Mennonite Weekly Review

HESSTON, Kan. — Wayne Swartzendruber, who loved to create and share fun with others, took Christ’s call to peacemaking seriously and whose doughnut shop in Newton became a gathering place for Mennonite college students, died Dec. 20. He was 79.

At his memorial service Jan. 10 at Whitestone Mennonite Church, family and friends remembered him as a loving and practical person.

“Wayne’s life was a sermon in many ways,” said Mark Miller as he and co-pastor Wendy Miller shared a meditation based on passages of the Bible that Swartzendruber had highlighted as he studied and applied them to his life.

“Druber,” as he was known to many, opened Druber’s Donut Shop in Newton in 1971 after working in a variety of trades, including sales, technical writing, printing and computer programming. Druber’s became a popular late-night spot for Bethel and Hesston college students, and Swartzendruber encouraged discussions and debates as he interacted with patrons.

Swartzendruber donated the original space for the Newton Area Peace Center (now Peace Connections) above the doughnut shop. He and his wife, Margie, partici-pated in the sanctuary movement during the 1980s, risking arrest by offering hospitality to refugees fleeing persecution in Central America.

The couple had learned Spanish in Puerto Rico, where they did voluntary service for two years after their graduation from Hesston College and their May 27, 1950, marriage. They used their understanding of the Spanish language and culture to minister to Caribbean and Central American people new to the community who met at Whitestone Mennonite Church and at the Swartzendrubers’ farm home for worship, food and fellowship. After many years, some of the group’s original members helped established a Spanish-language Mennonite church in Newton last year. Swartzendruber traveled to Latin America several times, once with a Pastors for Peace caravan to El Salvador.

Swartzendruber was born in Newton and grew up on farms around St. Johns, Mich., with four brothers and two sisters. He used his creative mind and dexterity with tools to build play equipment and to make farm work more efficient.

In Hesston, Swartzendruber became known for his volunteer work with the children and teachers at the community child-care center (now Hesston Intergenerational Child Development Center). Director Judy Friesen said Swartzendruber helped move into and design each of the four spaces that have housed the child-care center in its first 30 years. He created nearly all of the children’s playground equipment. He set up his playground equipment for the children’s programs at national Mennonite conferences in Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte.

In 1995, the Peace Factory was built in Swartzendruber’s shop. He served as chief engineer for the interactive peace museum that premiered at the national Mennonite assembly in Wichita. He also outfitted a trailer to transport the Peace Factory to sites around North America for two years.

“Wayne made possible a miracle. He took the idea that peace must be created, through sweat and prayer and community, made it visible and gave it wheels,” said Susan Mark Landis, leader of the Mennonite Church Peace and Justice Committee. “Thousands of people learned how to make peace while Peace Factory toured the United States and Canada, and people still speak with joy about the difference it made in their lives, their congregation and their community.”