Library Gallery to display heirlooms from Mennonite and Amish families, March 3-Aug. 15

 

Exhibit: “Heirlooms” (on display from March 3 to Aug. 15)

Reception date and time: Sunday, March 9, 2-4 p.m.
Location:The Goshen College Good Library Gallery
Cost: Free and open to the public.
Event sponsor: The Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee

 

GOSHEN, Ind. – Until the mid-20^th century, Mennonite and Amish groups in North America produced little fine art, but much folk art. Though much has been sold off to the highest bidder over the years, many items have stayed in families and been passed on through generations as heirlooms.

 

Many such heirlooms, borrowed from local individuals, will be on display in the Goshen College Good Library Gallery from March 3 to Aug. 15. There will be a reception on Sunday, March 9, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the gallery. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.

 

The exhibit will be of folk art items descended in Mennonite and Amish families, including quilts, coverlets, toys, paint-decorated furniture, fraktur, family registers, needlework, paintings, samplers, metalwork and woodenware.

 

The earliest item in the exhibit will be the Hertzler family fraktur from 1813, an elaborate rendering in pen and ink of the hymn “Jesus, Priceless Treasure,” by Matthias Grunewald in eastern Pennsylvania. The most recent item in the exhibit will be Goshen resident Barbara Smucker’s blanket chest, made in the 1970s by her father Wiley McDowell using remnants of a church in Sugarcreek, Ohio, and decorated in Pennsylvania-German style.

 

“Like other folk art, the items in this exhibit were handmade, served the practical needs of a distinctive community and often were presented to friends and relatives as commemorative gifts,” said Ervin Beck, researcher and organizer of the exhibit. The items will be well documented with family history, facts and stories.

 

Several other items of particular note are Martha Ramer Kulp’s blanket chest elaborately inlaid with 11,300 pieces and made by her great-grandfather John Weaver from Wakarusa, Ind., in 1885; Karen Roose McDonald’s scherenschnitte, or paper-cuttings, made by her Amish great-grandmother Elizabeth John Stahly of LaGrange County, Ind.; Donna Hartman Caskey’s crazy patch friendship quilt made in 1908 for Anna Hoover by her pupils at Shrivers School, near Wakarusa; and Joann Yoder Smith’s stockings made in 1854 for a premature baby.

 

“The items have been cherished and preserved by generations of Amish and Mennonite people, and we thank the most recent inheritors for loaning them for this exhibit,” said Beck.

 

The exhibit was installed by Faye Peterson, with assistance from Beck, Barbara Smucker and Joe Springer. The exhibit is sponsored by the Goshen College Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee and is funded from the estate of Glen Yoder. The exhibit is dedicated to Sam L. Yoder.

 

Sam was a former member of the Mennonite Amish Museum Committee and served at the college for 20 years as director of teacher education. He grew up Amish in Yoder, Kan., and joined the Mennonite Church during the years he spent in Civilian Public Service and graduated from Goshen College in 1952. He has become the most prominent interpreter of Old Order Amish experience to public audiences in the region.

 

The Library Gallery, located on the lower level of the Harold and Wilma Good Library on the campus of Goshen College, is open from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 11 p.m. Sunday.

 

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

 

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.