EMU Archivist Simone Horst wrote this article for the 

“Anabaptist Historians: Bringing the Anabaptist Past into a Digital Century” is a collaborative blog by Anabaptist scholars, both those working from an Anabaptist identity and those studying Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, and other branches of the Anabaptist tradition. Its mission is to share cutting-edge scholarship with a broad readership, to foster relationships between scholars of Anabaptism, and to encourage debates on critical issues in contemporary Anabaptist faith and life.

We are living through very challenging times. 2020 thus far has been marked by uncertainty, upheaval, and loss of many kinds.  For the first time in a long time, we are facing a collective hardship that requires us to make personal sacrifices for the good of society. Many have turned to history, studying events like the Spanish Flu and the Great Depression in an attempt to glean wisdom and find a path forward for our nation. At ��ݮ���� we can also look to the responses to these events in our own history—the Spanish Flu arrived just a year after the school opened its doors and a decade later the Great Depression tested the school just as it began to find its footing. I wrote earlier about the , and today want to focus on the Great Depression. In each of these stories, we find examples of resilience that can inform our response today and give us hope for the times ahead. 

October 29, 1929, better known as Black Tuesday, ushered in financial downfall all over the world and set the stage for the Great Depression. The still-young Eastern Mennonite School was not exempt from its impact. EMC historian Hubert Pellman writes in his book Eastern Mennonite College, 1917-1967 that “in the period 1929-34 the expansion of curriculums to qualify for and hold state accreditment and the decrease of enrollment and other straitening financial conditions caused by the depression made the problem of finances particularly acute.”  But with community sacrifice, frugality, and ingenuity the school was able to survive and thrive.

Even before the Great Depression hit, faculty and staff were no strangers to low compensation, being paid only one half of what other faculty in the area made. But this financial problem would require even greater sacrifice—“on Sept. 11, 1931, the faculty heard that the school lacked the money to pay its employees.”  The dedicated faculty and staff went above and beyond to make up the difference, offering to give up another ten percent from their already meager salaries. A select few were pressed into giving up even more–the three full-time women on the faculty, Sadie Hartzler, Ruth Hostetter, and Dorothy Kemrer, were chosen by the faculty to receive a two-thirds salary, because they were unmarried and it was determined that “those who are married should be the last to suffer.”  (Unsurprisingly, all the married faculty were men.) Ruth Stolzfus Stauffer Hostetter said that the women, “knew through those early years that single women didn’t get the pay of married men. We recognized that it was happening. But we seldom talked about it.”  Their reduced pay continued from 1931 until 1934, when their full salaries were reinstated.   Hostetter claimed that there was “comfort in numbers” since so many other Mennonite institutions and their workers were feeling the same crunch, and that she just “was thankful for an opportunity to serve in a professional setting.” 

The executive committee of EMS also thought of creative ways to reduce the number of faculty and staff without firing anyone. In addition to those working for severely reduced wages, some took on lighter course loads and others were encouraged to return to school to continue their education, with the hope that they could return once things improved. 

The dedicated faculty and staff placed the needs of the school above their own to realize the school’s mission of distinctly Mennonite education and their sacrifices did not go unnoticed or without thanks. In the August 1931 Eastern Mennonite School Bulletin, Dean C.K. Lehman wrote a very affirmative report about the faculty of EMS, praising them for “laboring under handicaps,”  but continuing to put forth their best work as educators. H.D. Weaver, business manager at the time, also gratefully noted the ten percent reduction in salary that the faculty took.  

Cost-cutting around campus was also necessary, and this was championed by President A.D. Wenger, who “taught and exemplified frugality.”  Even before the Great Depression, Wenger was intent on penny pinching and keeping EMS to a strict budget. Pellman reports that “students paid two cents a term for every watt of light above forty,”  that they were expected to study together in a study hall instead of their dorm rooms to conserve electricity, and that modern conveniences like telephones and adding machines were not brought to EMS until almost a decade after the school’s inception. In the years before the depression this budget-saving tactic was effective, with quite a few years under Wenger’s administration ending in the black.  

Wenger’s frugality was essential during the Great Depression and his ingenuity was just as integral to the school’s continuing survival. To help students afford tuition and make it feasible for them to continue attending EMS, he started the Sharon Manufacturing Company along with Ernest G. Gehman and E.C. Shank.  They manufactured cast aluminum toys and operated out of a farm building on EMS’s campus. The company was the “only maker of cast aluminum toys in the United States,”  and was quite successful in its heyday, selling to large department stores like Woolworths and Kresge’s. But the greater success that emerged from this business risk was the employment of up to forty EMS students which allowed many to afford tuition and continue attending. Ultimately, however, the company met its end in 1934 when it was shut down by the U.S. Government.   

As evidenced by the size and scope of EMU today, Eastern Mennonite School survived the Great Depression and thrived in spite of it. Its financial setbacks were great at times, but it had loyal faculty, students, and constituents who were willing to work together in order to see the mission of EMS realized.  The administration succeeded through their frugality, innovation, and shrewd decision-making that required sacrifice but respected the dignity of everyone in the community. As we continue to grapple with the challenges of our times, we can find inspiration and hope in the ingenuity, tenacity, and resilience of those who came before us.

1. Hubert Pellman, Eastern Mennonite School, 1917-1967. (Harrisonburg: Eastern Mennonite College, 1967), 98. 
2.  Ibid., 97. 
3.  Ruth Krady Lehman, “How Three Women Helped Save the School” Eastern Mennonite College Bulletin 62, no. 2 (1983): 4.  
4. Ibid., 4. 
5.  King, Mary Jane “Ruth Hostetter” Eastern Mennonite College Bulletin 62, no. 2 (1983): 5.  
6. Ruth Krady Lehman, “How Three Women Helped Save the School” Eastern Mennonite College Bulletin 62, no. 2 (1983): 4.  
7.  King, Mary Jane “Ruth Hostetter” Eastern Mennonite College Bulletin 62, no. 2 (1983): 5.  
8. Hubert Pellman, Eastern Mennonite School, 1917-1967. (Harrisonburg: Eastern Mennonite College, 1967 
9. Chester K. Lehman, Eastern Mennonite School Bulletin vol. 10 no. 8 (August 1931): 3.  
10.  H.D. Weaver, Eastern Mennonite School Bulletin vol. 10 no. 8 (August 1931): 4. 
11. Hubert Pellman, Eastern Mennonite School, 1917-1967. (Harrisonburg: Eastern Mennonite College, 1967), 104. 
12. Ibid., 104. 
13. Ibid., 104. 
14. Ibid., 104. 

EMU’s collection of��The Musical Million��is just one of many treasures of musical history to be found in the Menno Simons Historical Library.

The Musical Million��spread the Gospel of congregational shape-note singing far and wide and laid the groundwork for the proliferation of singing schools across the South. It was published by��the Ruebush-Kieffer��Company.����Aldine S. Kieffer was the grandson of the Mennonite musician Joseph Funk. He and his partner Ephraim Ruebush took over Funk’s publishing company after his death.

A recent Library of Virginia blog post shares some of the history related to Funk’s��Harmonia Sacra,��still in use by Mennonites today.

Funk also adapted and popularized the seven-shape note system of Jessie Aiken, which stood in contrast with the older four-note system favored by adherents to the hymnal ‘The��Sacred Harp.’ Fierce wars of words broke out in the late nineteenth century between advocates of each system, and Aldine S. Kieffer was a key soldier in the fight. By the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, seven-shape books were the standard in most of the South.

The Ruebush-Kieffer��Company moved from��Singers Glen��to��Dayton, Virginia��in 1878. Sales of��The Musical Million��supported other proselytizing materials, including songbooks, and the company’s��Virginia Normal Music School, founded in 1874 in New Market, Virginia, for the instruction of teachers.

The Menno Simons Historical Library has cultivated an extensive collection of both Joseph Funk and Ruebush-Kieffer materials due to their connection and contribution to both Mennonite and Shenandoah Valley history. In addition to a nearly complete collection of songbooks published by both Funk and Ruebush-Kieffer, the collection includes Aldine Kieffer’s pump organ, Joseph Funk’s writing chair, and original printing plates used to print the 16th edition of the��Harmonia Sacra.

It has been forty-five years since the elimination of the draft in the United States. More than two generations of Mennonite men and women have grown up without the threat of having their convictions put through the test through conscription and conscientious objection. Lloy Kniss, a WWI-era CO, stated in his 1971 pamphlet “I Couldn’t Fight: the Story of a CO in World War I” that he “believe[s] our church needs to learn again to suffer for the faith when it becomes necessary.”��

Though written in 1971, these are timely words for those of us in the Mennonite church today who have grown accustomed to the comfort and privilege gained through assimilation and prosperity these past forty years. Remembering the sacrifice of those in the past, as well as critically examining our complicity in our country’s glorification of war and the military industrial complex, is important to deepen the understanding of Anabaptist pacifism, its roots, and its implications today.

Developed by the Kauffman Museum in North Newton, Kansas, the exhibit is on a seven-states tour. Several guest speakers provided lectures during its six-week stay at the Sadie Hartzler Library:

• [CANCELLED] Anne Yoder,��archivist��at Swarthmore College’s Peace Collection, speaks at 7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 15,�� in Martin Chapel about WWI conscientious objectors in their own words. Read about Anne’s digital collections work in an EMU news article.
• Phil Kniss ’82, MDiv ’95,��senior pastor at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, shared the story of his grandfather Lloy Kniss, who was drafted and ordered to train at Camp Greenleaf in Georgia.
• Duane Stoltzfus, professor of communication at Goshen College and author of��Pacifists in Chains: The persecution of Hutterites during the Great War��(Johns Hopkins, 2013), spoke about four Hutterites imprisoned at Alcatraz”

Among the 80 participants were representatives of each of the five schools, all founded in the 30 years between 1887 and 1917. The oldest, Bethel College, was founded in 1887, followed by Goshen College (1893), Bluffton University (1899), Hesston College (1908) and EMU (1917). Since their founding, all have undergone dramatic transformations in purpose, subjects taught and extracurricular activities, and student demographics.����

“Origin stories are important to help us understand present realities,” said Bluffton University President James Harder, who joined presidents emeriti Loren Swartzendruber, of EMU, and Victor Stoltzfus, of Goshen College, as guest speakers.

Panel sessions with the authors and other commentators highlighted the “commonality and unity” among Mennonite institutions during the previous century and considered how Mennonite higher education might look in the challenges and opportunities of the next century, said Professor Mark Metzler Sawin, who organized the conference with colleague Professor Mary Sprunger.

“It was an energizing and fascinating day,” he said. “What came through was a strong desire for these schools to maintain distinctively Anabaptist identities, but to do so in ways that embrace and celebrate the changes that have come and will continue to come in the next years and decades.”

“Among the many stimulating aspects of this gathering,” said Susan Fisher Miller, author of Goshen College’s history, “were the ways old questions covered in the college histories were recognized, by the time we reached the evening session, to impinge with relevance on the new questions in the current life of the colleges, or even the ways the new questions cast light backward on the old.”

Learning from the past

Sprunger, a historian herself and daughter of Bethel history author Professor Keith Sprunger, said that the genesis of a comparative centennial histories symposium came from several sources: The late Robert Kreider, founder of the Marpeck Dean’s fund, provided some initial ideas. She also tapped into a similarly themed roundtable hosted by Bethel College as part of the launch of her father’s book and input from Hesston College history author and professor John Sharp, who suggested a future-focused frame.

“He wanted to explore how board members, administrators, faculty, students and churches could learn from past mistakes and achievements,” Sprunger said. “He gave me the idea that these college histories could serve not as blueprints for the future, because history doesn’t work that way, but as providing an informed understanding of how our colleges developed as we think about the future. It then made sense to focus on the five Mennonite Church USA-affiliated colleges, since we are facing many of the same challenges.”

Some of those challenges include the smaller percentage of Mennonite students; lowered denominational and institutional loyalty; and stiff competition for students, especially related to financial costs, according to Sawin and Sprunger.

Crowd-sourced responses to current challenges

After two morning sessions that spanned historical context over the first 100 years, beginning with the purposes and distinctives of each school and moving into past challenges and adversity, an afternoon discussion forum stoked conversation in small groups about current challenges.

Some questions addressed include:

• ������������What should the guiding mission and purpose of Mennonite schools be in the coming years given the changes in both the church and the student bodies?
• ������������What can Mennonite colleges do to remain financially competitive? Do we have a responsibility to provide an education for even the economically “least of these”?
• ������������How will Mennonite colleges need to change to remain relevant in the future? What are the “givens” that must remain? What are the traditions that may need to change? Where does innovation need to occur?

Current students from the colleges and universities engaged in “lively conversation, sharing ideas such as now to equip students of all backgrounds to participate in leadership opportunities around campus,” Sprunger said. Their points helped to fuel the final session about the present and future of Mennonite higher education.

Student presence and participation was noted by the other speakers, who pointed out that the future of the colleges will soon rest in their hands.

For more coverage, read a blog entry by EMU archivist Simone Horst at the .

***

Participating authors

Perry Bush is the author of (Cascadia Publishing House, 2000). He is professor of history at Bluffton University where he has taught since 1994. Bush has written widely on social, peace and religious history in 20th-century America in both popular and scholarly journals and is the author of three additional books, most recently Peace, Progress and the Professor: The Mennonite History of C. Henry Smith (Herald Press, 2015). He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Susan Fisher Miller is the author of (Goshen College, 1994).��At Northwestern University, she is senior associate director in the Office of Foundation Relations, where she helps faculty members obtain research funding from private foundations. Fisher Miller previously taught at Goshen and Wheaton colleges and North Park University. She has been a member of the Goshen College Board of Directors since 2015. She is a graduate of Goshen College and Northwestern University.

Donald B. Kraybill is the author of (Penn State Press, 2017). He is internationally recognized for his scholarship on Anabaptist groups and often consulted by the news media regarding the Amish. He is distinguished professor and senior fellow emeritus at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. Kraybill is the author, coauthor, or editor of many books and professional articles on Anabaptist-related topics and his Mennonite best-seller, the Upside Down Kingdom (Herald Press) has just appeared in a 40th-anniversary edition.

John Sharp is the author of Hesston’s history, (Cascadia Publishing House, 2008), where he teaches history and Bible. Since, he has written My Calling to Fulfill: The Orie O. Miller Story (Herald Press, 2015) and The Bible as Story: An Introduction to Biblical Literature (WorkPlay Publishing, 2016) with co-authors Michele Hershberger and Marion Bontrager.

Keith Sprunger wrote (Mennonite Press, 2011), his eighth and most recent book to date, to celebrate the 125th anniversary, or quasquicentennial, of Bethel’s founding. Sprunger, who is Oswald H. Wedel Professor Emeritus of History at Bethel College, has published on topics of 17th-century English and Dutch Puritanism, Mennonite history, oral history and historic preservation. He retired after nearly 40 years of teaching in 2001. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and University of Illinois.

Participating presidents

Loren Swartzendruber began his career in Mennonite higher education as associate director of admissions and associate campus pastor at EMU. He has been a pastor, a staff member on the Mennonite Board of Education, and president of Hesston College and EMU.

Victor Stoltzfus studied at Goshen College, AMBS, Kent State University and Penn State. He worked for 15 years in public universities and 15 years in administration at Goshen College, for three years as academic dean and 12 years as president (1984-1996). He is the father of current Goshen president Rebecca Stoltzfus.

James Harder, a graduate of Bethel College and University of Notre Dame, is Bluffton University’s ninth president in its 119-year history. He will have completed 12 years in that role upon his planned retirement on June 30. He has also been on the faculty at Bethel College and Bluffton in business and economics. and his wife Karen taught and worked together in Kenya, Tanzania and Bangladesh and India with Mennonite Central Committee and MEDA. Harder is active on church-wide boards and agencies.

Names are funny things. Once they’re assigned to people, places, or things it can be hard to imagine anything else fitting. Though 100 years on it seems almost inconceivable for ��ݮ���� to be anything other than Eastern Mennonite, it took the founders a few tries to find a name that stuck.

Many of the early suggestions were informed by the locations they would inhabit. Warwick Mennonite Institute, Warwick Mennonite Academy, and Alexandria Mennonite Institute clearly didn’t fit anymore once Harrisonburg became the settled-upon location.

But what about another suggestion: The Mennonite Student’s Safeguard and Industrial School? Certainly this conveyed in plain language the goals of the school, but it was a bit wordy and perhaps a bit too on the nose.

In the end, they settled on Eastern Mennonite School. Not as conspicuous as The Mennonite Student’s Safeguard and Industrial School, but it was decidedly less of a mouthful and still contained a key indication of their core identity: Mennonite.

In ��ݮ����: A Century of Countercultural Education Don Kraybill writes that “The records do not say how the final name was determined” but that “even in the twenty-first century, ��ݮ���� remains the only Mennonite-related college or university of eight in the United States that carries the denominational name.”

It must be stated that having the word Mennonite in the name certainly doesn’t make EMU more Mennonite than other colleges. Some of the founders even made the case for leaving Mennonite out. Kraybill writes of a letter that chair of the local board C.H. Brunk wrote to the General Board stating “it is not customary to give a school a denominational name…some people are more or less prejudiced against denominational institutions . . . [the school] can be just as truly denominational without the name” A small group including Brunk agreed “unanimously” that it should be named simply “Eastern Institute and Bible School.”

To read more discussion of the implications of the word Mennonite in EMU’s name, visit the website.

For more information about the history of ��ݮ����, check out Don Kraybill’s 100-year history: ��ݮ����: a Century of Countercultural Education. Available from EMU, , and .

EMU Archivist Simone Horst wrote this article for the