Leona's Kansas Family

Today I finished reading Will Leona Find a Family by Susan Huber. Not since I read Ervin R. Stutzman's books Tobias of the Amish and Emma, A Widow Among the Amish have I read a book with so many bursts of recognition: I know these people!

The book is the true story of Leona, who grew up to marry Jonathan Kuepfer from Canada--one of many young men lured to Kansas by the money and adventure awaiting participants in the annual wheat harvest.

Leona and Jonathan lived for a number of years here in Kansas, around the corner to the east and north from my grandparents, Levi and Clara Miller. Kansas was at its worst during some of the years they lived here, and survival was a struggle, especially during the dust bowl days of the 1930s. Like several other local Amish families, the Kuepfers butchered farm animals and peddled the meat in Hutchinson, as part of their effort to make ends meet. Eventually, however, they gave up the fight and moved away.

Some of the others named in the story were Delilah Nisly (mother of Menno, Melvin, and others in our church), and every member of the Headings family, with whom Leona lived from the time she was ten until her marriage to Jonathan when she was 18 years old. The baby of the Headings family was Mary, married to Fred Nisly. Mary has died now, but Fred is still a faithful member of our church. Most of their children live in Kansas but Maynard lives in Indiana and Ruth Yoder lives in Florida.

Leona was left motherless in Ohio when she was 15 months old. Eventually she was sent to live at a Mennonite orphanage, and then at the age of ten came to Kansas to be part of the Valentine Headings household. She never relinquished her Follas last name, and, in fact, kept in contact with her father and her two brothers in Ohio throughout her lifetime. In every way possible, the Headings family accepted her as one of their own and made her feel welcome.

Jonathan and Leona were Amish until they moved to Ontario after some of their children were nearly grown. Both of them died in their late sixties. At that time they were part of the Bethel Conservative Mennonite Church.

The Kuepfer family eventually grew to include 15 children who grew to adulthood. Several grandchildren also joined the household later, after the family had moved to Canada.

The Kansas part of the story contains many stories of childhood escapades. The children were blessed with mega-doses of inquisitiveness and innovation--often to the dismay of the adults trying to keep them safe and healthy--once even to the dismay of many residents of Hutchinson, who saw a strange light in the night sky at the height of fear during World War II. Enemy activity was suspected. It was a flare "pot" the children had found discarded along the railroad. They had lit it and attached it to the tail of a kite, which they then launched and watched for a long time. The light swung back and forth on its tail, then finally went out. The next day someone from the law enforcement department in Hutchinson came out to investigate. Mostly he was asking if anyone else saw the light and knew what it was. The experiment was not repeated.

It's probably understandable that the context part of the story is fairly minimal, since the author of the book is the youngest member of the family, and was born in Canada. No dates are given throughout the book. I miss them, and could provide some of my own context if they were present.

Mention is made of neighbor Delilah Nisly who made herself responsible for reporting the dangerous exploits of some of the Kuepfer boys who were known to cavort on top of the barn roof out of sight of their parents. Those of us who knew Delilah have no trouble imagining her taking seriously her responsibility to look out for all the children of the neighborhood.

Perhaps Delilah never heard the story I heard within the past month of her own son, Melvin, when he was surely old enough to know better--21 perhaps, who stood on his head at the peak of their barn roof, during the process of repairing it after the 1948 wind storm that tore through the community.

What I know of the Kuepfer family is the occasional visitors in church on a Sunday morning--visitors from Canada who my father would introduce to us as his childhood friends. A more recent connection is my daughter-in-law Dorcas, whose dad was a Kuepfer from Canada. I haven't learned yet whether she has any connection to the Kansas Kuepfers from all those years ago. I understand that Kuepfers in Canada are very numerous and often not closely related to the few that any one of us happens to know.