Ora Troyer: Steward of His Community's History

by Dennis Stoesz

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In April of 1990, I had the opportunity to visit Fairview, Michigan. The invitation came from a long-time and senior member of the community, Ora Troyer. After some twenty years of collecting and compiling information on the history of the community, Troyer had decided to deposit a bulk of his materials at the Archives of the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Historical Library in Goshen, Indiana. This led me to become acquainted with Troyer by telephone and correspondence. I also learned some of the story of the community as seen through the eyes of the archival materials Troyer sent to Goshen. This in turn led to Troyer's invitation to see the community first hand.

The migration of the Amish and Amish-Mennonites to this northern part of Michigan occurred at the turn of this century. The land had been cleared of timber by the lumber companies in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and now the companies were encouraging people to buy and settle the land. First, Amish migrants from Indiana and Ohio arrived in Oscoda county. Soon the Amish-Mennonites from Kokomo and Nappanee, Indiana, followed, settling generally west of the Amish settlements. By 1914, the Amish began moving out of the area, while the Amish-Mennonites had by then established the Fairview Mennonite Congregation (1904). The General Conference Mennonite congregation at Comins was started in the early 1920s.

One of Troyer's first projects, after retiring as a mechanic from the Highway Department of Michigan in 1969, was to map the settlements of the Amish. Troyer, himself, has Amish roots. His parents, Emanuel S. and Sarah (Miller) Troyer, were Amish from Lagrange County, Indiana, who had moved to the Fairview area in 1914. Troyer did not restrict his research to the Fairview, Oscoda County, area, but also researched the Luce, Ogemaw, Midland, and Alpena Counties in Michigan. Much of this research was published in Family Life, an Amish paper from Aylmer, Ontario.

Troyer was also interested in the general history of the community: the lumber companies, the once-rich network of railroads used to transport the lumber, the land deals, the saw-mills, the various locations of the hub of the community --"the post-office," the development of the roads and highways (which his father and he had helped build), the years and locations of the various schools in the area, and the various churches. This led him to research several of these topics. For example, he interviewed Stanley Marsh, an old-time lumberjack. As a result, Troyer constructed small wooden replicas of equipment once used by the logging camps. He donated these museum pieces to a local Christian camp, Camp Barakel, where they are on display to help orient children to the rich logging heritage of the area.

Wood-working has been yet another retirement highlight for Troyer. For several years running he built a standing grandfather clock for auction at the Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale held at Fairview each year.

Seemingly there was strong local historical interest in the upper peninsula during the 1970s and 80s. The local Oscoda County history, Oscoda County, 1881, was written in the mid-1970s by members of the Au Sable River Valley Historical Association. The local newspaper, Oscoda County News, celebrated its centennial in 1981, and carried several feature articles on the Amish and Mennonites. A local magazine, Wilderness Chronicle, edited by local resident and writer, Nelson Yoder, was begun in the mid-1980s. It has featured many historical articles on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Steiner Museum, located just two miles north of Fairview, houses many artifacts and photographs of the area, and features a reconstructed school building. Troyer collected many of these clippings and books as he pursued his historical interests.

Troyer also was interested in his own family history. He has a 1934 Head Tax Receipt from his father, from the Depression days, as well as a World War II War Ration book. Troyer has retained pictures of when he attended the Special Bible Term at Goshen College, January-February, 1928. He has also collected genealogies of the Troyers, the Hershbergers, and the Detweilers.

During his retirement, Troyer has also taken the time to write a short autobiography (29 pages, typescript). Another long-time member of the community and friend of Troyer's, Oren Detweiler, wrote a biographical sketch of Troyer, Around and Around the Hill, published in the early 1980s.

Another of Troyer's projects has been to continue to research and write about the Amish-Mennonites and about the history of the Fairview Mennonite Congregation. In the 1920s Troyer married Freda Kauffman, who came from this Fairview group. It was in the early 1920s that Troyer had also transferred his membership from the Conservative Mennonite Church at Au Gres, Michigan, to Fairview. Research into the history of the Fairview congregation began in earnest for Troyer when the congregation began talking about having a history of their church written. The congregation celebrated their 75th anniversary in 1979, and published a short history and pictorial directory, but there was interest in having a more complete story written.

At the time of my visit to Fairview in April, 1990, the Fairview History Book Committee had an almost-completed manuscript in hand. In a supper meeting arranged by Troyer, I had the privilege of meeting the committee: Beverly Friend, MaryLou Green, Genevieve Troyer, Norma Troyer, Virgil Hershberger (the minister of the Fairview congregation), and Ora Troyer. It was with interest that I heard of the ups and downs of publishing a book: from research to writing, to putting the manuscript on computer, to editing the book, to writing an introduction, to finding photographs, to having more meetings, and then finally to finding a printer.

It was then during the 1980s, while working on the history of the church, that Troyer uncovered and collected many historical documents on the church. Among them were the church record book, 1904-1917; secretary's reports, 1919-1921; assorted correspondence and reports, 1912-1961; Michigan Mennonite Bible School records held at Fairview, 1946-1966; documents from the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1954; church bulletins, 1954-1989; records of the new church building dedication of 1960-1961; church constitutions; and the 75th anniversary booklet of the church, 1979.

Another valuable historical work forwarded to the Archives is the Autobiography of Menno Esch, 1879-1967 (52 pages). Esch served as minister and then bishop at Fairview from 1906-1952. Troyer also discovered a short unpublished biography of Eli A. Bontrager, who served the church as minister from 1904-1916. Other short unpublished papers on the history of the church include Lillie Esch (1929), Clyde O. Troyer (1959), Regina Kauffman (1965) and Sherm Kauffman (1972).

During the mid-1980s, Clarence Troyer published story of The Mennonite Church in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Evangel Press, Nappanee, Indiana). Although Fairview was located in the lower peninsula, it too had sent workers up to the peninsula churches at Manclona and Wellington, and initiated its own mission outreaches, like Sunnyside, located just north of Comins.

In the late 1980s, Troyer along with a company of volunteers visited the Mennonite Historical Library at Goshen College. They came to page through the many issues of the Herald of Truth and the Gospel Herald in search of any published reports and articles about the Fairview community. These articles were photocopied and became source material for writing the congregational history. It was partially this visit to Goshen that led Troyer to consider placing his collection of historical materials in the Archives of the Mennonite Church.

Researching the congregation's history raised new reflections on the burning of the church building in 1918 by pro-war neighbors. The History Committee wondered how best to write about this World War I incident. Troyer had gathered some information on this event. Other material had been preserved by court records housed at the State Archives of Michigan in Lansing, resulting from an investigation of the burning. Troyer had provided important information about this hostile act against the Mennonites of Fairview to Gerlof D. Homan, Professor of History at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. Homan has written several articles on the Mennonite experience in World War I, and published an article on the Fairview situation in the April 1990 issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review. Homan has since published his book, American Mennonites and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Herald Press, 1994).

Finally, by the spring of 1990, the History Book Committee had a manuscript on the Fairview Mennonite Church in hand. In September I heard that the first published copy of the book, Fairview Mennonite Church: A Congregational History, was auctioned off at the Northern Michigan Relief Sale, August 4, 1990. Troyer signed and donated copies of the history to the Mennonite Historical Library and to the Archives of the Mennonite Church.

The book is 266 pages in length. In the portion of the volume that Troyer wrote, he took the history from its beginnings, to 1960. In it he included much of the Anabaptist, Amish, Amish-Mennonite and family and community history in which he was so well versed. He dedicated the book to his wife, Freda, and to his children who gave to him the "commodities most needed by a writer: ...sympathy, respect, laughter and love."

Virgil Hershberger, the minister of the Fairview Congregation, then picked up the story from the sixties and concluded with a chapter on "The Nineties and Beyond." Hershberger provided several key challenges for the church: honoring the message of scripture, continuing sacrifice in the face of affluence, keeping unity in the midst of diversity, practicing evangelism, opening up long-standing friendship and family groupings, preparing and sending youth into service, dealing more effectively with conflict, maintaining a peace-church stance, promoting active prayer and faith, and renewing worship of God. Hershberger had succeeded Harvey Handrich in 1967, who had served as minister and then bishop of the Fairview congregation from 1946 to 1967. An introduction of the book by Genevieve Troyer, and three submissions by Ira Esch (Men's Service Organization), Velma Esch (Northern Michigan Relief Sale Report) and David Johnson (Camp Barakel) complete the book.

The book is a culmination of many years of work, especially on the part of Ora Troyer. His historical interests also led to the collection and preservation of many historical documents, which are now available for the public to use.

--Dennis Stoesz is archivist at the Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana.

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Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October, 1996