Written by Forrest Moyer on March 20, 2018
This is the last in a series of posts highlighting 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 until March 31, 2018. The stories reflect the enrichment brought to communities over centuries by the descendants of immigrants.
Bedminster and Tinicum settlers
The American Mennonite Fretz family is descended from two immigrants, thought to be brothers, who came from near Mannheim, Germany, and settled in Bucks County,
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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
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Written by Forrest Moyer on January 19, 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.
Bernese roots
Gehman is a name common among Mennonites of eastern Pennsylvania and Lancaster and the Bible Fellowship Church (formerly Mennonite Brethren in Christ). It is not, however, common among Swiss and German Mennonites
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Written by Forrest Moyer on November 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.
Early settlers on the Schuylkill
The roots of the Longacre family, and origin of their name, lie in the town of Langnau in Emmental, Bern, Switzerland. Originally Langenegger, many descendants in America spell the
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Written by Forrest Moyer on July 12, 2017
Last year Alma Shelly of North Newton, Kansas donated several family Bible registers that belonged to her late sister-in-law, Griselda Gehman Shelly (1925-2014), wife of Mennonite minister and author Maynard Shelly. The registers document four generations of Griselda’s ancestors, a unique and gifted family of the Berks-Lehigh community.
Griselda Gehman was an only child, born in Newark, Delaware to parents of Pennsylvania Mennonite origin. Her grandfather, William Hiestand Gehman, had moved from Lehigh County, Pennsylvania to the state of Delaware, where
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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 Joel Alderfer on January 25, 2017
Several quilts in our current “Riot of Color” exhibit have interesting family stories or anecdotes that add a human dimension to the artifacts. We’ll feature a number of these stories in this post. The exhibit includes thirty quilts, mainly from the Mennonite Heritage Center collection, selected for their color, condition and design content.
Wedding or Dowry Quilts
These are quilts that were made, according to the family stories, either as wedding gifts for a young couple or were
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