who died in 1944 in WWII. My mother who was doing the driving was suffering debilitating headaches and my brother got sick from the heat.  But, being only 10, it all went over my head and I remember the highpoints with relatives, the tourist spots and the ocean.

 Uncle Edwin Jay, who apparently took the photo, was president of Wilmington College from 1915-1927.  (I looked through the website for Wilmington College and found this about his 12 years there: "The so-called "period of expansion" occurred under the leadership of President J. Edwin Jay, under whose tenure Lebanon Normal University merged with Wilmington College and teacher training was introduced into the curriculum.")  I think he probably died in 1964 and may have been 95, but I have no idea what he did between 1927 and 1964. He and I corresponded, and we never discussed his life. If his writings and letters are archived where he taught, there will be a group from a teen-ager in Illinois.

 

Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren, Winona Lake, Indiana: Panoramic Photograph, 1913

I don’t have a scan of the photo, but I would be able to see it if I went to Manchester University (formerly Manchester College) in North Manchester, Indiana at the Funderberg Library college archives.  I only note this because I think the archivist was very clever in finding a method to preserve it—a hot humid day.

“Many panoramic and oversized photographs were rolled up and stacked on a metal shelf in the photograph section of the Archives.  These pictures had become dry and were impossible to unroll.  The Archivist took the photographs outside on an extremely humid and hot summer day.  In about 30 minutes the photographs had relaxed enough to unroll and were brought back into the Library and pressed under books, using archival photo file folders as blotters between pictures.”

I think I remember my mother telling me about attending Annual Conference at Winona Lake, and at one time I had a post card of the facility. I may have even scanned it for the blog since it had been addressed to my mother, but after 13 years of blogging, and many tagging systems, I doubt I can find it [after checking I found a mention in a 2006 blog, and noted in 2005 that the Winona Lake post card was from her brother Clare]. 

There must be dozens of rolled up panoramic photos in attics and store rooms—perhaps they could be left in the bathroom with the hot shower left on.

I have a panoramic photo of the Tennessee Reunion, but I don’t believe it was rolled. Very difficult to store or frame.

Church of the Brethren won’t forget their girls

These may not be the girls about which we heard so much in April 2014, and which were quickly forgotten except by the Church of the Brethren (EYN), the largest Christian group in Nigeria. That denomination has been devastated by Boko Haram. Unfortunately most of these girls appear to be pregnant.

http://www.mamamia.com.au/news/boko-haram-girls-freed/

•More than 500 women and children kidnapped, many of whom are EYN members
•3,038 EYN members killed
•Around three million people affected
•96,000 EYN members are displaced—needing shelter, food and water
•37 of 50 EYN districts are impacted
•18 districts are closed in areas now controlled by Boko Haram
•280 EYN pastors and evangelists are displaced

From the COB website: As the escaped Chibok girls return to school and society, one of them reported, “Education gives me the wings I need to fly.”

Church of the Brethren in Nigeria is being persecuted—for over a decade by Boko Haram

Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa a Nigeria (EYN)  is the name of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria. Their members are being killed, kidnapped, raped, and the churches are being burned by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic terrorist group similar to ISIS, but bumped from the news lately. The original kidnapped girls were from a Brethren community.  Other Christians like Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons and also Muslims are also being slaughtered. (Nigeria is about evenly divided between Christians and Muslims.)  CoB in the U.S. is tiny--probably about 120,000 members, but the gospel was so successfully spread in Nigeria that the EYN has about a million members. I've looked through several articles from the Church of the Brethren headquarters in the U.S. and the word Muslim and Islamic doesn't appear in the disaster stories, unless it's about Muslims being killed or interfaith work with the Muslim communities. Boko Haram is referred to as "insurgents." Other Christian sources use terms like Islamic or Muslim.

“The Boko Haram insurgents came to the villages in large numbers and, using rocket-propelled launchers, explosive devices, and bombs, invaded our communities in Madagali,” he said. “They killed, maimed people and destroyed houses before hoisting  their flags in different locations in the villages.”

“Boko Haram attacks that killed at least 150 members of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria, or EYN) in the past 10 months (2013) have caused 8,000 Christians to flee, EYN leaders said.”

“Militants from the Islamic extremist group destroyed 15 places of worship belonging to EYN, which is the dominant denomination in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states in northeastern Nigeria with 180,000 members.”

“The Rev. Filibus Gwama, (EYN) Borno state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, believes the adoption of sharia is a strategy to checkmate Christianity in Nigeria.” (news report from 2001 about Sharia)

 http://www.brethren.org/news/2014/aid-efforts-continue-in-nigeria-mmb-members-to-do-advocacy.html

http://www.crossmap.com/news/how-can-i-celebrate-my-birthday-with-a-homeless-scattered-family-12600

http://christiannews.net/2014/09/09/bible-college-churches-shut-down-as-boko-haram-claims-territory-in-nigeria/

http://morningstarnews.org/2013/11/boko-haram-violence-cripples-christianity-in-areas-of-nigerias-borno-state/

http://www.worthynews.com/605-persecution-forces-nigerians-christians-to-flee-to-cameroon

Monday Memories—missionaries to Nigeria

When I was a youngster, the Church of the Brethren in Mt. Morris, IL would host our Nigerian missionaries. Later my high school principal Evan Kinsley and his wife Lucile went to Nigeria as teacher missionaries in the mid-1960s.  The Church of the Brethren was very successful in Nigeria and had begun work with women and girls establishing a school. The kidnapped girls in the news recently were from a school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram the group terrorizing that area  is an extremist Islamic sect in northern Nigeria violently seeking a “pure” Islamic state. The girls are probably great grand daughters of those early converts. Most of the affected families are part of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN--Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria). EYN, the CoB mission, now has about a million members and is much larger than its shrinking grandmother in the U.S.

My mother’s cousin, Marianne Michael (on the George side), served in Nigeria. From 1948 to 1961, the Michaels carried out missionary work for the Church of the Brethren, including the organization of the Garkida Girls’ Life Brigade and the establishment of an adult literacy program for women. Michael published extensively in the Gospel Messenger about her missionary work. Her archives are at the University of Iowa Libraries. We usually correspond at Christmas, but now that she’s in a nursing home and in her late 90s, I don’t hear from her.

http://www.one.org/us/2014/10/01/brave-nigerian-schoolgirl-shares-her-escape-from-boko-haram/

http://blog.brethren.org/2014/bringbackourgirls-zooming-out-but-staying-focused/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/nigeria-4-churches-burned-down-scores-killed-in-deadly-boko-haram-attack-on-christians-122439/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/colinfreeman/100271043/chibok-school-abductions-a-story-of-ancient-islam-and-20th-century-missionaries/

Rev. Carl E. Myers

I learned today from my niece of the death of Rev. Carl E. Myers, the minister who married us in the Mt. Morris Church of the Brethren in 1960. His brother, Richard Myers, who was my high school English teacher, also played the organ at our wedding. One of the loveliest memories I have of Carl is his singing around the campfire at Camp Emmaus. He had given the meditation and then stood up and sang "Sweet Little Jesus boy." He had a wonderful voice. I last saw him in 2002 at my father's funeral, but we had a photo taken with him in 1999. His wife Doreen died about 2 years ago. The were residents in their last years at Timbercrest Senior Living in North Manchester, Indiana.

Date of baptism

Last week Pastor John Stozenbach talked about his baptism in the sermon (on baptism), and mentioned the date, and then asked us if we knew the date of our baptism. I didn't. I was pretty sure it was 1950, but didn't have a clue about the day. So I' e-mailed a friend, Sylvia, who still attends that church and is my age and asked her if her mother might have recorded it (she had great scrapbooks since she was the oldest child--I was lucky to have a photograph being third). Sylvia went to the church archives and found out our class was baptized on April 2, 1950 at the Mt. Morris Church of the Brethren. I looked up the date and that was Palm Sunday. I didn't have a "confirmation" verse, but John told us to select one if we didn't. So I've chosen Acts 2:42, which describes the early church group of the baptized 3,000 converted after Peter's sermon. There were four elements of their life as a church, 1) teaching of the apostles, 2) their fellowship together, 3) sharing a meal (eucharist/love feast) and 4) prayer. Isn't that a nice model, even for old timers in the 21st century?

Then it occurred to me today that when we joined UALC in 1976 it was on Palm Sunday also, and that we were confirmed, whereas those who were Lutherans were received by letter of transfer. So Palm Sunday was a big day.

Friday Family Photo--Mother's girl friends

September 18, 1995

[This letter from my mother begins with a story of my birth, which was induced with some castor oil so the doctor could go fishing. However, Mother said I came so fast I wasn't wrinkled and red, so I became "Peachy" at a very early age.]


"We have had a busy week-end with the 150th celebration of the Church of the Brethren at Franklin Grove. Saturday morning we went to the Pinecrest sale and then at noon we grabbed a sandwich and hurried to the celebration at the Emmert Cemetery on the highway to Franklin. [There are nice photos of the building and "Dunkard" cemetery at Flickr, but I couldn't download.] It was a nice meeting. Lucile Kinsely and Arlene David were there. Ada Blank, who is 93, recalled memories and Lucile spoke about her father's ministry of 37 years. That was the period of the free ministry. We had three pastors and they all made their living as farmers.

The church at the cemetery was the original building with a start of 13 members. There must have been a fast growth. Annual Conference was held there in 1865 or 67. The railroad track was on the other side of highway 38 and the train stopped there for people to get off or on as they needed. That was service.

When that new church was built in Franklin after the old one burned at the edge of town, boards were taken from the Emmert Church since there were no longer services held there. It all makes an interesting story and is the story of many small communities."

Lucile Buck and Arlene Beachley, 8th grade graduation photo, Pineview School. Mother and her girl friends went on to graduate from Franklin Grove High School in 1930, and all started that fall at Mt. Morris College. Arlene died a few years ago and when I looked up her obituary I learned her first name was Norma.

Friday Family Photo--the Deardorff Sisters

It wasn't too long ago, just yesterday as a matter of fact*, that I found out what happened to Uncle Cornelius' grand daughters, Bessie, Rhea and Carrie. They are the 3 young ladies with X's above their heads in the back row of this photograph. Uncle was the older brother of my Great Grandfather, David. They were born in Adams County, Pennsylvania. David started out for California when he was about 20 to prospect for gold, but settled down to farm instead in Lee County, Illinois, after working in Rockford as a carpenter for awhile. His family was German Baptist Brethren (now Church of the Brethren), and there were a number of that group in the Franklin Grove/Ashton area. For awhile, Cornelius also lived in Lee County. One of Cornelius' daughters married a Sarchett, the other a Deardorff. At some point, the Deardorffs moved to California, and people sitting on my branch of the family tree back in Illinois and Iowa didn't know what became of that branch.

Yesterday I received a packet of information from a 2nd cousin once removed in Iowa from a third cousin once removed in Virginia. She has written an article for a Chinese American history journal, but when I checked the web, I see she'd also added something to the web about the Berean Bible School in Los Angeles, which is where I found this photo. This school was modeled after the Bethany Bible School in Chicago of which my grandfather was a trustee. Both of these schools had very active missions among the Chinese in their respective cities.

*I actually learned about this family in 2004, but hadn't put all the pieces together and had lost the e-mail of the source.

Monday Memories--CBYF visits Chicago

CBYF is Church of the Brethren Youth Fellowship and I think this photo of the group from the Mt. Morris, IL church is Spring 1954, but I can't be sure. The young woman whose face is almost hidden left school to marry probably around 1955 and isn't in that year's annual, so that's how I'm dating this. There were more in the group--perhaps 20 if all showed up--but this was probably a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry and other sights. The first seven of us from the left, all went to Manchester College, a Brethren school in North Manchester, Indiana, but I'm thinking that because of transfers and marriage, maybe only one or two graduated there (we all did graduate, though). The young man in the photo didn't fare so well--he's in prison for killing a policeman when he was drunk, and he already had an artificial leg from a drunk driving incident. I'm not sure who took the photo--probably our Sunday School teacher, Forrest, a jolly farmer who put up with a lot from us. Pastor Dean Frantz is at the far right--he would be about 90 now.

When I see how nicely we dressed in the 1950s, I always feel a little sorry for today's teens trapped perpetually in jeans and t's. My dress (I'm 4th from the left) was a very delicate aqua in a "bubble" embossed, shiny cotton with cap sleeves and a circle skirt.

Good works among Christians--a bit of history

As I've noted several times at this blog and my other blog, I believe churches have compromised their message and mission by taking money from the state and federal governments to run their programs. There was very poor oversite of this during the Bush (1 and 2) and Clinton years, and probably before. One only has to review the very early years of the USDA's food surplus programs--originally intended to help farmers--in which food pantries (most run by churches which had soup kitchens during the Depression) have participated for over 60 years. Once there was no more surplus to distribute, tax money was used with church volunteers doing the management. Obama has promised to tighten any religious connections--another promise he'll probably keep if the Georgetown speech is any indication.

The following item is about a tiny church with a tiny program, all of which was supported by church members, not the government, and which probably had very little waste or corruption. I'm posting it (originally an e-mail) because it combines 1) a book I was reading this morning by A.C. Wieand, 2) my interest in first issues of serials, 3) my interest in genealogy, and my early years in the Church of the Brethren (my own baptism, as well as that of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents). I found this in cleaning out my webmail box this morning, written to someone who asked about a photograph of nursing students taking the train from Oregon, IL to Mt. Morris, IL during WWI to attend a program at Mt. Morris College.

I have a copy of the Bethany Bible School Evangel, vol. 1, 1921 which gives many of the names of the graduates and classes beginning with about 1909 (opened in 1905). I looked through it and didn't see any of those names. However, I know that there were training institutes held at Bethany that weren't part of the curriculum because my grandparents attended. I'm sure there's a better history than what I have, but the original building was President Emanuel Hoff's home on Hastings, and then several buildings were built but there continued to be a Hastings St. Mission. On p. 55, "All who knew the crowded condition of the Hastings Street Mission will be glad to know that the situation has been temporarily relieved by the purchase of another building. Through this additional building, it is hoped that some of the many boys and girls who have been turned away in the past may be given an opportunity to attend the classes. . .[these are listed as] knitting, basketry,
handwork, printing and wireless telegraphy. Classes have been organized among the Polish and Bohemian mothers. They are being taught cooking and sewing. [also listed for this mission] Daily vacation bible school in the summer (many photos), mid-week prayer meetings, junior Christian workers' meetings and junior church services. There was also a Douglas Park Mission, and service opportunities at the County Hospital, the county home (Oak Forest), the police station. A hospital opened on Dec. 31, 1920 called "Bethany Sanitarium and Hospital."** On p. 101 it says "A Nurses' Training Class, offering practical training in caring for the sick, has been offered since 1914. This course has appealed not only to the single sisters but perhaps more mothers have been enrolled in it than in any other course." "While a regular Nurses' Training course cannot be offered in this small insitutiton, as it grows this will no doubt be its largest mission."

The 1905-06 photo shows the 2 founders (Hoff and Wieand) and 33 students. A hand drawn graph on p. 89 shows 375 students in 1919-20, and 350 in 1920-21.

Truly a work of love and following the great commission.

**Land for the original hospital was donated by my great grandfather.

A trip to No Man's Land

There's a scanned issue of The Gospel Messenger Supplement for Kansas at Brethren Archives. The Gospel Messenger used to be published in Mt. Morris, Illinois, which was a growing community with many German Baptist Brethren (renamed Church of the Brethren about 100 years ago), with a college and printing press located there. The supplement is dated May 15, 1888, and is all about encouraging the Brethren to move to the wonderful state of Kansas.

It's my recollection that the railroads owned huge tracts of land in the west they needed to sell, and a number of their salesmen were drawn from the Brethren who talked their fellow church members into moving west. I suppose it was missionary zeal combined with financial gain. There's an interesting map in the issue which shows Kansas bordering with territories, one labeled simply no man's land, not the United States. After extolling the virtues of the state--it was dry (no saloons), McPherson College had just opened (Brethren college), good soil, large numbers of Brethren within a day's ride, etc. I noticed this little item:

"Any Brethren buying round trip tickets to Higgins, Tex. can without much difficult secure teams and visit Brethren in No Man's Land."

The Brethren publishing firm was originally private and moved to Mt. Morris from Lanark. The original publisher, M.M. Eshelman, failed and the founders of the college took over, D.L. Miller and Joseph Amick. They merged Brethren at Work with Primitive Christian of Huntingdon, PA, which is why you see both towns on the masthead, and renamed it Gospel Messenger. Then this private business was turned over to the church in 1896, which moved it to Elgin, IL in 1899 [all this is according to Mt. Morris Past and Present, 2nd ed. p. 221]. The building was purchased by the Kable Brothers who had already purchased a failed printing company.

When the Brethren split three ways, conservative, moderate and progressive, the progressives took the name "The Brethren Church," and the conservatives "Old German Baptist Brethren," which left the middle and largest group with no name. I'm quite sure that I've seen a poem in an issue of either the 1888 or 1889 issue of Gospel Messenger titled "What shall we name the baby?" or something like that, but I haven't been able to track it down. I'm sure it refers to naming the larger of the three groups.

Kansas and Kansans, 1918, with article on the Brethren.

4809 Digging for Danners

My Ohio State e-mail account is currently a magnet for spam on gambling and Russian spam. Does everyone get Russian language spam or am I just one of the lucky ones? I never got it before the new "secure" system OSU OIT instituted awhile back. It can almost make one yearn for cheap ink cartridges, mortgages, and virgin lesbians, which used to be the content of my spam. Yesterday I had about 500 items in those categories.

After figuring out how to trash 20 at a time, but scanning for those I didn't want to lose, I found an older one I had not deleted but held to read later. And it was from the Brethren genealogy listserv on Samuel Danner, grandson of Michael Danner, Sr., who immigrated in 1727. I'm a descendant of Henry Danner, not Jacob, Samuel's father, but I copied and pasted into my Family Tree Maker notes to be figured out later. I'm a descendant of Henry's daughter, Rachel. Merle Rummel, who contributed this information to the listserv on April 16 had an interesting item about the location of a Sauer Bible in the Danner family. The first Bible printed in America in a European language was not in English, but in German and Christopher Sauer of Philadelphia published it:

"Brethren Roots and Branches (predecessor of our current Brethren Roots) of 1987 (Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter) had two discussions on the Sauer Bible owned by Samuel Danner Sr (son of Jacob Danner - grandson of Michael Danner), father of the minister Samuel Danner. This was the family records of the birth and marriages of Samuel SR Family (did not include deaths). The second presentation included the children and spouses of Samuel JR - and a partial list of grandchildren. The Bible is at the Duggan Library, Hanover College, Hanover IN. The records are in German -from the sequence of names - the Bible was passed down for 3 generations.