Information Superhighway

The Information Superhighway has changed schools.  In the 1970s high schools had books, magazines, and traditional libraries.  Today students can access a world of resources on computers in their classrooms.  The Kennel Charles Church History desk (right), with Martyrs Mirror on the top shelf, hosts a state-of-the-art computer that brings information to the student in the history teacher’s classroom at Eastern Mennonite High School, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

March 2014 EMHS

Virginia Mennonite Bishop Lewis Shank, Broadway, Virginia

The Historian discovered this rare photo of the Bishop in the Archives the other day. This photo was a total surprise. The only other photo of Bishop Shank is a grainy uncomplimentary photo. Nice to see a better photo.

Virginia Mennonite Conference Archives shelves, Harrisonburg, Virginia

A hundred and seventy-five years worth of materials are stored in these archives. Like a detective, the historian searches through these boxes for the stuff of history: letters, journals, diaries, receipts, advertisements, photos, and scrapbooks.

Crest Hill Mennonite, Wardensville, West Virginia, 1993

Crest Hill Mennonite, Wardensville, West Virginia, 1993 (1900)

In 2001, the good folks at Crest Hill Mennonite Church, Wardensville, West Virginia, invited a group of gospel bluegrass musicians to their church for an outdoor summer performance. The church invited Daphna Creek band in 2002 and 2003, the last performance during Sunday morning worship. Daphna Creek went on to play in over 200 venues, but the first show was at this church in West Virginia.

Agricultural Heritage

Cloverhill going north looking west

Mennonites migrated into the Shenandoah Valley as early as the 1730s, though not until after the Revolutionary War did the trickle turn into a steady migration from points north.  Most 18th century Mennonites farmed, whereas in the twentieth century many diversified their economic pursuits into other areas of work.  The farming heritage in the western part of Rockingham County near Clover Hill, Virginia, with the Allegheny Mountains as a backdrop, is still strong and deep.

Burkholder house with Massanutten Mountain 2013

On a crisp July Sunday evening after a thunderstorm erupted across the Shenandoah Valley, a group gathered in the Cove schoolhouse at the CrossRoads Heritage center to listen to stories about 19th century Martin Burkholder documents.  “Grace is a treasure,” Burkholder wrote in 1853, a fitting description for any era, including ours today.

Historians Collaborate in Phoenix, Arizona

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Historians met at Mennonite Church USA Convention in Phoenix Arizona.  It’s clear there’s a new era of regional collaboration among Mennonite historians rather than the former centralization of historical resources in one place.  The Historian sat next to Jake Buhler, President of the Mennonite Historical Society of Saskatchewan, Canada.  He shared stories about Russian Mennonites and in turn he heard stories of Swiss-South German Mennonites in Virginia.  Buhler and others publish the Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian periodical, similar in name and format to the Shenandoah Mennonite Historian of Virginia.

Jacob Geil, 1746-1794

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?