The Rise of the Sundae School / 11 1

A later division occurred in 1883 among the Walnut Grove and Oak Grove churches. A seceding group arose and asked the Indiana Amish Mennonite bishops to organize them into a congregation. Bishop Eli Miller of the Clinton Frame congregation in Elkhart County, Indiana, accordingly ordained Samuel Detweiler as minister, and in 1888 the congregation became a part of the Indiana Amish Mennonite Conference. They organized an English Sunday school which met at Oak Grove and Walnut Grove on alternate Sundays.' By 1894 the Oak Grove Sunday school conducted by the "Miller" or "Detweiler" people (as they were called) died out, as did the one at Walnut Grove ten years later. A number of the Walnut Grove members united with the Methodist and Christian churches. Some became a part of the Bethel Mennonite congregation which was started at West Liberty in 1895. This congregation had its nucleus in a dozen young people who refused to unite with the church in the late eighties because their petition for an English Sunday school class was denied. They had been converted at a series of meetings in the South Union Church conducted by Bishop John F. Funk. Interestingly enough they were baptized in a stream in Allen County where they united with the Salem Mennonite Church. After visiting ministers conducted English services for them for some years in the South Union Church, and in private homes, they built the Bethel Church in 1895 and joined the Ohio Mennonite Conference.

Thus the Sunday school in Logan and Champaign counties
made its way amidst a shifting scene of language transitions and
changing customs." There were built-in doubts about the value of the
Sunday school, and before it was generally accepted it had to prove
itself. In time it did just this. About 1895 the Sunday school became
"evergreen" or year-round in operation; previously it had been con
ducted only in the summer months. The use of the English language
became more common after 1895, though as late as 1924 a German
Sunday school class was still conducted at the South Union Church.
Disunity gave way to greater unity as time went on. David
Plank, the ardent promoter of Sunday schools, became a bishop in
1895 and he served both Walnut Grove and South Union. A. I.
Yoder who was installed in 1911 at South Union to succeed David
Plank continued to serve both congregations. In 1932 after Yoder's
death S. E. Allgyer became bishop of South Union, Oak Grove, and
Bethel. Distance had diminished, the old divisions had faded, and