Mennonite Ancestors

[Haystack]

There IS a fairly high incidence of vision problems in my own family background. One of my older brothers had to have glasses at 5 years old, and I started not long after that age. One of my aunts had cataracts already in her 20s. I also heard already many years ago that the Hutterites tend to have a lot of vision problems as well. Traditionally there were only 8 different family names in the Hutterite colonies, so you are looking at a very limited gene pool. I don't know if that has changed at all since then (the 60s), but there are also various physical disorders that are more common among the Amish than in the general population, like dwarfism, for example.

I was researching a blood disorder I got from my mothers side of the family (Swiss) and found it occurs in some Mennos/Amish. I'm wondering if that's where I got my colorblindness from too.

[Jess77]

I'm wondering if that's where I got my colorblindness from too.

As a total aside, have you tried the glasses that correct colorblindness?

[ohio jones]

For comparison to the OP, here is a photo of a young unspectacled Mennonite woman of Swiss origin taken around 1920, give or take a year or two.

[Jess77]

For comparison to the OP, here is a photo of a young unspectacled Mennonite woman of Swiss origin taken around 1920, give or take a year or two.

May I share that pic with the group? Also, the lady in that pic and one someone else posted above seem to be wearing cape dresses. Do you know when those started to be consistently worn?

[Haystack]

I'm wondering if that's where I got my colorblindness from too.

As a total aside, have you tried the glasses that correct colorblindness?

I haven't tried the glasses. I think I would be questioning colors even more so than I do now since I wouldn't always have glasses on. I've learned to see colors the way my eyes see them, which is good enough for me even if my perception isn't as accurate. I can usually get pretty close to guessing a color, but if there's multiple colors with close hues (for example blue and purple), I can narrow it down to the colors, but I have a hard time determining which color is which. Another thing is there's different types of colorblindness and the glasses for my type would have to be dark tinted which means they're not practical for inside/night time use.

[Szdfan]

For comparison to the OP, here is a photo of a young unspectacled Mennonite woman of Swiss origin taken around 1920, give or take a year or two.

May I share that pic with the group? Also, the lady in that pic and one someone else posted above seem to be wearing cape dresses. Do you know when those started to be consistently worn?

I believe it was the late 19th, early 20th century as part of the fundamentalist backlash against modernism that was going on in the more conservative parts of the Mennonite Church.

[Ken]

For comparison to the OP, here is a photo of a young unspectacled Mennonite woman of Swiss origin taken around 1920, give or take a year or two.

May I share that pic with the group? Also, the lady in that pic and one someone else posted above seem to be wearing cape dresses. Do you know when those started to be consistently worn?

I believe it was the late 19th, early 20th century as part of the fundamentalist backlash against modernism that was going on in the more conservative parts of the Mennonite Church.

Judging from the photos in our family albums it was more like the 1930s. In the 1920s and before most of the photos show pretty mainstream dress. After that we start seeing more cape dresses, straight coats and such. But maybe that was just my family. But also I think there were almost as many different threads of "Mennonite" as today so it is probably difficult to generalize except for the large mainstream groups.

[Szdfan]

May I share that pic with the group? Also, the lady in that pic and one someone else posted above seem to be wearing cape dresses. Do you know when those started to be consistently worn?

I believe it was the late 19th, early 20th century as part of the fundamentalist backlash against modernism that was going on in the more conservative parts of the Mennonite Church.

Judging from the photos in our family albums it was more like the 1930s. In the 1920s and before most of the photos show pretty mainstream dress. After that we start seeing more cape dresses, straight coats and such. But maybe that was just my family. But also I think there were almost as many different threads of "Mennonite" as today so it is probably difficult to generalize except for the large mainstream groups.

I remember reading in Albert Keim's biography about H.S. Bender that it happened earlier than the 1930's. Eastern Mennonite College (University) was founded in 1917 and required cape dress and headcovering at that time.

[Ken]

I believe it was the late 19th, early 20th century as part of the fundamentalist backlash against modernism that was going on in the more conservative parts of the Mennonite Church.

Judging from the photos in our family albums it was more like the 1930s. In the 1920s and before most of the photos show pretty mainstream dress. After that we start seeing more cape dresses, straight coats and such. But maybe that was just my family. But also I think there were almost as many different threads of "Mennonite" as today so it is probably difficult to generalize except for the large mainstream groups.

I remember reading in Albert Keim's biography about H.S. Bender that it happened earlier than the 1930's. Eastern Mennonite College (University) was founded in 1917 and required cape dress and headcovering at that time.

That could be. I'm just judging from the family photos. My grandparents and great grandparents looked pretty modern up into the 1920s and didn't turn visibly conservative Menno until about the 1930s. For example, this is the 1909 wedding photo of my great great grandparents in Belleville PA of Swiss German Menno stock. Nothing about this photo jumps out at me as "Menno" Of course each family follows its own trajectory that may not match the larger trends.

[ohio jones]

For comparison to the OP, here is a photo of a young unspectacled Mennonite woman of Swiss origin taken around 1920, give or take a year or two.

May I share that pic with the group? Also, the lady in that pic and one someone else posted above seem to be wearing cape dresses. Do you know when those started to be consistently worn?

Yes to the first question and no to the second. The use of the cape varied by community (in the above case, Lancaster area) and congregation or conference. Whether it was required or just customary also varied by time period.