Inspiration to Others
Passing by your childhood home as we drove out Route 23, I recalled my weekend visit there in 1946. I could hear in memory the purring engine of your family’s DeSoto (I was jammed in the front seat next to the gearshift) on the way to church on Sunday morning. I remember your mother saying to one of your brothers, “Vit du raus geh mit die boys?” It showed me that “Dutch” was disappearing faster in your community than in mine, because we would still have said, “Vit du raus geh mit die boova?” (I see you do have the “bova” in your book.) It was quite a few years later before I joined your dad at meetings of the young EMALA, and shared our mutual interest in history. I skipped around in the Red Notebook section, but followed through in the “Narratives” part, especially pp. 182-251, where many names and events rang bells of memory or recognition. In this and the rest of the book you have rendered a son’s tribute and witness to your family both spiritually and socially. How many another family would have loved to have someone in their ranks to fulfill this possibility! At sixteen we already had our ideas about what was important in life. In some things we gave our parents joy, and in others, concern. Now, as grandparents ourselves, we sympathize with our own parents’ feelings, and hold them in respect, as you do in your book.

Like Being at a Family Gathering
I enjoyed reading "Plow, Pulpit, People" this week. Uncle Paul’s conversational style came through… I felt like I was sitting through many a family gathering and re-hearing stories long gone by.

Job Well Done
Uncle Paul,
A job well done!
I just completed a reading of "Plow, Pulpit, People: We Called him Pop." Thank you for this labor of love and for this treasure trove of faith and family legacy writing! I have a lot of great memories from the Rt. 23 Kurtz Farm.

Shalom,
Michael

A Son's Tribute
He spent 25 years of work detailing the life of his father Christian J. Kurtz. This book tells the story of a local Amish father, farmer, ordained minister at Conestoga Amish Mennonite Church in Morgantown, Pa., and a Berks and Lancaster County, Pa., Amish historian.
The book contains the entirety of Pop’s "Red Notebook" with the genealogy of “The Four Kurtz Brother Immigrants.” Included are his daily detailed records, notes, receipts of farms sales and supplies, sketching and maps of the town and surrounding areas, wills, old photos, the comings and goings of the early Morgantown village’s buildings and shops, as well as the changes of House Amish, Church Amish, and Mennonites.
The book also reveals how the advent of technology and changes in American culture through education and wars did or did not alter the simple life and devout faith of the Anabaptists’ fathers who came to Pennsylvania from Switzerland and Germany.

Puzzle Completed
In 1995, I made a promise to my father Christian J. Kurtz to publish the story of his life and his “Red Notebook.” Now in 2020, the 250th anniversary of the village of Morgantown, Pa., I have finally had the time to complete all these years of Pop’s puzzle. Since my childhood I have been picking up the pieces of Pop’s puzzle, assembling pieces of his life, fitting them together…the pieces begin with Ulrich Kurtz born in 1610, in Rosenbach, Switzerland.
Pop juggled his role as father, preacher, farmer—faith was foremost, he traveled the country preaching and seeded many churches through his missions. I want people to read this book and understand my father and his faith and how he has passed it on to us and the children. This is also a book for the ages, with all the photos for the children to learn from and understand the faith and life of the ancestors before them.