Over the last 30 years, the Mennonite Heritage Center has been able to collect an interesting group of traditional needlework done by perhaps three sisters from a Mennonite family in Lower Salford Township-several of them by recent donation. The needlework was donated by at least four different family members. These are mainly late, Pennsylvania German style “show” towels, or decorated hand towels, made from 1888 to 1906 – most of them apparently by Annie L. Alderfer and one each by older sisters Susan L. and Sallie L. Alderfer. They show that traditional Pennsylvania German needlework was still practiced this late in a few area Mennonite families. The known, surviving examples in this group suggest that the sisters likely made a traditional show towel for each of their six siblings – brothers and sisters alike.

In this post, I want to describe and portray through vintage photos something of the experience of their childhood and youth in a rural, traditional Mennonite community – a culturally and religiously conservative lifestyle that encouraged traditional domestic skills. Annie and Susan, along with sister Sallie made at least eight surviving traditional show towels for themselves and their siblings from 1888 to 1906, as well as other small cross-stitched pieces. Seven year-old Annie Alderfer made her first little sampler in about 1890, which survives in the MHC collection. The designs she stitched and practiced on this piece would serve as templates for designs on her later show towels.

Around 1890, Annie’s three older sisters, Mary, Susan, and Sallie Alderfer together made a colorful “Round-the-world” (or “Rainbow”) quilt before they married, according to family tradition. Another example of traditional domestic skill from this family, the quilt is also now in the MHC collection.

Susan L. Alderfer (1874-1962), Sallie L. Alderfer (1877-1920) and Annie L. Alderfer (1883-1969) were the daughters of Mennonite farmers Levi S. Alderfer (1849-1904) and Sarah M. Landis Alderfer who owned and worked a nicely situated farm along the Branch Creek in Lower Salford, Montgomery County, just north of Lederachville. Levi, the oldest of fourteen children of Jacob K. and Susanna Swartley Alderfer, bought the farm from the estate of his father in 1881.

Just across the creek was the Alderfer’s-Groff’s mill, an economic hub in the community. The Alderfers were members of the Salford Mennonite congregation with its meetinghouse a mile up the hill along the Groff’s Mill Road, just past the farm of preacher Isaac Clemens. About a mile across the fields to the west of the Alderfer farm was the one-room Garges’ School where the neighborhood children attended. Spanning the Branch Creek just below the farm was a covered bridge, built in 1836, which carried the horse-drawn traffic of the Skippack-Salfordville Road across the creek.

These images give glimpses of their community and family life:

Daughter Susan Alderfer married farmer Abram M. Landis of Lower Salford in 1893. After living 15 years on his home farm, they moved to and took over the farm of her parents, several years after her father died unexpectedly in 1904 at age 55.

One of the sister’s show towels recently donated was made either by or for, and signed, “Susan L. Landis 1896”. Since Susan was married and had two very young children by mid-1896, I tend to think she wouldn’t have had the time or focus to make a strictly decorative piece like this.  Rather, I think Susan’s towel was made by her younger sister Annie Alderfer – especially since Annie’s later towels look almost identical to Susan’s.

In 1898, Annie made at least three nearly identical cross-stitched show towels – one for herself and one each for two of her brothers, Jonas and Harvey. Here she essentially copied the towel made for (or by) her sister Susan L. Landis in 1896.

In October 1904 Annie L. Alderfer married Elmer N. Alderfer of Lower Salford, her neighbor and third cousin, and was baptized into the Salford Mennonite congregation soon after. According to surviving photos, and typical of young women from Mennonite families in this period, Annie dressed quite fashionably before she joined the church (at least when she sat for portraits). That same year, Annie made another traditional Pennsylvania Dutch show towel for herself – although with less needlework than on those she made in the late 1890s. The continuation of traditional Pennsylvania German needlework by the young women of this family, while at times wearing late Victorian American fashion, makes for a curious cultural contrast in this rural Mennonite community.

Annie’s father, Levi S. Alderfer died unexpectedly in February 1904 at age 55. His widow Sarah continued to live at and manage the farm with help from her youngest sons “Joney” and Levi Alderfer, Jr., until her daughter Susan and son-in-law Abram M. Landis bought and moved to the farm in 1908. In 1906, Annie Alderfer made at least one more traditional show towel – this one for her youngest brother Levi L. Alderfer. In 1907, he married Edna D. Clemmer of Franconia Township, left the Alderfer farm and moved to the Clemmer farm along the Harleysville-Souderton Pike, near the Franconia Mennonite meetinghouse. The Alderfer farm along the Branch Creek in Lower Salford, after about 100 years, then became the Landis farm.

After their marriage, Elmer and Annie Alderfer Alderfer lived on his home farm for some years and had one child, Arthur A. Alderfer, born in 1910. A commission merchant (“marketman”), they moved into Harleysville in 1914. But Elmer died in the Flu epidemic of 1918 at age 36, leaving wife Annie and eight year-old Arthur. After thirteen years as a widowed mother, Annie married widower Henry M. Landis of Lower Salford, a brother to her brother-in-law Abram M. Landis. Annie outlived her second husband by 28 years, passing on in 1969.

We thank the various members of the Alderfer-Landis-Ruth family for donating these decorative textiles and other family artifacts to the Mennonite Heritage Center over the last 30 years.