Menno Simons sports a baseball cap on a bust in a plaza at Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio, as seen by the Historian at a one day technology conference. Would Menno have launched his own blog?
Music Sign, Singers Glen, Virginia, 2013
Joseph Funk’s Harmonia Sacra, his print shop, and his progressive attitudes towards church music made Singers Glen the genesis of four part singing for Mennonites and good music throughout the United States. Funk deserves this sign.
Jacob Geil, 1746-1794
Jacob Geil, 1746-1794, born in Germany, died in Broadway, Virginia, tombstone 1913, photo in 2013, a photo by MennoniteArchivesofVirginia on Flickr.
Jacob Geil only lived in the Shenandoah Valley for 11 years, buying a farm in the Broadway area in 1783, just after the Revolutionary War ended. His descendants in the Valley, though, are numerous. The farm where he is buried is being developed with houses and local historians will need to figure out what to do with Geil’s tombstone. When the Historian visited the site on June 18, 2013, the weeds were tall all around, rabbits scampered away, a groundhog stood to investigate about ten feet away, and the corn was four feet tall. Clearly something needs to be done with this marker. But what?
Nellie Burkholder pushing Sadie Hartzler
Sadie Hartzler served as librarian at Eastern Mennonite School and College from 1926-1962. The academic library at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, is named in her honor.