A Heritage That Money Can't Buy
Subtitle: My Growing Up Years as an Old Order Mennonite
Publisher: Casananda Publishing
Published: January 1997
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 149
ISBN-13: 9781889131191
Subjects: General; History - General History
Description: The wedding photo (book cover) of Alfred Rhodes and Maggie Lehman (my maternal grandparents) may surprise you for Old Order Mennonites are not allowed to have their pictures taken. This was taken in 1897 - at a time when my grandparents were Mennonites - not Old Order Mennonites. They became Old Order Mennonites in 1900 because of Jacob Wisler's influence in Dayton, Virginia. This meant they had to destroy all wedding photographs. An aunt couldn't bear to destroy such a lovely picture, so hid this one away, which now graces this book cover.  
   
Stories from 1913, when the family moved to Columbiana, Ohio, through 1929 when the family returned to Dayton, Virginia, fill most of the pages in this highly-informational book on Old Order Mennonite life. The family returned to Virginia because they could not abide with a bishop's ruling stating church members no longer had to use the horse and buggy for transportation, but could purchase cars, but must paint the bumpers black. They became known as black-bumpered-car Mennonites, and are known as such even today