Though I was born, raised, and schooled in the far western corner of Kansas just east of Liberal, I always knew that I was an Oklahoman. I was in Kansas by virtue of the fluke of my parents’ purchase of land north of the border, the land they had found to buy while they lived in the little Mennonite community of Turpin in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Virtually no one else in our church farmed in Kansas. My parents had moved from Clinton in central Oklahoma a year before I was born—to Turpin where my father’s oldest brother lived. Early in my parents’ marriage in the late 1940s, they, like so many other post-war newlyweds, were seeking opportunity. Our lives revolved around Friedensfeld, our little Turpin, Oklahoma Mennonite Church, and our extended family—twelve sets of uncles and aunts, grandparents, great-grandparents—all of whom lived in Oklahoma. I had always been especially interested in my central Oklahoma family and their lives along the Washita River on Oklahoma’s red soil—as well as their Cheyenne and Arapaho neighbors. When our family returned there to visit and drove along Clinton’s Main Street where both my parents had worked, they would point to old chiefs in their long braids wrapped in blankets and sitting on benches in the sun—and try to remember their names. They reviewed the names they knew from school or church—like Heap of Birds. I remember sitting in the back seat of our green Mercury and wondering how life might be different if one had a name with a literal referent like "heap of birds." My father died young in the 1970s. I settled in central Kansas, where I taught college English at my alma mater, Bethel College. Years later, in the 1990s, I found myself going back to central Oklahoma to Corn for funerals. My father’s siblings were buried at the Bergthal Mennonite Church cemetery. I remember standing under the Oklahoma sky as Reverend Lawrence Hart from Clinton conducted my Aunt Ruth’s burial service. The recitation of familiar Bible passages over my Aunt Ruth’s open grave by the famous Cheyenne Peace Chief, Reverend Lawrence H. Hart, was a moment of recognition for me. These two peoples—the immigrant Mennonites and the relocated Cheyennes—had shared a life in Oklahoma. As a Mennonite minister, Reverend Hart felt like a part of the family. I went home and wrote the following poem after Aunt Ruth’s burial. I see now that it was the beginning of this book. Chief Hart’s commencement address a few years later at Bethel College actually launched my research.
I offer my sincere thanks to Lawrence and Betty Hart for giving me so many hours of their time, for letting me into their lives, for sharing their stories. I appreciated the helpful suggestions of C. Henry Smith series editor J. Denny Weaver and the reviewers who read this manuscript as well as the work of Michael A. King, publisher, Cascadia Publishing House. I wish to thank my mother and sister, who encouraged this work. My deepest thanks goes to my husband Doug who, as president of Bethel College, invited Hart to speak at commencement. Later, when I began this research, Doug listened, advised, traveled with me, and even read an early draft when I needed that. His support and encouragement have been invaluable. Searchiong for Sacred Ground orders:
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