Mennonite Weekly Review

Articles : Elaine Sommers Rich

June 7, 2010 issue

• 

  Sommers Rich

  Farewell to readers

  After 37 years this is my last Thinking With column for Mennonite Weekly Review. I have usually visualized myself as dying, pen in hand, writing my next column. The time has come, however, to pass the torch to younger writers. But before I do so, let me indulge in some personal history.

  In the summer of 1950 Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale, Pa., hired me, a young Goshen College professor with a newly granted master’s degree from Michigan State University, to do an internship there. How exciting it was! I wrote in my journal, “I love to hear the melody of the Linotype.”

May 10, 2010 issue

• Will U.S. endure?

  How long will the United States remain a major power?

April 5, 2010 issue

• Good experiences

  With the permission of the writers, today I share two experiences that have impressed me. The first is from my sister-in-law Lois Rich Smucker of Ashland, Ore.

March 1, 2010 issue

• Memory bank

  Today’s column indulges in what old people have the luxury to do: remembering. Martin Luther King

Feb. 1, 2010 issue

• Holy days

  When I was a child, the only calendar I knew about was the one with big black numbers hanging in our kitchen. Then one Jan. 6 I overheard my father tell my mother that an Amish friend had reminded him that “Today is Old Christmas.” Old Christmas? What did that mean? In high school I read a poem about an Appalachian woman walking “airily” on “Old Christmas morning.”

Jan. 4, 2010 issue

• Gift of a new year

  Time is a mystery. To a toddler in a strange nursery, an hour waiting for a parent to appear at the door can seem unbearably long. To a student, a textbook published in 1990 can seem ancient, while the teacher thinks, “Another edition? The last one just came out!”

Nov. 2, 2009 issue

• Day for a ‘saint’

  Clayton Kratz was born Nov. 5, 1896, and disappeared in Russia in 1920. If I belonged to the Orthodox, Catholic or Anglican branch of the Christian family, I might well be remembering Richard Hooker on Nov. 5, Martin of Tours on Nov. 11, Margaret Queen of Scotland on the 16th, the disciple Andrew on the 30th and others on the dates in between.

Oct. 5, 2009 issue

• A new Katie book

  Katie Funk Wiebe is widely known in Mennonite circles and beyond, not only for her writing, teaching and speaking but also for her wisdom. You Never Gave Me a Name: One Mennonite Woman’s Story (Cascadia and Herald, 2009, 280 pages), is an autobiographical account by an octogenarian of her life and thought. Her earlier autobiographical books include The Storekeeper’s Daughter; Alone: A Widow’s Search for Joy; and Bless Me Too, My Father.
  

Sept. 7, 2009 issue

• Relationships

  September — off-to-school time, whether to kindergarten, grade school, high school or university. Parents smile outwardly, inwardly holding back tears, as they watch their beloved offspring go off into a world Mom and Dad do not control. One mother wrote these words after watching a firstborn son board a plane that would take him across an ocean to begin college.

Aug. 3, 2009 issue

• Recession blessings

  When people who were children in the early 1930s, myself included, get together, a favorite topic of conversation is how our families survived the Great Depression.

© 1999-2010, Mennonite Weekly Review Inc. | All rights reserved.

129 W 6th St Newton KS 67114 | 800-424-0178 | For reprints, write editor (at) mennoweekly.org

thanks to dirt circle. icons by famfamfam.

Loading