A Community of Memory

About the Book

In this fascinating series of narratives, many voices of Jeff Gundy's Amish and Mennonite forebears trace their paths and chronicle their lives. Women and men speak in these pages, telling their stories and linking themselves to each other, the past, and the present. Gundy demonstrates that who he is--who we all are--is shaped by a past peopled with those who worked, loved, dreamed, and died. By sharing his community of memory, he makes us desire to seek out our own.

Using family photos, records, recollections, and historical research, Gundy follows seven generations through time and space: from Bavaria and Alsace to Ohio to Illinois in the 1830s; from frontier dwellings with dirt floors to homes with refrigerators. He also follows them intellectually, from a strict to a broader interpretation of religious doctrine in the 1870s, which led to a schism within the already small Mennonite community; from a long-standing position on pacifism and conscientious objection to some questioning of this stance during World War II.