by MarianBeaman | Jun 28, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
This week at Mom’s house, I attempted to re-create a scene from my childhood – in the same house, on the same chair, with one of the same Ball-Mason jars from the mother’s stash in the cellar. The kind with tiny bubbles crystallized within the glass...
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 | Jun 4, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
“In the Good Old Summer Time” shares nostalgic space with another old, familiar tune of the season: “Summer time and the livin’ is easy.” Summertime for the Longenecker family may not have been easy in the 1950s what with tomato field...
by MarianBeaman | May 28, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
“Mare – yun,” my mother calls (yells, actually), “It’s time to lick the green stamps again. The books are on top of the kitchen table.” Mom likes to interrupt my reading. To me time with my books is serious business but to her it’s play. Not working. Wasting...
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,...
