Mennonite, A Bonnet and a Motorcycle

By Marlene Joyce

"Mennonite, a Bonnet and a Motorcycle" allows you to step into the lives of a young Mennonite girl and and her fiance. They have fallen in love. He is a young doctor who is not of the faith; he wants her to go away with him to set up a medical practice. They must leave the Mennonite community. Her break from the church will most surely be a cause for shunning by the church members as well as her family. Yes, it was unthinkable to cause her family the pain.

It was with very little announcement that they escaped the Mennonite community on a motorcycle, roaring away to a Baptist church to get married where they proceeded to Alsop, Michigan to begin married life.

She loved the feeling of abandon on the motorcycle. Her bonnet ribbons blew in the wind; her long skirts were raised above the knees!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483598178

Book preview

History

Prologue

Why They Choose to Become Mennonites

The Mennonite way is simple. Giving up worldly things allows time for thought, prayer, and meditation. What we seek is already within us and to still our thoughts allows us to connect with the Divine. This connection leads to an amazing and miraculous awareness of the limitless power of the Divine. The Holy Christian Bible tells us how to best live our lives. Follow the Bible to find your happiness and success in business and in relationships. The story is written by one who has lived the life as a child in a Mennonite home. This story is a novel.

CHAPTER 1

The Escape

In every woman’s life, there is a time for everything that she may want to do. Kick, start! They were off—no time to think, no time to cry. The wind pulled at her bonnet with ribbons flying in the wind. The winds were refreshing on her face. She lived for the moment of freedom and pleasure; sitting on the back of the motorcycle, her arms held tightly around the young cyclist in front. She let go from time to time, throwing her arms in the air, feeling a rush of abandon.

Her long skirts were hard to manage. The best bet for safety was to pull them above her knees. And she did just that for the first time in her life, giving her modesty to the wind. The wind tore her bonnet, threatening to blow it away despite the ribbons tied under her chin. This was an unlikely set of circumstances — for who in the world would want to ride a motorcycle wearing such garb.

They roared away from her childhood home by taking a shortcut to the main highway over what the family called the old mud road. It was a ride to their well-packed, good Ohio farmland, as they rode on a path through a small odd-shaped field where buckwheat grew. The field was irregularly shaped bordering the banks of a winding creek.

The creek overflowed in the spring leaving rich sediment on flooded fields. The fields produced abundant buckwheat blossoms that fed the bees housed in wooden hives. The hives had been white- washed and were a product of her father’s woodworking skills. Mennonite farmers were self-sufficient, rarely calling upon anyone for anything at all, except perhaps their families and the Mennonite brethren.

Elana distanced herself from her farm life and what had been an enveloping environment where she had grown up. They had all loved her — be it parents, brother and sisters, grandparents, and the many aunts, uncles, as well as cousins that she could easily name.

***

Elana matured to a beautiful young woman with desires for romance and marriage. When she was old enough to know her own mind, her father invited her to become a member of the Mennonite Church. This was a very serious decision to make because it enveloped a lifestyle of pure thought and right action that her parents and relatives followed. She had grown up in the Mennonite community and, therefore, she knew little of the outside world.

As she was contemplating this invitation for church membership, she began to remember a wild streak in herself, which was little more than disobeying her father’s wishes for a disciplined, quiet household where even the parents did not raise voices to their children. Sometimes, Elana loved to dance, trying to mimic a ballerina as she moved across the living room floor, in a grand style. Dancing was forbidden in her family, and she carefully chose these times when her parents were out of sight. There were other things as well. She sometimes became annoyed with people walking in paths of passive righteousness. It was so bland with little emotion. There was no display of anger. The issues of self-discipline extended to the joyful times that were quietly celebrated but not in any way that would be raucous. Oh, how she longed to cut loose while playing and having fun with her brother and sisters! She really wanted to be loud and lusty.

While still in high school with another year to go, Elana reverently made the choice to become baptized in the Mennonite church. At that time, she did not give much thought to being an Anabaptist. That word came later in her farm life as she studied the history of the Mennonites. She wanted to become an adult member of the community in which she had been born.

She went to a public high school that both Amish and Mennonite students, as well as the students from the outside community, attended. It was usual to see young women wearing long skirts in the high school. Elana chose to focus on business courses, typing, bookkeeping, and business arithmetic. It would prepare her for employment up until the time she would be married. After graduating, she was interviewed by local businesses and was eventually hired by a law firm.

It was customary in this community of Amish and Mennonites for young women to continue wearing long skirts to their workplace. They were treated with utmost respect and were exemplary employees with impeccable work habits. Known to be thrifty and hardworking, the brethren and their families were tirelessly industrious perhaps because they had few distractions. Forsaking the ways of the world, they did not have any television in their homes; however, some had radios.

The law firm where she worked provided legal services for the families in the farming community, often settling estates upon the death of landowners and others in this rural area. Elana was acquainted with a number of the clients and their families. Small farming communities are places where people have known one another for generations.

Mennonite parents directed children into courtship and marriage, often turning to Canada and the Mennonites who had settled there. This was, of course, a decision to prevent intermarriage within the local Mennonite community. At this distance between Ohio and Canada, it was assumed that marriages would be prearranged. This practice often eliminated courtship and making decisions about one’s life partner. Mennonites married Mennonites. However, there were some cases where a couple met before making the decision to join the church.

Elana met Zach, a person she became seriously attracted to, in the law office where she worked. He had come for legal counsel concerning the fertile farmland owned by his father and mother. Both had passed away, the most recent being his father who had succumbed to a heart