November thanksgiving 6: the things they've handed down 1

When our son was an infant, Art Garfunkel's From A Parent to A Child album was recommended on an email list of new moms. I picked up a copy and purely enjoyed it. One song I found especially poignant was "The Things We've Handed Down." The lyrics refer to specific physical traits, but the underlying subtext suggests deeper layers of meaning, related to family and culture, beliefs and values.

I'm thankful for the people who've handed so many things down to me. Last night I re-read the history of Turkey Run* (the oldest continuing Mennonite Church in Ohio), founded in 1803, the year Ohio became a state. The church has never been large, but the people have been steadily faithful. Stories were collated stories for the church's bicentennial celebration two years ago. This one was included to emphasize an aspect of the church's Anabaptist heritage:

During the Civil War both the North and the South attempted to draft Mennonites and Dunkards into the army to fight for their respective causes. Abraham [Good, my great-great grandfather] was one of those who helped people having a conscience against enlisting to escape from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. One account is given of a group who refused to take up arms. Some ninety Dunkard Brethren and Mennonites met at Weaver's church late one night in the spring of 1862. They were about to be drafted. Their plan was to flee through West Virginia toward freedom into the Ohio Territory, where many of their brethren had already gone.

These men chose as their guide, the mountain hunter, Abraham Good. This capable backwoods man knew the ridges of the Shenandoah Mountains like the back of his hand. Some called him "Sawmill Abe"; others called him "Bear Abe," because he had sometimes shot bears at close range in their dens or, if no bear was in evidence when he arrived at a den, had holed up there himself for the night.

Abraham led this group heading north-west over steep mountains to the Potomac River, where they were stopped by Confederate scouts who demanded they dismount and hand over their horses and guns. One of the men in the gorup insturcted his men "Oh, brethren, pay mightily to God, He will deliver us." Reluctantly the men gave up their mounts, but they carried no guns.

This group was escorted back to Staunton, Virginia, herded on a train and sent to Richmond, Virginia to be imprisoned. As they were called before the examiner of the War Department and stated the reasons why they would not take up arms, the officer became impressed and commanded the Dunkard and Mennonite brethren to be set free. In October of 1862 exemption for conscientious objectors** was enacted. This law provided for hiring substitutes for service by paying conscription fees of $500.00 into the public treasury, of which many families took advantage.*

Following this incident, Good suffered harrassment and narrowly escaped execution, after being accused of carrying war news during trips to Ohio. As a result, he moved his family to northern Ohio. One of his sons, my great-grandfather, settled southeast, near Turkey Run. The church went through many changes over the years, deaths from smallpox, tensions related to language change (from German), migrations for cheaper farmland, etc.

A few years later, a traveling bishop visited. Concerned about retaining the young people, he prayed,

"May God grant that the glorious doctrine of our church, the doctrine for which our forefathers fled from one city to another, and from one country to another, for which thousands laid down their lives at the stake, on the cross and at the block, may still have its divine influence on the hearts and souls of many and lead them to be faithful followers of the meek and lowly Jesus." Grant M. Stoltsfus, Mennonites of the Ohio and Eastern Conference, 1969, p. 94.

Since then, the church has sent a disproportionately large number of its members to serve on the missionfield, in countries including: Somalia, Kenya, Central America, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.

But there were also many who faithfully served at home, teaching Sunday School classes, cleaning the church, mowing the cemetery and the multitude of other jobs that needed to be done, and without which the service abroad would also not have been accomplished, and which so often are overlooked and unheralded.*

I look back at these people, and at my own grandparents, and am so thankful for the faith and values they handed down, and for the vessels of tradition it was carried in. I wonder how well I am doing at preserving the essentials I received. To whom am I responsible to pass them? In what forms should I carry them?

*All quotes are from The History of Turkey Run Mennonite Church, researched and recorded by C. and L. Wesselhoeft, 2003.
**Law at state and Confederate levels related to conscientious objectors varied over time. Not sure which this is referring to.