Too Long in the Wind

May 2013

About the Mennonite quilt

Steve Unruh and his niece Nicolette Unruh stand in front of the Resurrection quilt at the Bergthal Mennonite Church's memorial celebration. Photo by Benita (Unruh) Puck.

[May 29]   This note arrived yesterday from Lynn Schlosser, minister of the Bergthal Mennonite Church.

Hi Leon,

Dale Unruh asked if I would email you information on the memorial quilt that was hung in the Bergthal sanctuary for our memorial celebration. The title of the quilt is "Resurrection." I designed the piece and did some of the sewing together until my mother (Mary Ellwood), an accomplished seamstress, rescued me when I got in over my head and did much of the remaining sewing. It was machine quilted by Jackie Cordell from Little River, Kansas. The quilt will be donated to the Hutchinson Mennonite Relief quilt auction next spring in memory of Bergthal Mennonite Church.

Here's what I included in my sermon on Sunday about the quilt . . .

"The quilt hanging here today is about resurrection. You can maybe make out a faint cross there in the middle growing up from the rich brown and black hues of the earth. But you see how in every direction, from the ground up, your eyes move out into light . . . life. There are pieces of material in this quilt taken from old curtains from the church basement, from material used to help with worship visuals over the years. There are pieces given by people from the congregation. Wynona provided many blocks from her extensive quilt block collection. You see how the old weaves its way through new pieces so that there is no way to see them as separate. Rather these disparate pieces merge together to create something new, something, right, something good. Resurrection."

Blessings, Lynn Schlosser

• Group photo of people at the church on May 26.

Stained-glass window in the Bergthal sanctuary. Photo by Dave Leiker.

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Maxine Foster's obituary

[May 26]   The family of Maxine Foster of Pawnee Rock has written a fascinating obituary for their matriarch. It appears on the RadiumKansas blog.

The obituary says there will be no funeral service. Mrs. Foster was 93 years old.

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Bergthal Mennonite Church service

[May 26]   The daylong Memorial Celebration for the 97-year-old Bergthal Mennonite Church building begins at 9:30 this morning. The church is being closed.

A coffee hour starts the day at 9:30. Lynn Schlosser will lead the worship service at 10:30. A potluck dinner is at noon, followed by a program from 1:30 to 4 p.m. in which stories and memories will be shared. At 4:30, dessert and coffee will be served.

Please send photos of the celebration to PawneeRock.org, and we'll post them.

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Maxine Foster has died

[May 26]   Maxine Foster, age 93, died Friday at home. We'll publish details about her funeral when arrangements are set.

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Pawnee Rock reunion plans

[May 15]   The annual Pawnee Rock school reunion is coming up quickly -- Memorial Day.

The day begins at 11 a.m. at the cemetery with a commemoration of the dead.

Afterward, lunch and lots of talking await at the Lions Club Depot in downtown Pawnee Rock.

Also, the date -- August 10 -- has been set for the annual golf meet and catered dinner in Great Bend. All the details are in a PDF letter from the Pawnee Rock Alumni Association's Sandra Haun, Marilyn Haynes, Glenn Mull, and Vivian Bright.

It's a PDF. Download it here.

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Bergthal Mennonite Church flier

[May 13]   Dale Unruh has sent a flier describing activities for the final day at the Bergthal Mennonite Church.

It's a PDF. Download it here.

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Bergthal Mennonite Church closing

Bergthal Mennonite Church in 2005.

[May 6]   As many of you know, the Bergthal Mennonite Church plans to have its final Sunday service on May 26, the day before Memorial Day. The building we know today has been used since 1915, and the church itself has been part of the Pawnee Rock and Dundee community since 1874.

The church has a Facebook page. Also, the Great Bend Tribune published a feature story about the church in the May 2 edition. (Thanks to Laramie Unruh for pointing out the Tribune story.)

The story of the closing has spread around the state. Carl Hinds wrote Sunday about seeing the story in southeast Kansas:

My name is Carl Hinds, and I and my family were long time residents of the Pawnee Rock area, and went to the schools there, and I and my wife have attended the Mennonite church several times when we lived in the area in the 1970s. I just read in the Independence Reporter newspaper here in Independence, Kansas, that the Bergthal Mennonite Church will be holding their final service on 30 June. They are also planning on tearing the church building down sometime after services are ended. There will be a memorial gathering on 26 May. The Reporter got their information from the Great Bend Tribune.

This will be a great loss to the community, as at the time I lived there, everyone knew where the Mennonite church was at, and served as a major landmark. I.e., go North to the Mennonite church, turn west, go X number of miles to my place, or we will meet you X number of miles south of the Mennonite church, at 3:00 p.m., and go from there. It is a very sad thing that such a wonderful landmark, and church is "going by the way of the Buffalo" or going away. It will be greatly missed. It is a place we always go by when we go "home" just to stop and rethink the memories of living in the area and all the good times there.

Sincerely,
Carl Hinds

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The stories of a lifetime

[May 2]   Cheryl Unruh's column in the Emporia Gazette this week is about the Little House on the Prairie -- and second-grade teacher Mary Louise Wilhite.

Check it out.

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Connected to Pawnee Rock

[May 1]   A couple of weeks ago, I got this email from Phil Schlosser but forgot to post it. Here it is:

Hello . . .

This evening, while chatting with a friend about where she was born, I mentioned that I had looked up Pawnee Rock on Wikipedia and knew a little bit about it. She then clued me into the town's website and I found it fascinating, the more so as the photo of the Mennonite church shows its pastor with the same surname as my own "Schlosser."

My friend here in Seattle is Barbara Schmidt (I really don't know if that is her name from home or if she was married at some point), a woman in her 50s I would imagine, and very proud of her Kansas roots.

You can tell Rev. Schlosser that I hail from Wisconsin (born 1934) and have lived in Seattle since 1980. At one time, I did have a first-cousin living in Olathe, KS, about 1960 or so (Robert Schlosser, now deceased).

Trivia, perhaps, but more proof of how we are all interconnected . . . somehow.

Phil Schlosser

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