Bontragers/Bowers/Helferichs 11: Get Your Christofascism Here Folks!

[BigSandy]

4 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

It was Marlin's mother Salina Bontrager. According to her obit, she was 88 years old. It mentions that her husband predeceased her.  She seems to have been an evangelical as the obit mentions she was saved at a revival at a young age. Here is a link to the full obit. 

Thank you! I don't know why I typed grandpa (and "trying way to hard" instead of "trying way too hard" ughhh), must've been tired. Thanks also for the obit link!

[RC-2017]

5 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

It was Marlin's mother Salina Bontrager. According to her obit, she was 88 years old. It mentions that her husband predeceased her.  She seems to have been an evangelical as the obit mentions she was saved at a revival at a young age. Here is a link to the full obit. 

She was apparently Beachy Amish Mennonite.  The church named in the obituary, Sharon Bethel, near Kalona, Iowa, is listed as Beachy on GAMEO (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online).  The Beachys were influenced by evangelicalism during the 20th century and have adopted evangelical practices such as revival meetings.

[JermajestyDuggar]

52 minutes ago, RC-2017 said:

She was apparently Beachy Amish Mennonite.  The church named in the obituary, Sharon Bethel, near Kalona, Iowa, is listed as Beachy on GAMEO (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online).  The Beachys were influenced by evangelicalism during the 20th century and have adopted evangelical practices such as revival meetings.

Salina is such a pretty name. One of them should use it in the future. Unless a secret Bont/Bowers baby already has the name. 

[molecule]

In a small community, all the families are related somehow. One branch of my own family has the same three last names showing up in every generation. So this caught my eye in the obit.

Grandma's mother was born a Bontrager and then grandma herself married a Bontrager.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

34 minutes ago, molecule said:

In a small community, all the families are related somehow. One branch of my own family has the same three last names showing up in every generation. So this caught my eye in the obit.

Grandma's mother was born a Bontrager and then grandma herself married a Bontrager.

I noticed that too. The Beachy Amish Mennonite Bishop is also a Bontrager. 

3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Salina is such a pretty name. One of them should use it in the future. Unless a secret Bont/Bowers baby already has the name. 

She has 40 grandchildren and 42 great-grandchildren. I bet there are a few Salinas.

[hollyandivy]

There is a video of the funeral on the church's Facebook page, my monitor is too small, can't make out any faces but I think I saw John Maxwell and Joshua Bontrager, as well as the two Helferich girls 

Oh, yes, some family members talk later on, Chelsey, Marlin and Joshua among them (Did not listen, could not get myself to do so )

[JermajestyDuggar]

20 minutes ago, hollyandivy said:

There is a video of the funeral on the church's Facebook page, my monitor is too small, can't make out any faces but I think I saw John Maxwell and Joshua Bontrager, as well as the two Helferich girls 

Oh, yes, some family members talk later on, Chelsey, Marlin and Joshua among them (Did not listen, could not get myself to do so )

I’m guessing Chelsy will have something nice or interesting to say about her grandma. But I imagine Marlin and Joshua will be highly annoying in their speeches. I’m sure there won’t be much said about grandma and a lot said about religion and god.

[ElizaB]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m guessing Chelsy will have something nice or interesting to say about her grandma. But I imagine Marlin and Joshua will be highly annoying in their speeches. I’m sure there won’t be much said about grandma and a lot said about religion and god.

And by religion and god do you mean trump?

[HereticHick]

Can anyone explain this obit sentence to me? "Salina worked as a nurse’s aid in Kansas City for 2 years while Joe served in 1W."

What is 1W? They married in 1955.

[BigSandy]

8 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

Can anyone explain this obit sentence to me? "Salina worked as a nurse’s aid in Kansas City for 2 years while Joe served in 1W."

What is 1W? They married in 1955.

I was wondering the same thing! I tried all sorts of googling and I think it refers to an alternative to military service that's available to Mennonites.

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

Can anyone explain this obit sentence to me? "Salina worked as a nurse’s aid in Kansas City for 2 years while Joe served in 1W."

What is 1W? They married in 1955.

I looked up definitions. And out of them, I would guess the rescue team definition: 

[BigSandy]

I found this in an "about us" section for Mennonite church members at Neffsville Mennonite Church:

"We met in Missouri in 1959 when Edna went there to visit her sister. Dwight took Edna to a hayride on his Harley and that was the start of something great. He soon decided that to be near her, he would request his two years of “1W Service” (required alternative to military service in the 60s) to be served at the State Hospital at Norristown PA. It was a good move! After those two years, we were married at Edna's home church, Frazer Mennonite, in Oct. 1962."

[HereticHick]

3 minutes ago, BigSandy said:

I was wondering the same thing! I tried all sorts of googling and I think it refers to an alternative to military service that's available to Mennonites.

It does seem to refer to Conscientious Objector status (which appears to now be called 1-0  or CO: https://www.army.mil/article/4267/conscientious_objector).  Not just for Mennonites--but also Quakers and other pacifists. So it was his alternative military service in the 50s. 

[anachronistic]

I recently learned that my stepfather was a conscientious objector during Vietnam. He was sent from New England to rural Mississippi, where he built houses and made amazing friends he is still in touch with to this day. He also, apparently, in his autistic obliviousness of unspoken social rules, got in trouble for being friends, (dating? I’m not sure) with POC, because he is white, and if you want him to understand something unrelated to buildings/building codes (he’s an architect) you need to sit down and make sure he gets it, because otherwise he doesn’t. (Please don’t take this as an insult to him, I’m autistic myself and he is a lovely, lovely man, I’m so glad my mom found love again.)

[Bluebirdbluebell]

5 hours ago, anachronistic said:

I recently learned that my stepfather was a conscientious objector during Vietnam. He was sent from New England to rural Mississippi, where he built houses and made amazing friends he is still in touch with to this day. He also, apparently, in his autistic obliviousness of unspoken social rules, got in trouble for being friends, (dating? I’m not sure) with POC, because he is white, and if you want him to understand something unrelated to buildings/building codes (he’s an architect) you need to sit down and make sure he gets it, because otherwise he doesn’t. (Please don’t take this as an insult to him, I’m autistic myself and he is a lovely, lovely man, I’m so glad my mom found love again.)

In this case, your stepfather was right and there is nohing wrong with white people being friends or dating people of color. He sounds lovely. My mom had a friend who was a conscientious objector. The military made him do alternative service where he was maybe some kind of test subject? Whatever happened, it was very unpleasant and he would never talk about it. I'm glad your stepfather had a better experience.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Bluebirdbluebell

[anachronistic]

Oh my goodness! I’m just re reading my post and realize how racist it could be. I’m so sorry. What I meant was that social norms/local laws of the time dictated that whites could not be close friends or date POC and my stepdad did not pick up on these norms because nobody explained them explicitly to him and he was from a place so white he’d never been given the opportunity to even be friends with POC before, even though such laws did not necessarily exist where he was from. I did not mean to imply in any way that it was a negative thing that he didn’t know these things, just that he caught grief and his POC friends caught even more grief from his ignorance. Thankfully times and laws have changed. My deepest apologies for the way it read.

[BigSandy]

Elizabeth Bontrager is doing a Q&A on her Instagram stories, and I'm so tempted to ask what happened to Joshua's blog and why he went "MIA" (I know it's most likely because he was at the insurrection, but I wonder how they would spin it). I'm not going to, but I hope someone else does, haha

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 hours ago, BigSandy said:

Elizabeth Bontrager is doing a Q&A on her Instagram stories, and I'm so tempted to ask what happened to Joshua's blog and why he went "MIA" (I know it's most likely because he was at the insurrection, but I wonder how they would spin it). I'm not going to, but I hope someone else does, haha

I just feel sorry for Liz. She’s just another female Bont robot. She thinks skirts are so much more feminine than pants. She is constantly eating, drinking, or using some sort of MLM product. She is always praising the penis havers in her life. She’s constantly towing the line for the family culture. Everything is perfect. Everything is godly. 

[HereticHick]

24 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I just feel sorry for Liz. She’s just another female Bont robot. She thinks skirts are so much more feminine than pants. She is constantly eating, drinking, or using some sort of MLM product. She is always praising the penis havers in her life. She’s constantly towing the line for the family culture. Everything is perfect. Everything is godly. 

She is frantically content in her single season of life!

[RC-2017]

On 2/27/2023 at 2:42 PM, HereticHick said:

It does seem to refer to Conscientious Objector status (which appears to now be called 1-0  or CO: https://www.army.mil/article/4267/conscientious_objector).  Not just for Mennonites--but also Quakers and other pacifists. So it was his alternative military service in the 50s. 

From the Wikipedia page on the  Selective Service System, at least between 1948 and 1976, the 1-W classification was for a 'conscientious objector currently performing assigned alternative service. They must serve for a set period of time equal to their owed national service (currently 24 consecutive months)', while 1-O was for a 'conscientious objector to all military service. A registrant must establish to the satisfaction of the board that his request for exemption from combatant and noncombatant military training and service in the Armed Forces is based upon moral, ethical or religious beliefs which play a significant role in his life and that his objection to participation in war is not confined to a particular war. The registrant is still required to serve in civilian alternative service'.  So it looks as though someone would have initially been classified 1-O, then 1-W once he was assigned alternative service.

[RC-2017]

Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the Wikipedia page.

[0 kids n not countin]

6 hours ago, HereticHick said:

She is frantically content in her single season of life!

Just as Allison was, and will be the same as Allison when she marries. 🙄

[hollyandivy]

6 hours ago, 0 kids n not countin said:

Just as Allison was, and will be the same as Allison when she marries. 🙄

For her sake I hope she finds someone that she can actually be happy with so she doesn't have to pretend

[JermajestyDuggar]

6 minutes ago, hollyandivy said:

For her sake I hope she finds someone that she can actually be happy with so she doesn't have to pretend

I hope it’s not a Helferich! 3 Bontrager Helferich pairings are enough!

[Katzchen24]

1 hour ago, hollyandivy said:

For her sake I hope she finds someone that she can actually be happy with so she doesn't have to pretend

 

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I hope it’s not a Helferich! 3 Bontrager Helferich pairings are enough!

And not another Bont/Bowers match either.