Sepia Saturday - Martin and Sarah Meyers

Grant and Gertrude

The photograph below has always filled me with discomfiting awe. It's not a photo I hang proudly on my wall, yet these are my ancestors, so I owe them my very existence. Would I be more eager to show them off if they were prettier and more refined? Certainly. But in researching their (and my) roots, I am filled with a different kind of awe. These people really paid their dues.

Remember Grant and Gertrude from a previous post?
Grant was my great grandfather. Below is a portrait of his grandparents and their children. I'm not sure exactly when the photo was taken, but Martin died in 1895, so we know it was earlier than that.  Martin, with his white beard, is easily recognizable as the patriarch. The poor little tiny woman sitting next to him, and looking very tired, is his wife Sarah. They are surrounded by their 15 (!) living children. I can only assume that there were additional children who died in infancy as they so often did in those days.

Martin's great-great-great Grandfather, Sebastian (Baschi) Meyer was born in Lucerne, Switzerland in about 1592.  He worked as a cabinet maker and was listed as a Mennonite (or Anabaptist.) His wife, Otilla, was of the same faith and was imprisoned for it, but escaped. Baschi and Otilla then moved to Zurich, where they had four of their five children. The family continued to be on the move as was typical of the Mennonites fleeing persecution. Their descendants ended up in the Palatinate region of Germany, eventually emigrating to Pennsylvania around 1710.

I wondered what it was that made people want to persecute the Mennonites. It really boiled down to one basic Mennonite belief - that people should not be baptized until they were of an age to understand and accept the religion. In many people's minds, that constituted heresy, which justified burning at the stake, drowning, decapitating, and other various tortures - all in the name of God. Thousands of Mennonites died this way. Many others were imprisoned and had their property taken.

The Mennonites adhered strictly to the New Testament. They also believed in non-violence, simple living, and separation of church and state. Mennonites in America opposed slavery from the very beginning. The Meyers who moved to Pennsylvania continued in their faith, although at some point they branched off into what's known as the Church of the German Brethren. It's interesting to look at the different related faiths, including Mennonite, Amish, Quaker, and German Brethren. In many cases, the differences in beliefs seem very small.

Martin was a minister of the church and was devoted to his religion. I have to wonder how much the rules of the religion or the adherence to it changed from his generation to the next. He is wearing the traditional beard with no mustache favored by religious pacifists, who associated mustaches with the military.  A number of his sons wear mustaches though, and at least one of his daughters is wearing a fancy collar, which might have been considered overly showy by their standards.

Martin and his family moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois, before finally settling in Morrill, Kansas. I can only guess that they moved because their farm was no longer of sufficient size for the family and/or that they were attracted by homesteading opportunities in Kansas with the 1862 Homestead Act. According to the Kansas State Historical Society, homesteaders were entitled to 160 acres of land, which they had to improve within five years. Many gave up and headed farther west or back east, because conditions were so harsh and improvements were difficult to make. Among other things, they had to worry about bitter cold, disease, locusts, outlaws, and lack of wood and other building materials. The tradition of simple living may have helped the Meyers endure, but I wonder if they ever regretted the move.

As I sit here in my centrally-heated house, with running water, electric lights, indoor bathrooms, washing machine, dryer etc., I can only imagine the hardships they had to endure. I am filled with awe and admiration for the pioneer spirit of these tenacious immigrants.

Be sure to check out all of the other interesting posts at Sepia Saturday.

Planning Your Summer Vacation

It's never too early, and these motor courts do get booked up, so make your reservations now.  These three places are all in South Carolina.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Carnegie Library for Sale

Poor Andrew Carnegie is rolling over in his grave. After all of his efforts to leave us with a legacy of beautiful libraries, in some cases we can't manage to keep them open or even to maintain the buildings.

I found out about this deal a little late, otherwise, that would have been my bedroom window up there on the right. About five years ago the library was sold for some ridiculous amount ($140,000?) Last time I checked, it was sitting vacant with the space available for lease. I could be living in it and throwing lavish parties. That could have been your carriage out front. Here it is back in about 1906.

And here again, several decades later.  This is not the only Carnegie library to go up for sale. It's hard to really find out the details though. I couldn't even track down the newspaper article that listed the sales price or the details of the sale.

I  know that when this library became too small and there wasn't enough parking, Broome County built a newer bigger one. Then, due to budget cuts, the remaining four branches in Binghamton were all closed. I guess it's a pattern seen elsewhere too. The downtown is no longer the shopping and business center it used to be, so the main library has difficulty serving its purpose there. When the main library is then moved to another more suburban location, it's a given that people can't walk there, and it needs a big parking lot to go with it.  It's a sad progression from small neighborhood libraries that people could walk to.

I was surprised to discover that there are people who specifically collect library postcards, as well as people who are library history buffs.  The ultimate library history buff seems to be Larry Nix, a retired librarian who hosts the Library History Buff website. Mr. Nix also mentioned in his blog in May of last year that the Carnegie Library in Duluth, Minnesota was for sale for $862,000.

I'd love to know how many of the Carnegie libraries are still used as libraries, how many are used for something else, and how many are sitting empty or have been demolished. If you're interested in libraries and library history, be sure to check out Larry's website and another good one, Retiring Guy's Digest.