1994 Denominational Affairs

1994  Denominational Affairs. The Clintons, Tribune-Review; Mennonite Church Coordinating Council, healing and hope,  Albert Meyer, gender politics, Howard Brenneman, naps, Leonard Gross, Dennis Stoesz, Marilyn Voran, Abe Hallman; Jakob and Lisen Reichenbach, Hanover College, Hannah and Anson Miedel, European trip, Elizabeth, Mattie moves, Paul and Carol, Roy and Ruby, David and Brenda, Rhoda and Jon, Miriam and Veryl, Scott and Sheri Holland rescue.      

By 1994 Bill Clinton had brought youthful vigor and a centrist Democratic Party agenda to the White House for mainly a successful tenure. I would not have come to this knowledge from our local newspaper, however. Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated health care reform bill and any Clinton failings were constant news because our Greensburg and later Pittsburgh Tribune Review (the Trib to us) was owned by Richard Mellon Scaife. The Mellon heir and conservative think tank patron had a reporter named Christopher Ruddy doing on-going investigation of the Clintons. Each morning, it seemed, the front page had an updated story on the death of the White House attorney Vince Foster (victim of murder plot?), the latest on the Whitewater land deals, and finally reports on Paula Jones and Clinton’s sexual escapades while governor. Although we got the Pittsburgh Post Gazette daily and The New York Times on Sundays, the Trib was our regular for local news and these idiosyncratic investigations. Furthermore our children Jakob and later Elizabeth delivered the Trib each morning. Early Sunday mornings in our basement, I would help Jakob fold the papers while Jimmy Swaggart preached and sang on television; it somehow all seemed of a piece; and this was all pre-Monica Lewinsky.     

On September 15, I celebrated my 50^th birthday, and Gloria threw me a surprise party of Mennonite publishing people and small group at Kim and Diane Miller’s house. I felt at the good level of energy and achievement as a mid-level denominational agency manager. I had succeeded in shifting the Mennonite Church’s historical work in the new directions the committee had desired and I was returning to publishing and Scottdale where the family was located. During my time in Goshen and Elkhart I also served on the denominational Coordinating Council under the leadership of James M. Lapp. This group consisted of the heads of the agencies of the Mennonite Church which helped me gain some insight on our denominational directions. The group was mainly agency heads such as Mennonite Board of Missions, Mennonite Mutual Aid, Mennonite Publishing House, and Mennonite Board of Education (the church-related high schools and colleges). 

Our main agenda was on how to merge with the sister denomination called the General Conference Mennonite Church. One step was to arrive at a common vision statement called Healing and Hope: “God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace, so that God's healing and hope flow through us to the world.” It was as close to memory work I did as an adult in our offices, and James Lapp had us repeat it like grammar students when we visited conference leaders; it provided communality for our work together. The other thing we had in coming together was a new Confession of Faith in A Mennonite Perspective which was making the rounds of getting critiqued and reviewed. The record of our work is well noted in minutes and news releases; what fascinated me as much were the personalities. First there was the head of the church education board, Albert (Al) Meyer, my tennis partner when I was in Goshen; it was not unusual to get a call about four o’clock asking about a match at five which I readily accepted. But if the tennis matches were easy and quick to schedule, the rest of Al’s schedule was difficult, and a big part of any meeting was getting out our little black books and scheduling future meetings with Al always having the tightest schedule, giving us long explanations of meetings he had scheduled.

Two of the agency heads were living prototypes of a benign gender politics I sometimes met during these years, strong and professionally trained men with wives who had played supportive roles to a pastor or missionary. Now, at mid-life these wives were coming out in a manner of speaking as feminists but without a profession or a desk. James and Nancy Lapp and Paul and Ann Gingerich seemed to be going through this conversion, too old to change professional roles, so the wife headed for seminary where she could at least feel some theological freedom. About this time a young pastor and Herald Press editor Michael King and an Eastern Baptist professor were working on a book on male spirituality (presumably the male response to feminism). I wrote a chapter on work; we held a meeting or two but nothing ever came of it.

One of the most unusual retreats, I attended related to these new roles was a January 11-14, 1994, retreat at Laurelville called Men Working with Women to End Violence Against Women. 

This retreat was on male dominance and aggrieved women, led by men (as I recall, one heterosexual, one gay and one Jewish) from Atlanta, Georgia, and Carolyn Holderread Haggan and some women who had suffered from men. The tragedy of the half-dozen women present who had suffered from men was important to hear; I since learned they may have been  refugees from John Howard Yoder’s predatory Anabaptist sexuality. The bizarreness of the program was that the male experiences and roles were being defined by the aberrations of the few. A typical example was an young Ontario pastor telling us about a boorish member who would try to guess the color of her panties in the receiving line after a Sunday worship. The seminar concluded with a session on “connecting violence against women with racism, homophobia, classism, and anti-Semitism” which seemed to cover all the bases. 

About the same time, I had read a Charles Krauthammer article on an emerging political correctness which he described as neo-Victorian. This new morality assumed casual sex but considered casual jokes about women to be criminal. By ignoring real deviancy of criminality such as theft, beatings, and killings, and defining the middle class family as a cauldron of male dominance, the new Victorians at least had a pliant constituency, unlike real criminals. At Laurelville, these pliant men were sinners repenting. One pastor shared that he had called Orpha (pseudonym) the night before and confessed his male dominance for over an hour. He wept and said he was going to continue the repentance when he got back home. Another participant fit this gender morality into our fall from an Anabaptist ideal; in his telling, the sixteenth-century Anabaptists were the first Christians to stop beating their wives.

The main dissenter at this men’s revival was Berry Friesen of Mennonite Central Committee  who I met for the first time during those days. I don’t remember Friesen’s reasons, but they seemed foundational, and I admired him for not joining the easy group think. People would gather around him between sessions like missionaries, as though he were the one hold-out still needing to get to the altar and saved. I was quiet but skeptical about the movement because I had seen some Goshen, Indiana, people trying to indict an elderly and senile theologian John C. Wenger as an abuser. The story line was that his artistic and physically handicapped daughter who needed to be carried since childhood, now, years later, remembered her father groping her. The retreat was sponsored by Everett Thomas of the Menomonie Board of Congregational Ministries; I wrote in the journal that Thomas was one of the most politically astute people I had ever met in my life.

Also around the Coordinating Council table was Mim Book, a very capable administrator who would later become Jim Lapp’s second wife and a co-pastor with him at the Salford congregation in the Franconia Conference. Stanley Kropf represented stewardship, my friend J. Robert Ramer was there for publishing and finally Howard Brenneman of Mennonite Mutual Aid, a church insurance and financial services company. I had little in common with Brenneman; he had successfully re-invigorated a large corporation, I headed a small historical project. He once told me I had the distinction of going directly from adolescence to making a career of nostalgia. But we did share one thing at these all-day sessions; after lunch our eyelids drooped, and we would both take a nap, perhaps of power, mine of pleasure. We woke up in time for the end of the agenda and time to get out our little black appointment books and hear of Albert Meyer’s busy schedule during the next year (already noted). In any case, Brenneman always positive seemed refreshed as we headed for our cars, saying it was a very good meeting. These energizing naps gave new meaning to healing and hope.   

By the end of the year, when I left my work at Archives and my Historical Committee sponsors  gave me a large and colorful fraktur of appreciation which is still hanging on my wall. The committee wanted to move to a more popular or church-friendly history with societies emerging in many regions and conferences of North America. I helped Russell Krabill and Laban Peachey begin such associations in Indiana and in Virginia, respectively, and visited many of the other historical societies. I helped sponsor conferences and sought funding for the Committee and Archives. One of the most generous was a three-dimensional Stoltzfus folk carving which  Merle and Phyllis Good and several Middlebury business people sponsored; it is still hanging at the Shipshewana MennoHof information center. I assigned Leonard Gross to do a new translation of the Anabaptist prayer book, Die Ernstshafte Christenpflicht (The Earnest Christian’s Duty). A big challenge was picking up the leadership from the former director Leonard Gross when he returned to the Archives on a half –time basis. Gross was an outstanding translator, European scholar (Basel PhD) and devout disciple of Harold S. Bender. He also had a sense of entitlement which had become dysfunctional in his relationships with the Historical Committee and also with some in the Goshen College academic community.

But the biggest challenge was Gross’ relationship with the archivist Dennis Stoesz of Manitoba. Stoesz had a graduate degree as an archivist and possessed a photographic mind which served him well in finding resources for researchers. He was also a sincere Christian with a finely tuned conscience.  But I suppose these strengths also made it difficult for him to forget things, and he seemed to suffer emotionally from the slights and furies which life sends out way, even in a quiet Mennonite archives. He would assemble long lists of issues which needed to be addressed and seemed emotionally adrift when I was away from the office for weeks at a time. Fortunately, Marilyn Voran also worked in the archives several days a week and she was a steadying influence on all of us, I believe especially with Stoesz. Voran was what the Goshen people called a spiritual counselor and whatever that vocation entailed, it seemed to have a calming and empathetic role with our staff, as well as the volunteers.

We had many good volunteers, but one I especially remember was an old Laurelville and Lancaster friend Abe Hallman who had moved to Goshen and would come in once a week and take care of our finances, coordinating balances with the Mennonite General Board offices in Elkhart. The Historical Committee Minutes in 1993 noted “affirmation for strong leadership Levi Miller is providing.” In any case, I also joined the Menno-Hof information center board in Shipshewana while I was in Indiana and kept my position on the Southmoreland school board. Also, during my Goshen sojourn John D. Roth invited me to an enjoyable informal discussion group sometimes called “the other fellowship of concerned Mennonites.” Caleb D. Miller, Peter Blum, Gayle and Ted Koontz, Lawrence Burkholder, Robert Charles, Ben Ollenburger, and few others provided stimulating discussions on church and society. I missed this group when I left.     

Finally, the home-front and here I will make the rounds on the extended family of brothers and sisters and especially our children (the cousins) who were entering their adolescent years. But closer to home we had a surprise in the relationship of Jakob and his friend Lisen Reichenbach. Jakob and Lisen had met at Goshen College in the Fall of 1991, and by the following year, Jakob followed Lisen to Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Eastern Mennonite University. By the summer of 1993, Jakob mentioned that they were contemplating heading for Hanover College in southern Indiana. In August of that year, Gloria got a phone call from Hanover College’s admissions staff wanting confirmation that Jakob and Lisen Reichenbach were married. Gloria told the caller we were not sure but would try to find out. The next week, Jakob came up to our home and I remember well standing in the driveway when he told me how they had gone in to the justice of the peace in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and gotten married on August 3, 1993.

We tried to be supportive but I felt bad, in part because earlier in the summer Jakob had approached me about the possibility of marrying them. I suppose it was his way of telling me they were considering the step. I told him I had never performed any pastoral functions since my Venezuelan days, and was hesitate. In any case, within days of their marriage Jakob and Lisen moved to Hanover where they finished their last two years of college, he in history and English and she in French. At Christmas time at the annual Miller family gathering, there was a large shower for Jakob and Lisen; I suppose an attempt of the Millers to wish them well in their life together. By the summer of 1994, Jakob and Lisen spent a month on the Camino Santiago de Campostelo in Spain, gaining college credit as well as the many other elements of a 500-mile trek. After Jakob’s graduation May 27, 1995, he seemed to have a great deal of trouble making decisions, but by the end of the year he and Lisen were on the way to Pusan (now Busan) in South Korea where they would teach for the next two years. In retrospect, I recognize that Jakob was suffering from depression during those post-graduation months, but at the time I thought his indecision was mainly the nature of his artistic temperament. 

Hannah graduated from Southmoreland High School in 1993, and on the Commencement program she had the longest paragraph of awards, one of which included acceptance into the new 1993 Honors Program at Eastern Mennonite University. Also graduating was her classmate and best friend Anson Miedel who was heading for Westminster College that fall. Hannah and Anson had been friends in school, but I knew something serious was developing in the fall of 1992, first day of deer-season, a holiday here in western Pennsylvania. I drove home and saw Anson’s Chevy pick-up truck parked in front of our house with a large antlered buck on back. Anson and Hannah were inside our house by the picture window, looking out and waved to me. Now, I knew we had a provider for our daughter, even though Anson later told me that memorable day (at least to me) may have been his first and last deer hunting venture.   

Anyway, at about Southmoreland graduation time, we heard of vague plans for the  summer, a kind of post-modern European Grand Tour, but these youths were only high school kids not college graduates, the way you were supposed to do it a century earlier. Anson wanted to visit a French exchange student friend who had studied at Southmoreland, and Hannah knew the Spanish Gordons, Jose and Christine, who had stayed at our house for two years.  All at once an European summer tour was mapped out, and we all tried to be supportive. I even got a Luxemburg Mennonite pastor to meet them at the airport, hoping that would get them off to a good start. Tom and Margaret Miedel later told us they assumed the Millers may have had sense enough to veto the trip, and we thought the Miedels might have done the same. Neither did, and as a result, Hannah and Anson still entertain us with stories of their senior trip.  

When the Scottdale editor Dirk Kaufman reported on the Southmoreland Junior High academic quiz team going to states in 1993, he included a personal note: “Among them was a young lady whose name should have been familiar to me in that her last name was Miller. Elizabeth Miller is the sister of Hannah Miller… who has been a big part of the academic fireworks at the high school. Knowing Hannah Miller, it was no real surprise to find her younger sister doing outstanding things also. The difference, as far as I could tell is that Elizabeth sings, too. Not surprisingly, she’s one of the best at it for girls her age.” By the time Elizabeth came to high school following Jakob and Hannah, the expectations were high, but she carried them well. Aside from singing more in school, Elizabeth also got on well with her classmates, and in 1993 when her eighth-grade classmates choose the “best personality,” it was Elizabeth. Both at home and in school, Elizabeth was a high achieving but low maintenance personality. Whether in academics, church, community or sports, Elizabeth quietly moved to the front of whatever group she was with, and somehow remained friends with everyone she had passed along the way.

Actually, Elizabeth and Hannah did many things together, playing in piano recitals for Marty Hawk, playing on section-winning tennis teams for Coach Paul Barclay, and serving as student representatives for the school board (with a proud father). During these adolescent years while I was in Goshen, Elizabeth became especially close to Gloria; they oversaw the remodeling of our kitchen and dining room—and often ate out together during the construction project. Elizabeth was Gloria’s honest daughter, drinking from the same Spanish language fountains and eating from the same Mediterranean diets (that would be vegetarian).   

On August 18, 1993, my mother Mattie held what was labeled as an Absolute Miller Auction, and I’m quoting from the leaflet, “beautiful 50 acre farm” and “picturesque 21 acre campgrounds.” Also listed were farm and lawn equipment, household and collectibles and musical items: 2 accordions, 7 guitars, 3 banjos, radio, amplifiers, boxes of records and many related items. This date was one year after my father was buried, and the music store and camp were closed and the pond on the hill was dry. I stayed with my mother in our Holmesville house that night after the public auction, and I remember joining her late that evening at the kitchen table where she was summing the sales totals and checking about how much of it would need to be paid in taxes. Mattie was ready to close out the Holmesville and Lookout Camp chapter and move to a house across the road from Paul and Carol’s new house in Berlin Township. Actually, Holmesville was increasingly at the edge of her church and social community and family. Now she also had daughter Rhoda and Jon and son David and Brenda within a mile of her. By the summer of 1994, Mattie was living in her Berlin Township house, and the children and grandchildren did a camp-out over Saturday night, a number of us out-of-towners sleeping outside on the grass.

Paul age 52 and Carol had also been gravitating toward the eastern end of the county and built a new house near Martins Creek in Berlin Township in 1989. During the 80s and 90s Paul continued to relish in various land transactions and farm purchases and sales. I remember the late night call I got the day that he had sold the Clinton Farm to the Rhodies south of Millersburg (to become a supermarket), and the purchase of what he called the Graven Farm west of Millersburg, the latter now owned by the Graven Farm Partners (that would be Paul and Roy -- and me along for the ride as a small partner). By the 90s he bought some swampland (game preserve) along State Route 83 in the Killbuck Bottom between Holmesville and Millersburg; hence the Hardy Fur Exchange was formed (Paul, Roy and Levi). By 2006 the Hardy Fur Company deeded its land to the Holmes County Rails to Trails (bike and buggy) which went from Fredricksburg to Millersburg. While Paul kept a busy law practice, he also enjoyed small animals when he visited the Mt. Hope Auction.  He now had a field behind Mattie’s house, and we were getting regular reports and photos of several small burros which he had bought as pets for the girls. Carol and Paul continued to attend Millersburg Mennonite with Paul teaching the youth class and the three girls attending Central Christian High School in Kidron along with the other cousins (below). We would attend the musicals at Central, one memorable one being the “The Music Man” where Amy sang a beautiful librarian Marian.

Roy age 51 and Ruby were continuing their life near Millersburg with Ruby now taking up a greenhouse in addition to golf outings and volunteer projects, and she had a young five-year-old daughter Susan. Drew was a student at Central Christian High school and graduated in 1995. In a “student of the week” interview, Drew noted that he hoped to attend Eastern Mennonite College, enjoyed hanging around with his friend Doug Geiser, relaxed to classical music, read Sports Illustrated, ate mashed potatoes (favorite food), and had a pet peeve: dogmatic people.  In the meantime, Roy’s Holmes Family Health Associates had opened an office in Mt. Hope, and when no obstetrics and C-section doctor was available in Holmes County, in 1992, Roy headed back to Akron for six months to get his certification. Family physician Wayne Weaver had returned from Virginia and filled in at Roy’s office while he was away. For the next decade, Roy was the top baby-delivering doctor in Holmes County whether at the Joel Pomerene Hospital or in homes.

David age 46 and Brenda were busy with high school-age children and after high school Kent studied business at Eastern Mennonite College, graduating on April 30, 1995. We would often see David and Brenda during these years at Harrisonburg, Virginia, when we were both on the parents council for Hannah and Kent. During these years, David and Brenda became especially diet and health conscious, preferring various organic, whole grain and unprocessed foods and alternative cures. The health regime seemed to have a positive effect on David as he continued a mountain of energy at Walnut Hills and whatever church, recreation or community activity he took on. Meanwhile, Brenda seemed to suffer from fibromyalgia and various ailments which made it difficult for her to travel or engage in social activities beyond her immediate family. David was also good at photography and often sent us family photos, as well as supplying many of the photos for the Walnut Hills Retirement Community publications.   

Rhoda age 40 started as principal of the Mt. Eaton Elementary School on August 23 of 1993, one day after her husband Jon’s barns burned down at Mastead Farms. Jon’s barns were re-built, but by November of 1995, he and his brother Gary ended their dairy operation with a huge 1,000 head cow sale that lasted for two days. Rhoda led a renaissance of the Mt. Eaton School, especially in growing the Amish student enrollment. Rhoda was bilingual and bi-cultural in relating to the Amish parents and gained their confidence with innovations such as offering German classes and persuading the Southeast Local District to attach 7^th and 8^th grade classrooms for the Amish students (hence not needing to travel to the centralized John R. Lea School).

Rhoda and Jon continued to host our annual family gatherings at their large farm house in the winter, and in the summer took their own tribe to Little Eden in Michigan. Rhoda was active with Roy in leading music at Millersburg Mennonite Church, and they were regulars at the Laurelville music and worship leadership event led by Ken Nafziger and Marlene Kropf. Often she would bring the children along and I recall seeing her young daughter Rachel standing on the chair beside her and singing full voiced. In her usual gregarious way, Rhoda often had other friends join her; we would often go out for the Saturday evening hymn sing.

Miriam age 38 and Veryl Kratzer were dairy farmers but then Veryl’s knees gave out which made it difficult to do the milking; they sold the dairy cows and farm equipment at auction on June 25, 1993. That same summer the family moved to a large ranch house across the road from Central Christian High School. In the meantime, Miriam finished an education degree at Malone College, did her student teaching at Dalton Elementary, and that same fall started teaching at Central where the children were now studying. This 90s era was a kind of cultural flowering for Miriam, the Kratzer children, and even the school itself—going into a building and enrollment boom. During the 90s, one could attend a concert, play, musical or sporting event at Central and see lots of talented young Kratzer, Mast and Miller cousins on the stage or athletic field.

During a weekend with sold-out repeat performances, my mother Mattie would sit front-row each evening. To our somewhat more distant context at Scottdale, it seemed like an on-going family reunion; many Kratzer cousins on Veryl’s side also attended Central. I think the Miller cousins all attended Central Christian during those years, and the Sonnenberg and Millersburg Mennonite churches were very supportive too. Miriam eventually became a Bible teacher and spiritual life leader at Central. I caught up with Ruth age 36 and John Roth and their four daughters Sarah, Leah, Hannah, and Mary during my Goshen years which I described in chapter 1993.

Aside from the family, we were blessed with good friends, many of whom generously bailed us out various times; I’m now thinking of Scott and Shari Holland. On Saturday evening April 30, 1994, Gloria and I went to Pittsburgh celebrating her birthday; we had a late dinner on Market Square, and left after midnight. I was driving our new GMC pickup truck, ran over the median by Gateway Center downtown, and blew out two tires. We called our usual Scottdale first responders but no answer or recorded voices, and then thought of Scott and Shari Holland (Scott seemed still quite wide awake). The Hollands came and drove us home, arriving about dawn. Scott later sent me a note (with a check he refused): "I stepped into the pulpit Sunday morning without any sleep (too much coffee!) and preached what  several reported was one of my finest sermons." Almost two decades later, as I write this, Scott said he still remembers that night: “Since you were both partying until after midnight I didn't ask what for me was a practical question because it could have sounded like an inquiry of church discipline, ‘And how did you manage hit a median hard enough to blow two new tires on a new GMC?’ We were happy to get you two out of Pittsburgh and back to Scottdale under the cover of darkness! : ) -- Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

Most of this comes from memory, personal files, date books, and journals. The Charles Krauthammer article I read during the gender conference was “Defining Deviancy Up: The New Assault on Bourgeoisie Life” (The New Republic, November 22, 1993, 20-25). Editor Dirk Kaufman’s comments on Elizabeth and Hannah appeared in “Loose Ends: Parental Concerns Pay Off for Kids,” The Independent-Observer (March 10, 1993, 4). My brother Roy’s letter to his patients on going to Akron for OB and C-section training is March 10, 1992. The Scott Holland quotes in the final paragraph come from a letter May 17, 1994 and from an e-mail note of January 27, 2013.