The Mennonite Influence
Mennonites focus on community and simple living. Members of the Mennonite faith are a peaceful group. They believe that it’s important to do something simply because it’s the right thing to do. Beyond that, “If someone does something evil to us, we are to do something nice back (Smucker).”
Being a Mennonite is more than a religious belief; it is a lifestyle.
Gary’s grandmother, Anna Mae Meckley Coble, gave Gary the Mennonite Community Cookbook in 1989 that features Swiss-German recipes. In her dedication of the book to him, Grandma Coble wrote, “This book contains all our good recipes.”
For the most part, these recipes were gathered by Mary Emma Showalter from the handwritten recipes of Mennonite women. Mennonite cooking relied on what was grown on the farm; it is simple, hearty, comforting, and practical. These recipes were shared wildly within the Mennonite community. Two of the recipes that Grandma Coble singled out were the White Mountain Cake (p. 226) that Grandma stated was “our birthday cake and Christmas cake we use to sing happy birthday to Jesus” and Apricot Delight. (And yes, the recipe for scrapple can be found on 78-79. However, the recipe for Grandma Coble’s family famous sugar cookies is different from the recipe in this book.)
Mary Emma Showalter also included the food that that one would need for a barn raising. “This bit of information was found in a quaint, old handwritten recipe book from Great-grandmother’s day (Showalter, p.455).”
- 115 lemon pies
- 500 fat cakes (doughnuts)
- 15 large cakes
- 3 gallons applesauce
- 3 gallons rice pudding
- 3 gallons cornstarch pudding
- 16 chickens
- 3 hams
- 50 pounds roast beef
- 300 light rolls
- 16 loaves bread
- Red beet pickle and pickled eggs
- Cucumber pickle
- 6 pounds dried prunes, stewed
- 1 large crock stewed raisins
- 5 gallon stone jar white potatoes and the same amount of sweet potato.
- This is enough food for 175 men.
Religious membership provides a sense of community and identity and lends itself to supporting one’s beliefs. Mennonites are a group of religious people known as Anabaptists. They do not believe in infant baptism, but rather that people should only be baptized when they declare their faith in Christ and request to be baptized. The Mennonite religion traces back to Menno Simons or Minne Simens, an excommunicated Catholic priest (Menno Simons).
The Coble family connection to the Mennonite religion dates back at least to Gary’s 6th great grandfather, Peter Risser (1713-1804). Peter was most likely born in Bern, Switzerland (though his parents were probably born in Germany and it’s possible that he was born in Friedelsheim, Germany) on September 3, 1713. Peter was “a Mennonite minister and to flee religious persecutions he fled to Rhenish, Bavaria and migrated to Pennsylvania from Rotterdam aboard the ship, Robert and Alice, out of Rotterdam and arrived September 3, 1739.”
“Having arrived in America at 26 years of age, they received a grant of 271 acres of land for a homestead near Elizabethtown in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He built a mill on the site and soon became a prosperous farmer and miller. He donated land for the Risser Mennonite Meeting-House and adjoining cemetery (Peter Lehman Risser).”
Gary’s grandparents, J. Ira and Anna Mae Meckley Coble, as well as many other ancestors are buried in the Risser Cemetery which is five miles east of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.
Family values based on traditions and special food make life meaningful and provide connections and give us something to look forward to. Memberships help support the values and contribute to the perspectives that guide our lives.
Sources
“Anabaptism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptism.
Meckley Coble, Anna Mae. “Family of Martin Nissley Risser (1850-1926) and His Wife Maria Brubaker Horst (1850-1929) – Research Collections.” LancasterHistory, https://collections.lancasterhistory.org/en/permalink/lhdo5508.
“Menno Simons.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menno_Simons.
“Mennonite Cuisine.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonite_cuisine.
“Mennonites.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites.
“Peter Lehman Risser I (1713-1804) – Find a Grave…” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13409317/peter-lehman-risser.
“Peter Lehman Risser.” WikiTree, 22 Jan. 2020, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Risser-98.
Showalter, Mary Emma. Mennonite Community Cookbook; Favorite Family Recipes. Herald Press, 1988.
Smucker, Emily. “The Pros and Cons of Being a Mennonite.” The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots, 8 Aug. 2012, https://emilysmucker.com/2012/08/08/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-mennonite/.