WSU professor publishes book on Mennonite culture

By Amy Geiszler-Jones

Using oral histories and written accounts, Sharon Hartin Iorio has published a book about the Mennonite communities in northwestern Oklahoma.

"Faith’s Harvest: Mennonite Identity in Northwest Oklahoma" grew from Iorio’s communications research into how a group interprets change. The Mennonite culture has evolved from a closed, German-speaking society to one that is more integrated with society at large.

"I wanted to record their vision of that change," says Iorio, who is an associate professor of communication and the associate dean in the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Iorio found the Mennonite culture has evolved the way in which it communicates its beliefs. It has "reframed" its nonresistance values by putting an emphasis on promoting peace and helping humanity through such efforts as relief sales, she says.

The book is the story of a relatively small number of Mennonites who in the late 1890s had settled what’s known as the Cherokee Strip in northwest Oklahoma, near Iorio’s former home. Iorio is a former 15-year resident of Enid and attended two universities in Oklahoma. Iorio, who is not a Mennonite, concentrated primarily on two Mennonite societies, the Mennonite Brethren and the General Conference Mennonite Church.

During the course of three years, Iorio attended church services and study groups, contacted ministers and visited a number of homes to gather the stories of this group. She did more than 60 in-depth interviews with individuals of Mennonite heritage. She uses 11 stories, some of them based on written family accounts, to bring to life the story of this culture and the changes it has gone through. Each chapter begins with history of a particular period, followed by a personal story.

"Oral histories are wonderful records that tell us so much about communities. They make a connection because they are real people speaking. They make history come alive," she says.

Through Abraham Ratzlaff’s diary, Iorio relates the story of one family’s migration from Russia to the Midwest. In an account given to his nephew, the words of David Ediger tell of moving to Oklahoma and life on the farm.

The stories of Henry Becker, Leonard Schmidt and Harry Martens are examples of what happened to Mennonites during the two World Wars. Becker was court martialed in World War I and sent to Leavenworth prison. Schmidt and Martens both worked in the Civilian Public Service camps; Schmidt detonated dynamite in a South Dakota quarry to build a dam, while Martens was a human guinea pig for an experiment on atypical pneumonia.

Iorio says the stories of Schmidt and Martens show that the "cowardly image" some Americans had of Mennonites wasn’t warranted. "They really weren’t cowards and wanted to do something to help their country and help humanity, but they refused to bear arms and fight. They believe themselves to this day to be misunderstood.

"I think World War II was really the turning point to making their view of peace an active view of let’s do something for humanity."

She uses the stories told by Helen Siemens Ediger, Elda Wiebe Martens and Henry Martens to illustrate how the Mennonite community underwent those drastic changes as it tried to adapt to the larger society. Some of those changes included switching from German to English church services and movement from the farm, which had been the group’s major source of income. The Martenses also tell of having their house egged for their pacifist beliefs during World War II. They say later they became friends with those who did the egging.

Iorio says she hopes the book brings to light the significant contribution the Mennonites made to American society through its introduction of Turkey red wheat to the Great Plains. "I don’t think this history has been chronicled to a wider audience. It’s known within the group, it’s known regionally, but it’s not known nationally. I hope this book will help spread the word.

"There’s another story, too, that hasn’t been told to a wider audience. We know lots about what happened to Japanese people in this country during World War II and the kind of discrimination they faced. But the general public knows very little about what happened to religious groups who were pacifists. And they suffered greatly, too."

The book, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, is available at Amazon.com and will be available in the future at the University Bookstore.