“When the church asks you to serve, let your answer be yes, unless there is a good reason to say no.”
“I was glad to read the article in Time magazine,” John W. Miller wrote
happily to his mother on February 10, 1947, the day a feature article on
MCC and its executive officer appeared. “Almost everywhere I go someone
quips to me about my ‘greying and bespectacled’ father!”
The article, titled “Plain People,” begins with a quote from Conrad
Grebel: “True believing Christians are as sheep in the midst of wolves.”
After a broad sweep of Anabaptist martyrdom history, and under
the subtitle “Wolves’ World,” comes a survey of current Amish and
Mennonites. The requisite photo shows two plain-suited men exchanging
a “Mennonite ‘Holy Kiss.’” Then on to the main point of the article.
Akron, Pennsylvania, a “tiny town” of 877, is identified as “the center” of
the United States for most Mennonites. There lives the “greying, spectacled
Orie O. Miller,” the chief administrator of MCC.
Family Matters
In 1942, Albert Wolf Miller, Orie and Elta’s oldest son, was a student
at Goshen College, and second son Daniel Wolf Miller was at Eastern
Mennonite High School (EMHS) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Albert kept
his parents posted on the Middlebury Millers. He wrote of a tragedy in
April: “I suppose you have heard by this time that Grandpa’s house at
Chanceys [sic] practically burned down. I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t
know how it started. They were eating in the kitchen when smoke started
coming through the doors from grandpa’s room. I think the summer and
the winter kitchens are still standing. They are living at Arts now, I think.”
That Saturday, Albert rode his bicycle the twelve miles to Brookside Farm
to see the burned house. D. D. was salvaging bricks from the remains, but
said he was glad for a rest now that Albert had arrived. Carpenters were
beginning that day to rebuild the house, smaller than before.
Calling Others to Service
Civilian Public Service opened a new world for the 4,665 Mennonites
and Brethren in Christ who chose alternative service. They constituted
46 percent of draft-age Mennonite and Brethren in Christ men. Nearly
54 percent chose military service as combatants or noncombatants. That
more young men chose military service over alternative service was, of
course, troubling to church leaders.11 Though CPS numbers were small,
CPSers gave significant service in the war years, far more than their numbers
would suggest.
The Formation of MCC Canada
In 1943, Orie initiated the idea of establishing an MCC office in Canada.
He arranged for a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, of representatives
from four active relief organizations—the Non-Resistant Relief
Organization, the Conference of Historic Peace Churches, the Mennonite
Central Relief Committee, and the Canadian Mennonite Relief Committee
(CMRC)—and MCC’s executive committee on April 2 and 3. His goal
was to share information of MCC’s activities and plans for a program to
train volunteers for postwar reconstruction in Europe. The executive committee
also invited counsel on MCC’s work and suggested that a Canadian
commissioner be appointed to meet with the executive committee. At a
subsequent meeting in December, Orie proposed the establishment of an
MCC office in Canada. Representatives approved the idea and in January
1944 an office was opened in Kitchener, Ontario. The office would coordinate
clothing collection, give information to Canadian churches in
both English and German, receive Canadian funds, serve as a liaison to
Ottawa, and approve relief workers. C. J. Rempel, a Mennonite Brethren,
became office manager.
Transforming the “Bedlam” of Mental Hospitals
“Most U.S. [mental] hospitals are a shame and a disgrace,” declared Life
magazine in 1946. Titled “Bedlam 1946,” the article featured the deplorable,
filthy, subhuman conditions of state hospitals. “Conchies,” as COs
were derisively called, changed all that. The overwhelming staff needs in
hospitals and the growing desire of CPSers to do more significant work
eventually trumped General Hershey’s strategy of keeping COs out of
sight. Before hospital units were opened to CPSers, Robert Kreider noted
in his journal in December 1942, there were already 726 men who had
volunteered for hospital work.
Format ion of Mennonite Mutual Aid
On October 16, 1943, Guy Hershberger, Harold Bender, Chris Graber,
and Orie—fertile minds all—sat at the kitchen table in the Millers’ Akron
home. They were inventing a new organization to manage financial assets,
to assist families in need because of loss of property and life, and to help
CPSers reintegrate into civilian life after the war. As Hershberger remembered
it, Orie, pencil in hand, scratched out a name for the new organization:
Mennonite Mutual Aid (now Everence).
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