VOC ‘PART OF OUR NATIONAL HISTORY’
JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER
In August of 1918, a German-American farmer in Minnesota named John Meintz was tarred and feathered for not supporting war bond drives.
In Whitewater, Kan., an angry mob visited the rural home of Bernhard W. Harder, pastor of the Emmaus Mennonite Church, and nailed an American flag onto the porch of the house. Harder responded by singing “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and not just the first verse that everybody knows. The pastor sang all four and a subdued mob left.
And in South Dakota, the Rockport and Rosedale Hutterite colonies refused by the bond quotas assigned to them. The result? Thousands of sheep and 100 cattle were stolen from the Jamesville Colony north of Yankton and sold, the proceeds paying for the Liberty Bonds. Later, in May of 1918, after the South Dakota Council of Defense banned the use of German language in public, refused to obey and ended up leaving, not only South Dakota, but the United States.
These are just a few of the stories of resistance to World War I told by the Voices of Conscience exhibit that has been on display at the Bethel Church on the campus of Freeman’s Heritage Hall Museum & Archives since the middle of February. The traveling exhibit was produced by the Kauffman Museum on the campus of Bethel College in North Newton, Kan. in 2017 and debuted at a “Remembering Muted Voices” symposium at the World War I Museum in Kansas City later that year.
The display will be in Freeman through April 24.
And this Friday and Saturday night in Pioneer Hall, the museum is sponsoring a program focusing on one of the centerpieces of the Voices of Conscience display — the arrest and imprisonment of four Hutterite men from Rockport Colony who refused to serve in the military.
Two of those men — brothers Joseph and Michael Hofer, ages 24 and 25 — died.
“It’s part of our national story and it’s part of history that often isn’t reflected on,” exhibit curator David Kreider said of the peace-minded people’s resistance to the conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918. “I think it’s important to reflect on history that has been hidden at times. I think some of these stories of resistance have been suppressed; people haven’t wanted to talk about it for a variety of reasons. This is a chance to engage and hopefully open up healthy conversations about militarism and how we engage with government and how that relates to faith.”
Kreider, who was involved in the fabrication of the display when it was created, was in Freeman the second week of February and spent about five hours setting up the various panels, each of which tells a different story about the resistance movement. The Voices of Conscience exhibit was originally set up in Freeman two years ago in advance of Schmeckfest, but was returned to Kansas after the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down in March of 2020.
“There are a lot of interesting stories,” Kreider said. “One can gain a sense of the exhibit just by spending 10 minutes with it, but there are a lot of stories that go in depth.”
He said while the display travels primarily to Mennonite communities with strong anabaptist roots, it has appeared elsewhere, including the Church of the Brethren National Conference in Cincinnati in 2018.
“For anabaptist folks, there is a sense of gratitude,” Kreider said of the public response to the exhibit. “It’s evoked a lot of storytelling. I’ve seen parents go around with children trying to explain this. That’s one of those holy moments; it’s wonderful education to see that kind of thing happen.”
Not all reactions have been positive, however.
“We’ve also had people kind of wag their finger and say, ‘well, if we hadn’t gotten involved then what would have happened?’ and you listen to them.
“There’s been some controversy,” Kreider continues, “but overall, it’s been well received.”
Voices of Conscience can be seen through admission to Heritage Hall Museum & Archives, which will be open from noon to 7 p.m. during the Freeman Academy Auxiliary’s Schmeck Stop the next two Saturdays. The museum will also be open Friday from noon to 7 p.m. prior to the first night of its special program.
Regular hours for the museum are weekdays from noon to 4 p.m.
The exhibit is also available to groups. Call 605-925-7545 during museum hours or email info@heritagehallmuseum.com for more information.
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