In Mennonite Weekly Review
1959 Jun 4
 

"Among the more than 250 guests who attended the Altenfest (old people's festival) for congregations of Swiss background, Sunday afternoon, May 24, at the Moundridge, Kans. high school, were these 15 pioneer settlers, all of them over 80 years of age. Front row, l. to r., are Mrs Andrew C. Goering, Eden Mennonite Church, Mrs. John Krebiel, Pretty Prairie Mennonite Church, Mrs. Ferdinand Stucky and Mrs. John J. Stucky, Hopefield Mennonite Church, Mrs. Joseph Georing, Eden, Mrs. J. C. O. Sperling, Newton First Mennonite Church, Miss Anna Krehbiel, Eden, and Mrs Adolf Stucky, Pretty Prairie. Back row, l. to r., Jacob Krehbiel and Andrew C. Goering, Eden, Jacob B. Stucky, First Mennonite Church of Christian, Peter Albrecht, Pretty Prairie, Daniel Waltner and John E. Schrag, Eden, and Jacob P. Kaufman, Hopefield. Oldest of the group and oldest in the Moundridge community is Mrs. John J. Stucky, who recently observed her 99th birthday. The festival was sponsored by the Hopefield Church, Rev. H. P. Schmidt, pastor."

Being over 80 in 1959, means being born before 1879. Mrs. Stucky, age 99, would have been born in 1860. This age group should contain some of the original immigrants who arrived in central Kansas from Russia in 1874-5. Some of them eventually founded the Hopefield and and Eden Mennonite churches near Moundridge, KS.

?? Who are the people in this picture? If you can identify any of them, please send me an email through the Feedback link.Click on the picture to enlarge it. -- dg 2011 Jun 20

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