by MarianBeaman | Jun 21, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Romance, Uncategorized
This is the wedding portrait of my mother and father Ruth Landis Metzler and Ray Martin Longenecker October 26, 1940 June is the month for many American weddings. And so is August. Because many Mennonites were farmers, Mennonite weddings often took place in October,...
by MarianBeaman | Jun 14, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
My father wore many hats. Work hats mostly, but also a goofy blue derby hat I faintly remember stashed high up on a closet shelf, and a fedora reserved for Sundays or other special occasions. Through his long history at the shop, Daddy sold a wide array of tractor...
by MarianBeaman | May 21, 2014 | Education, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
Here is my mother’s family of four brothers and one sister in a farm meadow in the 1940s. They are children of Abram Hernley Metzler and Sadie Landis Metzler, a Mennonite family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Standing in birth order are her brothers Landis,...
by MarianBeaman | May 10, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
This is the family I grew up in: my parents Ray and Ruth with my two sisters and one brother. But after I left home and eventually married, my parents had more children. No, my mother was not a modern-day Sarah. She didn’t have babies in old age. But in their early...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 26, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Education, Literature, Mennonite History, Quotations, Uncategorized
Is a family graduation on your calendar this year? As a faculty member at Florida State College at Jacksonville (then Florida Community College), I attended graduation every year in full regalia with hundreds of ecstatic grads, joyful families, and proud faculty and...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 8, 2014 | Amish, Conflict, Education, Mennonite History, Uncategorized
When I bring 5-pound bags of Wenger’s famous ham-loaf frozen from Pennsylvania to Florida, the plastic-coated tubs of meat are wrapped in newspaper and then shrink-wrapped in plastic. The wrapping on one of the packages (we need two to feed the clan now!)...
