Religious Persecution in Today's Pennsylvania -- What Will We Schwenkfelders Do About It??

Pennsylvania Couple Fined for Using Farm for Bible Study, Prayer Groups

Amanda Casanova | Religion Today Contributing Writer | Monday, August 13, 2018

PENNSYLVANIA COUPLE FINED FOR USING FARM FOR BIBLE STUDY, PRAYER GROUPS

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A couple in Pennsylvania has been served a cease-and-desist order for using their 32-acre farm for private prayer groups.

Scott and Terri Fetterolf received the order in 2017 after the Borough of Sewickley Heights in Pennsylvania claimed the farm “was being used improperly as a place of worship, a place of assembly and as a commercial venue and ‘special studio or school.’”

The borough is charging $500 for each permit if the couple wants to continue hosting activities at their farm.

The Fetterolf farm also has a yarn and wool shop and sells produce and flowers. The farm is also host to educational classes and private events.

The couple has filed an appeal to the cease-and desist order and is waiting to hear a decision from the federal court.

"I don't seek to sue my borough and cause taxes to go up, I'm just trying to live my life,” Terri told the local newspaper.

The Fetterolfs are represented by the Independence Law Center, which is a branch of the Pennsylvania Family Institute.

"What they're doing here is they are requiring them to make a request with the zoning board and get permission to hold a Bible study... require them to go through a public hearing to receive permission... and that kind of prior restraining is unconstitutional and infringing on their right to freely exercise their religion," said Jeremy Samek, senior counsel for the Independence Law Center.

Samek says the couple cannot have Bible studies, church staff retreats or meeting or any church fundraisers at their farm.

Attorneys for the borough say Bible studies could be labeled a class, which needs a permit. The farm is located in what’s been zoned a Historical-Rural Residential District.

Publication Date: August 13, 2018

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center to Expand

I would like to thank my sister, Janet Butterweck, for emailing me this article, and the Town and Country for publishing it and all those responsible for making this expansion possible.

Forrest

Local News Article Return to Previous Page Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center to Expand Written by Larry Roeder, Editor 2018-07-12 "Honoring the Past … Building for the Future" Campaign Begins Sunday An artist's rendering shows the view from the rear of the existing structure. SLHC Executive Director Dave Luz stands on the site where the "bank" barn will be constructed.            Truly one of the gems of the Upper Perkiomen Valley, the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center (SLHC) preserves and presents a history of Schwenkfelder Church as well as the region.  They do so with a passion and professionalism that is on display to every visitor.             More than 9,000 visitors are welcomed each year at the SLHC.  They come to enjoy the collections and conduct genealogical research; they are local historians and international scholars.  More than 100 educational programs are offered each year to children and adults.             It has been written that "Nothing replaces the authenticity of the object presented with passionate scholarship. Bringing people face-to-face with historical objects is a way of bringing them face-to-face with people across time, across space, whose lives may have been different from our own but who, like us, have hopes and dreams, frustrations and achievements in their lives."             What began in the 1880's as a collection of books and manuscripts kept in a home and mostly pertaining to the Schwenkfelder Church, has grown to become a well-known research facility and museum.             The problem with historical collections is that with the passing of time, the number of artifacts grows and so does the space needed to present the history.             The Schwenkfelder collection was moved to the Carnegie Library at the Perkiomen Seminary School in 1913.  The building was designed to provide floor space and housing for the collection of historical materials.             Continued growth was inevitable and a building was constructed at 105 Seminary St. in Pennsburg, and dedicated in 1951 - it was the Schwenkfelder Library.  While documents were moved into the new building for storage and research use, the museum collection remained in the Carnegie Library building.             In 2001, a large addition for storage and exhibition of the museum collection was added and renamed the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center.  It is the facility we know today.             Now, it's time to grow again.             This Sunday, officials of the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage (SLHC) Center will be launching a $3.6 million capital campaign to increase the size of the museum by 50% and move an historic bank barn onto its campus.              According to a statement released by SLHC Campaign Manager Rachel Osborn, the Center's success has caused it to outgrow its exhibition, education, storage, research, and conservation space. To address this problem, a two-level, 12,150-square-foot addition will be built.             Also, an early 19th century barn from the Seipt family home in Towamencin will be moved to the Pennsburg site.  The barn is from the homestead of Honorary Campaign Chair Fred Seipt of Lansdale.  Seipt is the founder of Freddy Hill Farms.  The barn will be disassembled, relocated, restored and made accessible to visitors via a walkway from the main museum building.             The plan will allow expansion of collections and will make a far larger portion of the Heritage Center's holdings visible to the public. It will also allow new exhibitions of rural life and entrepreneurship, with significant artifacts that demonstrate the impact of early immigrant settlers far beyond the Perkiomen Valley region, including a 19th century Conestoga wagon acquired from the Valley Forge National Historic Park.             In addition to the barn, the plan features an expanded library, new rural life gallery, and new rural entrepreneurship gallery.  Also, the existing patio on the original façade will be extended to create a new Board/Meeting Room.             According to SLHC Executive Director Dave Luz construction, hopefully, should begin around the end of August and complete in the fall of 2019.  He thanked borough officials for their help in moving the project along saying, "Pennsburg Borough is very supportive of the Heritage Center in general and especially of this project."             "Appearing at Borough Council meetings has always been a very positive experience for me – all the members are encouraging of the Heritage Center and view the Heritage Center as a strong asset to the Upper Perkiomen Valley community.  The Borough staff has also been very helpful in assisting us as we move through the process of obtaining official borough approvals."             For more information about the "Honoring the Past … Building for the Future" capital campaign, please contact Dave Luz or Rachel Osborn at 215-679-3103 or info@schwenkfelder.com.

Make yourself at home.

AN AMAZING FAMILY OF SCHULTZES: The Children of Levi & Elizabeth Schultz)

AN  AMAZING  FAMILY  OF  SCHULTZES

(The  Children  of  Levi & Elizabeth Schultz)

An Amazing Family of Schultzes

    by Andrew S. Berkey


Eight brothers and sisters, all Perkiomen graduates, with outstanding
records of achievement and success. On commencement day in June, 1924,
a farmer's widow from Upper Hanover Township walked into the Perkiomen
chapel and took her place along with the parents and friends of the school
graduating class. Mrs. Levi G. Schulz was on hand to see her youngest son,
Lloyd, receive his diploma - just as she had been present when her other
seven children received their diplomas from Perkiomen!

While the exercises were taking place, Elizabeth Schultz's thoughts must
have gone back to that day 21 years before when she and her husband attended
their first Perkiomen commencement together - that time it had been their
son, Eugene. From 1903 to 1924, how many mornings had she bid goodbye
to one or the other of her children as they left the house to clamber
up on the milk wagon for the 30-minute ride to the school - 2,000, 3,000
mornings?

And then her thoughts must have wandered up to New Haven, Connecticut,
where another son, Alfred, was receiving his doctor's degree from Yale
University that very same day. The choice had been a difficult one to
make, but Alfred readily understood her reluctance to miss this last,
significant event at Perkiomen.

One farm, 120 acres, and this family saw each of eight children through
several years at Perkiomen, four of the eight through college, and two
of the four on through graduate school! Obviously, this was an
extraordinary family and a surpassingly fine farm.

More than two centuries earlier, three orphan boys, Christopher, George
and Melchior Schultz migrated from Silesia to Pennsylvania. They built
their own log house and cleared their own fields, and this farm was
handed down from generation to generation - George to Abraham to Isaac
to Abraham and then to Levi and Elizabeth. And along with the fertile
fields and the tidy buildings came an uncommon affinity for education.
[Footnote on Silesia: Once part of Austria and then Prussia, Silesia
  was heavily influenced by German culture. The bulk of the region is
  now part of Poland.]

For example, there was great-great-grandfather Abraham, largely self
educated, who taught in the local school between farm chores for more
than 20 years and served as a Representative in the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth. There was great-grandfather Isaac, an academy
graduate, who wrote superb letters in Latin, translated numerous German
documents into English, authored several histories, taught school - and
withal operated the ancestral farm.

It would be impossible to enumerate here the accomplishments of all the
sons and daughters that left this farm over the years. Suffice it to
say that they were all reared in a home pervaded with an atmosphere
of learning, erudition and discipline.

Back to those eight Schultz Perkiomenites from one family:

  Eugene - graduated from Perkiomen in 1903 and went to the University
of Wisconsin to study plant diseases. He obtained his Bachelor and
Master of Science degrees at Wisconsin and his doctorate at Columbia
University. In 1912, Dr. Schultz joined the U. S. Department of
Agriculture and was assigned to the Agricultural Research Center,
Aroostook County, Maine. For the past 44 years, Dr. Schultz has spent
his summers in Maine and his winters at the Beltsville, Maryland
Research laboratories specializing in the study of potato pathology.

The result of this study? More than 50 published scientific treatises,
better than 100-percent increase in the Maine potato yield and the
Superior Service Award from the Department  of Agriculture, along with
a host of other honors. In 1919 Dr. Schultz married Salina S. Gerhard
(Perkiomen, 1898), and there are two children, Eugene A. and Alma, both
college educated.

  Carrie - graduated from Perkiomen in 1906, returned to the farm to
help the family move those other youngsters along the way and expired
in 1918 after a tragic illness.

  Geneva - graduated from Perkiomen in 1906. taught in the public
schools, married farmer Jacob N. Reiff, raised and college-educated
two fine daughters (both of who have husbands with Perkiomen affiliations)
and is currently the secretary of the local Perkiomen alumni group.

  Daisy - graduated from Perkiomen in 1909, received a Bachelor of Arts
degree from Oberlin College, taught languages in the Sussex, New Jersey
High School and then returned home to help care for the younger members of
the family. In 1933 she married Dr. Earle Martin, and husband and wife
currently operate the Martin Laboratones in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
There is one son. Paul, graduate of Cornell with a doctorate from the
University of Michigan.

  Wayne - graduated from Perkiomen in 1913, returned to the family farm
which he continues to operate to this day Over the years he has established
one of the finest purebred dairy herds in the East, being one of the first
farmers to win the coveted Progressive Breeders Award of the International
Holstein-Friesian Association.

Mr. Schultz operates the farm under the registered name "Scholtop"
(Schultz) and in 1945 posted a production record for what was, in the words
of the Association, "probably the highest score ever made for a herd of 20
or more purebred registered Holsteins in the State of Pennsylvania and
perhaps in the United States. Mr. Schultz married Blanche Bobb and there
are three children, all enrolled in the local schools.

  Alfred - graduated from Perkiomen in 1914, received a Bachelor of Science
degree in chemistry from Lehigh University in 1918, served in the army
during World War I, and then went on to Yale UMversiry, where he received
his doctorate in 1924. In 1924-25 he held a postdoctoral fellowship at
Rochester University and then took a position with the Fleischmann
Laboratories as Research Chemist and Head of the Fermentation Division.

The result of this study? More than 50 research publications and at least
27 patents produced in collaboration with his associates in less than
25 years. Dr. Schultz is currently residing in New York City.

  Norman - graduated from Perkiomen in 1917, returned to the family farm to
help brother Wayne, married Helen Coburn, now operates a farm outside of
Chester, Pennsylvania. As might be expected, he produced a splendid herd of
purebred Holsteins, and a number of years ago farmer Schultz and the farm
were the subject of a feature article on the "ideal one-man farm."

  Lloyd - graduated from Perkiomen in 1924, received his bachelor's degree
from Pennsylvania State University four years later, took a position with
Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, rose rapidly to the executive level as
Commercial Sales Director and is currently in the investment securities
business, associated with the Allentown office of Lewis C. Dick Company.

Mr. Schultz is quite active in civic and community affairs. In 1938 he was
elected to the Perkiomen Board of Trustees, received the school's highest
award in 1941 - the Perldomen Key, and has been Treasurer of the Board
since 1950. In 1935, Mr. Schultz married Dorothy G. Davies.

And there we are - eight amazing Schultzes from one family. Perkiomen is
more than proud of these sons and daughters - and one of these days we'll
do an article on those 37 other amazing Schultzes who have passed through
these halls in the last 60 years.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The following note from Editor Eleanor Roberts accompanied the above
article in the original publication:

  Andrew Berky, Trustee of Perkiomen School and Director of the
Schwenkfelder Library and Museum, married into this famous Schultz family
and attends many of their reunions and family affairs. He is in a good
position to collect the facts for this article and has done so in a
masterly way. He asked the editor to re-write but she has refused,
believing this to be factual, intimate and personal and done in the fashion
which was wanted. We are happy to present this article under the byline of
Andrew S. Berky, son of Mabel Schultz Berky, husband of Lucy Reiff Berky -
daughter of Ceneva Schultz Reiff, himself the father of three young
Berkys who have plenty of Schultz in them !

__________________________________________________________________________

Note -- this appeared as an article in the magazine of Perkiomen School.  I remember reading it as a boy.  I wish to thank Andy Martin, son of Paul S. Martin, son of Daisy Schultz Martin for emailing it to me in this format, which you can use to download it.


http://www.cohp.org/writers/AndyMartin/AlfredSchultz/AmazingFamilyofSchultzes.pdf

 AmazingFamilyofSchultzes.pdf

THE DEMISE OF THE FAMILY FARM -- Reviews of Darlene D. Schneck's "The Last Generation on the Farm...A Vanished Way Of Life

The  Demise  Of  The  Family  Farm:

An  Illustrative  Example  From  Eastern  Pennsylvania

Darlene Della Schneck, ed. The Last Generation On The Farm:  The Clarence and       Della Geissinger Family and a Vanished Way of Life (Create Space, 2017)  

                                                 160 pages   $21.99    ISBN: 9781548023614

Reviewer:  Forrest Wayne Schultz          Date:  January 10, 2018

     I do not recall ever visiting the farm in this book even though I grew up on a farm only a few miles south of it, and was a member of one of the churches there, the Palm Schwenkfelder Church.  And one of the individuals mentioned, Edwin Fox, was one of my Sunday School teachers at this church;  and the school mentioned, Perkiomen, was founded by the Schwenkfelders and was the one from which my father and his brothers and sisters graduated.  And our barn, like the one in this book, was a bank barn, so I know what that means!  Also, like their house, ours had a maple tree in the yard from a branch of which a swing was attached.  We also had apple trees, but ours were in the cow pasture.   And I know the pies and cakes in the book, but, surprisingly, one of those my mother baked had a different name, “Shoo Fly Pie”, not “Shoo Fly Cake”.  I also know about curing meat hung from hooks inside a wall smoked by a fireplace fire.  And, as a boy my mother sent me to the barn to fetch vinegar from a keg stored there many years ago.  I also knew of the Normal School in Kutztown because both my maternal grandmother and an elderly lady in East Greenville I knew graduated from it.   And, when it later became Kutztown State Teachers College, my brother-in-law Clare Reihman got a B.S. and M.S. in science education there.  In regard to the farm safety mentioned, I know of its importance both from the films I saw at the Advisory Board meetings of the Lehigh Valley Cooperative Farmers, and also from the horrific accident with the manure spreader on the farm of Claude Bieler (directly south of our farm) suffered by his son Richard, who fortunately recovered and who now owns the farm.  I remember him being in the hospital for a while and for a while hobbling around on crutches! 

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         The book mentions the cordial relationship between the Schwenkfelders and the Mennonites which I experienced also, one example of which was the joint Thanksgiving Services which the Palm Schwenkfelder Church had each year with a nearby Mennonite Church (whose name I do not remember).  We alternated years – one year at our church, the next at the Mennonite Church.  I am surprised that this fact was not mentioned in the book.  On the other hand one thing the author mentions that I did not know was that there is a Mennonite Heritage Center in Harleysville, PA.  The only thing I knew about Harleysville when I lived in PA was that the Harleysville baloney was the best brand there was! 

     Our farm (the Scholtop Dairy Farm) was located in Upper Hanover Township, which is at the extreme northern end of Montgomery County.  The people discussed in this book lived in Upper Milford and Hereford Townships slightly north of where Montgomery County ends.  The family farm on which I grew up and the family farm in this book both ended during the 1960s – our farm in 1961 and the farm of this book in 1967.

     Today there is a lot of talk about “traditional American values”.  This book provides some good examples of what that means.  However, when I was growing up, people didn’t use terms like that!!  Also my father highly valued work and praised those who were hard workers, but he never said anything about “the work ethic”!  The most concise way to summarize all this is found in the words of the Mennonite historian Forrest Moyer on the rear jacket, where he says that this book provides “a window into the historic rural culture of southern Lehigh County”, which is true but it needs to be noted that this same culture was also found in Montgomery County as well as the other Pennsylvania Dutch communities generally up until the middle of the twentieth century!!     

      I highly recommend this book for its well-told story about this farm, as I did the author’s earlier book about the adventures of Isaac Schultz.  These reviews plus more about what I have to say about our farm and ancestors and the Upper Perkiomen Valley are on my blog  http://schwenkfelderschultzes.blogspot.com.         

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ADDENDUM:

Home Movies of this family can be viewed on this U Tube email address;

 https://youtu.be/1iPO8DZ5PIE

HERE  IS  THE  AMAZON  REVIEW  BY  K.  VESTAL

K. Vestal

5.0 out of 5 starsA Delightful Snapshot of Early 20th Century American Farm Life

July 31, 2017

Format: Paperback

A beautifully captured slice of American Pie. A zoom lens snapshot of early 20th century life on the farm. The photos alone are incredible, 250+ of pristine quality, all taken and preserved by one family, of plain ole' everyday life. The narrative story is told in two voices. One voice provides well-researched background and history, the glue that melds the story together. The other is a voice so colloquially authentic and personal she is almost audible. This book is a treasure to US history, and a delightful gift to anyone who has his/her own memories of growing up on a farm.