Written by Forrest Moyer on July 6, 2017
A beautifully-written local memoir is now available on Kindle. If you’re interested in 20th-century Mennonite culture, this is a great read. You can purchase the book here.
Cynthia Yoder was a graduate student in New York City when she began to suffer from depression. Crazy Quilt follows her quest for meaning — a return to Berks County, PA, and visits with her grandparents, Henry and Elizabeth “Betts” Kulp Yoder. Enjoy the excerpts below.
…One night on the phone with my mother, I
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Written by Forrest Moyer on June 21, 2017
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.
A large pioneer family
Christian Allebach, a weaver, had three stepchildren when he and wife Margaret immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1719. The family came from Dühren, Germany, near Sinsheim in the Kraichgau, and likely
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Written by Forrest Moyer on May 24, 2017
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.
An old world devotional
John [Johannes] Detweiler (1721-1806) was born when his immigrant parents, Hans and Susanna, were in the first years of trying to carve out a life in the Skippack woods. They
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Written by Forrest Moyer on May 10, 2017
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.
Viewing comets in Kriegsheim
Hupert Cassel, an immigrant bachelor who came to Pennsylvania in 1717, and his brothers Yellis and John, who came ten years later, were from a pious Mennonite family of Kriegsheim,
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Written by Forrest Moyer on April 12, 2017
Taking a break from immigrant family stories, this week we’re featuring a new acquisition related to the Easter holiday.
You may be familiar with the elaborate scratch-decorated eggs of the Lithuanian tradition; but did you know Pennsylvania Germans had a similar practice of scratch decoration? You can see many examples in a chapter on this topic in Alfred Shoemaker’s book Eastertide in Pennsylvania (1960). Often decorated eggs were made as presentation pieces or gifts from one friend to another at Easter.
This
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Written by Forrest Moyer on March 22, 2017
This is the first in a series of posts highlighting families descended from 18th-century Mennonite immigrants to eastern Pennsylvania, in connection with a new exhibit opening April 1, 2017 at the Mennonite Heritage Center, entitled Opportunity & Conscience: Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania.
The exhibit will commemorate the 300th anniversary of the arrival in 1717 of the first large group of Mennonite settlers to Pennsylvania, and will include recent immigrant stories as well. Look for photos of the exhibit installation next week
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