An Egyptian demonstrates that Goshen College clothing — like its alumni — can be found all over the world. An alert photographer saw this man in the early 19080s. (Photo courtesy of Natural History magazine)

Longtime Bulletin readers may recall the mystery of an Egyptian seated on a camel near Cairo and wearing a Goshen College sweatshirt. The July-August 1983 issue of Natural History magazine published the image, and that September, the Bulletin asked its readership to help determine the sweatshirt’s origin.

The answer came in the next Bulletin. It turned out that the garment had belonged to Jon Stark, ’81, who together with at least six other GC alumni worked with Mennonite Central Committee in Egypt in the early 1980s. A GC/MCC contingent had joined Presbyterian co-workers on a six-hour ride from the Pyramids to Saqqara and back. He became more uncomfortable as the journey progressed, writing that, “As time goes on, your points of contact wear thinner and thinner.” So at some point during the ride, Stark took off his “precious GC sweatshirt” and converted it into a seat cushion. Relieved at journey’s end to switch to a different mode of transport, Stark left without his sweatshirt.

The unusual image later found its way onto a GC publicity poster (“You never know where our name will turn up… We’re making an imprint on the world.”).

SSTers, even those in brand-new locations, are seldom the first or only Goshen College connection to a particular region. GC Record readers received a first-hand report of Cairo a century ago, submitted by Business Manager J.S. Hartzler during the course of a world tour. Connections to the Middle East became more direct in 1919 when Goshen alumni headed to the Near East for relief work. Through the next several decades, Beirut served as an ex-patriate home for several who had studied here. The fall of 1944 found several GC alums, including long-time GC professor of English S. A. Yoder ’21 sojourning outside of Cairo, working for MCC with Yugoslavian refugees housed there. Many —though not all — GC connections have been made through MCC. At least one GC alumnus, Rafik Wahba ’92, is a native of Egypt.

– Joe Springer
Curator, Mennonite Historical Library

PHOTO CAPTION:

(Photo courtesy of Natural History magazine —on side of photo )

An Egyptian demonstrates that Goshen College clothing — like its alumni — can be found all over the world. An alert photographer saw this man in the early 19080s.

Landscaping stones surrounding a planter between Kulp Hall, the Administration Building and the Adelphian Fountain provide a small but important link to the past.
(Photo by Jodi H. Beyeler ’00)

From the day in June 1903 that Jesse Smucker’s team drove away with a load of soil excavated from a field that was to become the Goshen College campus, the college land has been dug, poked and shaped by many hands for many purposes. Utilitarian holes dug for this foundation, or that fountain, grading done for a tennis court here, a soccer field there, produced results expected to last.

But even the planting of a flowerbed can leave its mark for a century. Sometime in the early spring of 1909, Business Manager J.S. Hartzler took a moment from a morning chapel service to suggest that students take on the work (and cost!) of planting six flower beds recently laid out on campus.

“Nobly showing their loyalty to their institution” (as the Record reported) students “at once” got to work to help beautify the young campus.

Today, a ring of rectangular cement blocks surrounding a bush in front of Kulp Hall bears testimony to the landscaping labors of 10 of those students.

Did they – coming from the Academy (high school), Normal (teacher education), Bible, Music, & Oratory Schools – all work together? Did some later landscaper rescue and place together blocks from several of the original six beds? We do not know.

What we do know is that two female and eight male students, ranging in age from 18-year-old Leland B. Greenwalt to 39-year-old Benjamin J. King (soon to leave campus to start a store in Kansas), chose to record their names on the blocks used to edge a flower bed. One of the 10, Adda L. Miller (later Weber) died a scant decade later. Another, Jacob B. Weiler, died in 1978, almost 70 years after the stone block was in place and long enough to see grandsons Neil (’67) and Sid (’70) Stoltzfus graduate from GC.

The other six whose names remain are: Tobias K. Hershey (early Mennonite missionary to Argentina), Amos Z. Martin, William J. Brenneman, Alma Albrecht (later Smucker), John J. Fisher Sr. (served as GC dean) and Charles L. Shank.

– Joe Springer
Curator, Mennonite Historical Library

Supervisor Joe Brunk operates the Maple City Shirt Company in the basement of Coffman Hall. Special thanks to Mabel V. Brunk for her research and her photo.

On Sept. 15, 1934, the north end of Coffman Hall’s basement was filled with the whirr and clacking of a new enterprise: The Maple City Shirt Company.

Because of the economic challenges of the Great Depression, students struggled to afford college and Goshen College had suffered a 15 percent drop in enrollment. Although themselves strapped for cash, faculty extended credit to students; students from west of the Mississippi River received discounts to help pay their transportation and the college unified its attendance fees to a straightforward $187.50 per semester.

In addition, the college enlisted former business manager Joseph E. Brunk ’20 to create a new opportunity for student aid. After investigating several enterprises, Brunk arranged for the purchase and transport of shirt factory equipment to Goshen from Maryland. Brunk had estimated the shirts cost $6.36 to produce, and that they might be sold for $7.84.
With Brunk as supervisor and his cousin, Martha Martin ’15, as tutor, about 20 students worked in two shifts during the first year. Students like Minnie Sutter ’42, who had only been able to scratch together $88 for college, were able to cover the rest of their costs with grants earned in the factory. Over 1,014 dozen blue chambray and grey covret workshirts were fully made during that year.

Producing the shirts seems to have been more successful than marketing them though. College representatives on student recruitment trips offered shirts to merchants. And then student Paul W. Miller ’39 came up with the slogan – “Every stitch a link of strength” – to advertise the shirts on telephone poles. But merchants complained that customers were reluctant to switch to Maple City shirts.
In its three years of operation, the factory appears not to have produced a business profit, but did successfully provide several dozen students the means to pursue their college education at Goshen.

– Joe Springer
Curator, Mennonite Historical Library

Since the fall of 1958, Goshen students, together with faculty collaborators such as chief engineer J. F. Swartzendruber and program director Roy Umble, had been broadcasting a variety of music, news, sports and commentary from a lofty nook in the Union Building. For the past year, students had capped the 12-hour broadcast day with “Synthesis,” a 75-minute program of progressive rock music.

Each of those 1974 request calls came with a pledge of money for Project Fifi (Fifi Reliefi). A devastating hurricane, Fifi, had struck Central America almost a month earlier. Particularly hard hit was Honduras, then hosting its ninth Study-Service Term group (including future president Jim Brenneman). In late September, GC faculty Bruce and Helen Glick gathered students with Central American connections at their home to brainstorm fundraising possibilities. WGCS public relations director Roger O. Smith took leadership for a phonathon.

Capitalizing on a mid-term reading day, the station extended its broadcast day by almost five hours. Callers could request classical or rock pieces. The higher the pledge, the more likely the request would be played at a preferred time. Requests for rock music outnumbered those for classical music, but classical requests seemed to bring in higher pledges. Meanwhile, in the Union Gymnasium, WGCS staffers squared off against other challengers in volleyball. All told, the college radio station raised $2,074 for Fifi Reliefi.

Today, 50 years after its founding, WGCS continues to broadcast from the Union Building and is more commonly referred to as The Globe. It provides 24-hour programming and can be listened to from anywhere in the world at: www.globeradio.org.

– Joe Springer

Curator, Mennonite Historical Library

Also following the call of the Young People’s Christian Association’s (YPCA) motto “to make Christ known,” a similar number traveled weekly to the slightly older Locust Grove congregation southwest of Elkhart. Smaller groups worked at the Wawasee Lakeside Chapel and on Plymouth St. in Goshen, and plans were being made for a new outreach in South Bend. Earlier YPCA activity had already produced independent congregations at North Goshen and East Goshen. As early as 1910, GC students had held evening meetings in Waterford homes.

Sunnyside was typical of the YPCA Extension Committee’s systematic undertakings and outreach throughout the 1940s. Prompted by YPCA sponsor Paul Mininger, students undertook several surveys and learned that around a third of the 114 families in the area might have interest in a Sunday School. A team of students began visiting in area homes regularly over several months while trying to find an appropriate meeting place. The aging pastor of one independent congregation in the neighborhood was not quite ready to release his little building for use by the students. So the YPCA instead negotiated an interest-free loan from the Mission Board to cover the costs (just over $5,000) to build a 26×46 ft. cement block building.

The 1965 Palm Sunday tornadoes obliterated the original building (and much of the surrounding neighborhood), but Sunnyside, like several other area congregations started by Goshen’s YPCA, continues to this day.

– Joe Springer

Curator, Mennonite Historical Library