As we see our church numbers dwindle and only somewhat filling during the Christmas and Easter times, we need to take a step back and remember how strong religion and faith was to our ancestors driving them to pave the way and persevere in a new and unknowing with unparallel bravery in crossing the mighty Atlantic, and the tremendous hardship they faced in death of loved ones, cold, hunger, and doubt. Even if your heritage is not Pennsylvania Dutch, one can read, appreciate, and draw parallels to the earlier Pilgrims or Puritans to understand how life was then and the importance and driving force of religion.
Equal to the school in importance to the folk character of the valleys (East Penn & Oley) are the churches, which have remained by and large unchanged. During a period of time when the exercise of religion in America has been on the decline, the versatility of the valleys’ folk religion has sustained its exercise. The churches of the PA Dutch had long been basically Protestant-German Protestant-and as such, follow the broader early American folk religious customs known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
These early churches have for more than 250 years been inseparable from community life. Religion had always been a daily affair here, never a social nicety. There were no prestige salaries for the clergy or fancy church edifices, for the pure and simple country church gains dignity from passing time and use. The ingenious valley folk follow a church calendar year, that was an integral part of agrarian life, and the planting of crops was not done on Good Friday or Ascension Day, but instead these days are given to fellowship with one’s neighbors at a farm sale or possibly fishing.
Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, still is for some a day to store up on fastnachts; a deep fried cake similar to a doughnut, for lard could not be used during Lent. Hunting young tender dandelion on Holy Thursday (Green Thursday) for a hot salad made a good spring tonic. Harvest home at the end of the growing season is a time to adorn the church altars with the fruits of a laborious and humble people. Even Religion was once known a few generations ago:
–Listening to children recite their Christmas pieces from the altar while seated in the quaint choir loft of church.
–Taking Holy Communion during a showery spring Sunday with home baked bread and homemade elderberry wine for the body and blood of Christ.
–Sharing daily news at church quilting socials.
–Seeing a neighbor spill his communion cup and say “Oye du Gott- there goes God’s blood.”
–Eating kettle soup at one of the church picnics, as I asked older members of the community tell me their fondest memories over the Holiday season.
With additional Plain Brethren, once called “Dunkards,” as the sect that founded Pricetown in the Oley Hills still maintain their 18th Century Brethren Meeting House, off the modern Pricetown Road, as I’ve wrote extensively about, one needs only to search past issues. The Old Order Mennonites continue to prosper in our area and expand, protecting our rich and vast farmland, in hopes I can say that 50 years from now.
Among the 13 original Colonies in the United States, there is no state that practices religious toleration more than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Although the Quaker sect and Oley Mennonite church have shared the pioneer harvests of the Oley Valley, not until recent years have the Old Order Mennonite horse and buggy sect from Kutztown acquired additional Oley Valley farmland, thereby developing our successful ethnicity in farming and religious principles that they have long down in and around Kutztown since 1950. Thereby, no one should think of modern Pennsylvania without first thinking of William Penn’s diverse religious pilgrims who bonded together in brotherly love forging an environment, in which freedom was nurtured from their grass roots spirit.
Talk to your Grandparents, Great-Grandparents; they are the most interactive, accurate history out there!
Richard L.T. Orth is assistant director of the American Folklife Institute in Kutztown.
