Esquire Coffinberry's Great-Grand-Niece

  PART 5: Sunday, August 7, 1910 Young Adult Mennonite Group Attends Farmington Chautauqua, August 1910 By Elizabeth Hervey Osborn Part 1  --   Part 2  --  Part 3  -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7 The 1910 Farmington Chautauqua took place Friday August 5 th through Sunday August 14 th .  Both railroads offered special “excursion” fares on Sundays allowing visitors who could not come during the work week to experience the event.   Donnellson was the next stop east from Farmington on the "Burlington Route", making a relatively short eleven mile trip. It seems likely that following Saturday's prison tour and river ride, a Sunday at Chautauqua became a cannot-miss event for the cousins and friends. Sunday morning, August 7 th , some three thousand people crowded the streets of Farmington between the depot and the park. [1] In the meadow, the 90’ x 160’ tent was standing room only; people crowded six deep around the outsid...

  PART 4: Intertwined Lives Young Adult Mennonite Group Attends Farmington Chautauqua, August 1910 By Elizabeth Hervey Osborn Part 1  --   Part 2  --  Part 3  -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7 -- Part 8 A shared heritage  united the young people. Fourteen of the nineteen were grandchildren of Jacob and Eliza Strickland Krebill. Ten were grandchildren of Peter and Maria Dorothea Krehbiel Weber. Twelve were descendants of Christian Krehbiel and Elisabeth Hahn.  Each of them had surnames in their trees suggesting descent from the Krayenbühls of Bern, Switzerland who were early accepters of the Anabaptist teachings of Menno Simons in the 1500s, and who fled to the Palatinate to escape religious persecution. Turmoil in Germany and a desire for land where their children could settle and farm [1] brought their grandparents to the United States in the second quarter of the 19 th  century. [2] All but one of the young people pict...

  PART 3: Chautauqua -- The Original TED Talk [ 1] Young Adult Mennonite Group Attends Farmington Chautauqua, August 1910 By Elizabeth Hervey Osborn Part 1  --   Part 2  --  Part 3  -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7 -- Part 8 “The most American thing in America,” Teddy Roosevelt supposedly said [2] , was the Chautauqua Movement. Before the days of internet, television, radio, and moving pictures, rural folk had a strong appetite for more knowledge on important cultural, political, and philosophical matters of the day. In the years following the United States Civil War, Methodist church leaders concerned about the quality of adult education organized an annual gathering of Sunday School teachers near Chautauqua Lake, New York, where they brought in the best thinkers and speakers they could find. The gatherings at Chautauqua Lake became an “educational and cultural retreat” for idea-thirsty people of many denominations. [3] Sharp-eyed businessm...

  PART 1: Aunt Roberta's Treasure Young Adult Mennonite Group Attends Farmington Chautauqua, August 1910 By Elizabeth Hervey Osborn Part 1 --   Part 2  -- Part 3 -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7-- Part 8 July 2, 2022. Cantril, Iowa . — First thing in the morning Aunt Roberta waved me over to see a treasure she had brought to the family reunion: “A picture of my Grandma and Grandpa,” she beamed, “I knew you’d want to see it.”  Looking closer I saw nineteen young people gathered for an outdoor group photograph . T he dresses, Edwardian hair styles and bows, the ties and hats suggested the year might be somewhere around 1910. Who was this group? Turning it over and tipping it carefully in the light, my aunt pointed to names in careful pencil script on the back, then returning to the picture we found her grandparents, counting “First on the left standing… fourth from the left sitting in front.”   “Group attended Cha[u]tauqua at Farmington I...

PART 2: Farmington, Iowa Young Adult Mennonite Group Attends Farmington Chautauqua, August 1910 By Elizabeth Hervey Osborn Part 1 --   Part 2  --  Part 3  -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7 -- Part 8 North of the Des Moines River, near where the border between Iowa and Missouri leaves the  river valley to shoot westward over rolling hills, rests the village of Farmington, Iowa. At the turn of the 20 th century more people lived in Farmington [1] than in the county seat [2] sixteen miles upriver, its prominence fueled by the modern electric light plant, woolen mill, pants factories, flour mills, repair shops, coal mines, quarries, and several vinegar and pickle factories, in addition to the general agriculture of the region. [3] Two passenger and freight lines intersected downtown. The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad (the “Burlington Route”) served routes east and west. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (the “Rock Island”) ran ...

If you're still following this site, thank you. That's a lot of years that have passed. Facebook largely claimed my writing, but now I'm beginning some larger, longer works that I shall probably publish here.  This is just seeing if I can still log in! Fabulous!

Today was the first time I logged into the dashboard in years... oops! lots of unanswered replies stuck in moderation. So sorry! Blogging was all the rage in 2005 when I started this blog. But by 2010 most of this kind of conversation had moved to Facebook, I guess. Looking back (can it be almost a decade?) it was a great journal. I am stunned to think that all of my babies have learned to drive, all my boys became Eagle Scouts and served missions, my daughter-one-and-only is herself half-way through the Junior year of high school and is a BSA scout herself, that empty nesting is around the corner, that I have been a licensed attorney for over 6 years now and running my own firm for more than 4.  I was right about Harry Potter being a horcrux; wrong about grandbabies before a decade was out, but right about girlfriends (I even have a wonderful daughter-in-law). In less than a month, I will be 50 years old. If I never get around to writing ever again on this blog, I want you to ...

Having just discovered that the Millennial Star is scanned and online, I went hunting to see if there were any more poems by Mary Ann Morton. Just found one, in Volume 10, No. 9, May 1, 1848: Answer to Zion by Miss Mary Ann Morton Gladly, dear sister, would we leave The shores of Babel, and receive The call that is addressed With cheerful sympathy resign The ties that round our feelings twine, And journey to the West. We do believe the mission sent To call the nations to repent, That were by sin oppress'd. They may obey the Saviour's voice, Obtain remission, and rejoice With thousands in the West. The dangers of the deep we'd brave, Depending on His power to save, Who is for ever blest. Yes onward, Sister, would we go, Columbia is the land we know, Our home is in the West! Flamstead, Hertfordshire. She apparently used her maiden name as a pen-name after marriage, as shown with this example published in Vo...

Last winter, I listened as my friend Danica shared her witness that the gospel is indeed sweet in our lives. She mentioned the opening words to the hymn “Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings,” and as she spoke, in my mind I heard the familiar words, but with a different tune. I tried to capture the tune on a scrap of paper fished from my bag. At home that afternoon, the music pouring onto the page began to remind me of flowing waters and turning wheels as I began to wonder about the woman who wrote the comforting words. Mary Anne Morton was born in late 1828 or early 1829 in Lancashire, England. 1 As a young woman, she embraced the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was baptized in August 1845. Her intense feelings about the Gospel found release in poetry, and several of her verses were published by the Church newspaper in Britain, the Millennial Star. One of these poems was “Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings. 2 This poem describes the path of change ...