A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

first to decide to emigrate to the United States. The story of their "exodus" constitutes a part of the larger movement that brought 18,000 Mennonites from Kussia to America between 1874-80. 2. A New Beginning in Kansas The group that left the Crimea on May 30, 1874, under the leadership of elder Jacob A. Wiebe, consisted of about thirty-five families.' 1 - After their disembarkation in New York, the group boarded a train for Elkhart, Indiana, where they expected to receive further direction and help from John F. Funk, whom they had learned to know and love as the editor of Heroic! der Wahrheit. When the immigrants arrived in Elkhart on the morning of July 20, 1874, it was a most inopportune time for Funk. The night before his daughter had died, the group had arrived without advance notice, and it was Sunday morning. Funk's spiritual stature is set forth in bold relief against this background. He not only welcomed these weary travelers and provided temporary housing for the large group, but invited Elder Wiebe to preach to a mixed audience of immigrants and Elkhart people that same morning.' 1 The group stayed at Elkhart for about a month. During this time Elder Wiebe, accompanied by Franz R. Janzen, went west to scout for a suitable place of settlement. After looking at land in Dakota and Nebraska, they came to Kansas, where C. B. Schmidt, the German-speaking Santa Fe agent, showed them his lands. Finally they decided to purchase a tract of land in Marion County, located ten miles west of "Marion Center," and fourteen miles northwest of Peabody, the nearest town on the newly constructed Santa Fe Railroad. At this station Wiebe and Janzen met the contingent of Krimmer Mennonite Brethren on August 16, 1874, upon their arrival from Elkhart. 14 The immigration and settlement of the Krimmer group is unique for several reasons: Almost the entire church had come as a unit; it was the 180 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH first church body (during the 1870's) to arrive in America, and "this group, more than any other, planned their villages, Gnadenau and Hoffnungstal, their schools, and their farming operations on the Russian village pattern." 15 Gnadenau The village of Gnadenau (which literally translated means "grace meadow") became the center of church and community life for the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren. The village never had a post office, however, and when a branch of the Santa Fe Railroad went through the north edge of the settlement in 1879 and Hillsboro was built on the line two miles north of the village, Gnadenau lost its future. After a few years the village form of settlement was found to be impractical, and the population became dispersed. The name "Gnadenau" was retained, nevertheless, for the local school, and especially for the church. Almost immediately after their arrival, these pioneers erected a church of adobe walls and thatched roof. When it weathered badly a