Gratitude for the Year’s Harvest

Written by Forrest Moyer on October 16, 2019

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 7:00 p.m., the MHC is hosting a special Community Harvest Home program in the Nyce Barn on our campus. All are welcome! Please bring a nonperishable food item to share with the food bank at Keystone Opportunity Center. Click here for more information.

Director Sarah Heffner wrote the following background on Harvest Home for the MHEP Quarterly in 2004.

Harvest time was highly significant for southeastern Pennsylvanians in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and Harvest

Continue Reading


Excerpts from “The Life History of Susie Freed Heebner”

Written by Forrest Moyer on July 23, 2019

Republished from the MHEP Newsletter, May 1986. Mrs. Heebner’s full memoir is available in the MHC library.

This history is a reflection of Susie Freed Heebner (March 7, 1892-December 6, 1984) as she thought about things that happened throughout her lifetime. Susie always enjoyed writing things down. Over the years she kept diaries. Her son, Steward, suggested that she write this life history. He bought her the spiral-ringed notebook into which she recorded her remembrances. For him we are thankful;

Continue Reading


Mennonites and Alcohol

Written by Forrest Moyer on November 8, 2018

Recently the MHC participated in a pop-up exhibit at the Free Library of Philadelphia, called “Drinks in the Archives”. The event was part of Archives Month Philly, an annual month-long celebration of the rich archival resources in the Philadelphia region. The evening brought together sixteen archives and nine departments of the Free Library, to share items from their collections that relate to beverage creation and consumption.

Photos courtesy of Free Library of Philadelphia.

The Mennonite Heritage Center’s display focused on

Continue Reading


Recipes from Henry and Mary Ruth

Written by Forrest Moyer on August 24, 2018

In April 1978, the MHEP Newsletter published recipes from Henry & Mary Landes Ruth of Lower Salford Township. Henry was deacon in the Salford Mennonite congregation. The information for the article was provided by daughter Ella Ruth, and edited by Joyce Munro. The article is republished here with photos added from Ella’s papers in the MHC Collection (Hist. Mss. 440).

On a farm halfway between Mainland and Harleysville they lived, on the farm now [1978] owned by Schnabel Associates on Ruth

Continue Reading


Our Immigrant Heritage: Landis/Landes

Written by Forrest Moyer on March 5, 2018

This series of posts highlights families descended from 18th-century Mennonite immigrants to eastern Pennsylvania, in connection with the MHC’s exhibit Opportunity & Conscience: Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania, on display through March 31, 2018. The stories reflect the enrichment brought to communities over centuries by the descendants of immigrants.

E-I-E-I-?

Old Abe Landis had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. How should he spell his name, with an “e” or an “i”?

The most common spelling of the name today is Landis, but not so in years

Continue Reading