Son of Peter and Barbara (Sprunger) Lehmann, born in Musterburg or Sous Le Rouchet, Obt. Moutier, Switzerland; Died in the old home place, Monible Mill, Jura, Canton Bern, Switzerland.
From Bern to Berne by George D. McClain:
1858: The Lehmann-Neukomm Family begins
Life goes on for those back in Switzerland. ........... And of particular interest to us, Barbara and Peter's son Abraham M. Lehmann, marries Maria Anna Neukomm. The setting for our great-grandparents' wedding is a farmhouse. In this region farms have long had names; the name of the farm where this wedding takes place is called Ecote. This farm, with rocky, resistant soil, is near the small village of Glovelier (in German, Lietingen), primarily known for lumber trade and located in the district of Delemont (Delsberg in German). Both of them bear family names which have been in the Anabaptist tradition since at least 1527 in the case of Neukomm/Nukum, and before 1566 in the case of Lehmann.
In the 1670's Barbara Neukomm fled for her life from Bern to the German Palatinate. Maria Anna (or sometimes called Marianna) Neukomm, was born on September 14, 1833, to Johann Neukomm (the Neukomm family stemming from the village of Eggiwil in the Emmental) and Anna Lehmann (no known relation), also of Eggiwil.
This marriage takes place on February 20, 1858, presided over by an elder in the religious tradition of the Swiss Mennonites. Abraham has just turned 22; Maria Anna is 24. They locate at the Sous le Rochet farm on the Munsterberg, 2 kilometers north of the village of Souboz and 2 kilometers southwest of Soulce. The farm lies at an altitude of 944 meters, or about 3,000 feet, in mountainous terrain of the beautiful Jura mountains.
1876: A growing family in a changing Jura
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is now living at Bevent, a farm close to the village of Courtetelle. Courtetelle itself is only a few kilometers from Delemont (which they call Delsberg in German), a small city and a good market for milk and eggs. The Bevent farm lies on a level plain, with limestone cliffs across the road and the River Sorne to the rear. The sturdy two-story farmhouse with a barn attached has plenty of room for the growing family.
The three older girls, Emma Elise, 16, Bertha Dina, 14, and Maria Leah, 13, are relied upon a great deal to care for the younger children. These include the three older boys, Benjamin, 11, David, just turning 10, and Karl Heinrich, not quite nine, already having to help their father with the outside chores. Then come four more, the ones born here, Pauline Ida, seven, and Anna Carolina, just reaching five, and the little ones, Cleophas, just turning four, and Sara Rosina, going on three.
Mother Maria Anna is pregnant again, this being her 13th pregnancy in 16 years! On the 23rd of February, amidst the severe cold of a Jura winter, she gives birth to her 12th and last child, Emelie Mathilde.* And now, at age 42, the saving grace for Maria Anna is having the older children to pitch in with the care of the younger ones. All her organizational skills are needed to manage this brood.
Father Abraham bids farewell to his oldest sister, Elisabeth, 47, and her husband, Peter Habegger, 52, as the depart for the same Berne, Indiana, settlement where Abraham's half-brothers and half-sisters had settled in 1852. Also leaving, of course are the Habegger children........The major reason for going has to do with the military conscription law just enacted in 1875, which does not provide any further exemption for Mennonite young men. .........
The coming of the railroads and the improvement in roads are bringing major new influences into the life of the Mennonite communities. The building of railroads in the Jura, soon to be complete, connects the Jura to the rest of Switzerland, to France, and indeed to all of Europe and heralds dramatic changes. Travel with distant places can be accomplished with relative ease. Evangelists with different approaches have easy access to the Jura communities. Mail service is becoming much more efficient. Where earlier Swiss Anabaptists were described as typically people with just three books - the Froschauer Bible, the Martyrs Mirror account of early Anabaptist persecution, and the noteless Ausbund hymnal, now periodicals and books of all kinds are becoming available. The traditional simplicity of life is being challenged by the onslaught of new ideas, new fashions and new travel possibilities.
Another change has to with the increasing degree of religious toleration. As the authorities grudgingly practice greater religious toleration, Mennonites more and more participate, though quite selectively, in civil society. They begin to vote in elections, for instance. At the same time there is less and less inclination to grant them what was seen as the special privilege of exempting Mennonite young men from military service. The institution in 1875 of the military conscription of Mennonites is a source of great consternation to the Mennonite community.
Anabaptist religious life is also undergoing significant change. While the basic principles and devotional life associated with "Gelassenheit" or submission, tend to persist, another kind of piety is beginning to make inroads. Evangelicalism and revivalism are beginning to transform Anabaptist spirituality.
Revivalists, some Mennonite and some not, are beginning to make the rounds throughout the Jura, mirroring the revival preaching and gospel singing which is having such an impact in North America, including in Mennonite communities.
Where it takes root, revivalism is causing a certain shift in theological perspective. In the traditional Anabaptist/Mennonite spirit of "Gelassenheit," believers had been reluctant to speak of being sure of their salvation. This seemed immodest. God was simply to be trusted in such matters.
But, revivalism increasingly is raising the question of one's personal salvation, and whether one can be certain of it. Further, revivalism's emphasis upon personal salvation bespeaks a new focus on the individual rather than the community. The concern and desire personally to know, control, plan, and believe regarding one's relation to God reflects the profound impact of modern individualism upon religious life.
Nowhere are the changes in Mennonite life brought by this revivalistic piety more evident than in the hymns being sung.
Alongside traditional hymns of the Ausbund hymnal, sung without written notation, are also gospel songs, with written notes, sung to sprightly melodies and emphasizing evangelism, personal conversion and personal salvation.
1880: Life at the Monible Mill
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is settling in on the new farm they moved to just the year before. Never mind that the French-speaking folks in the area resent the Mennonites for moving around as much as they do. They are hopeful that this move from Bevent, their farm at Courtetelle, to one at Monible may be their last move for a long while.
With all the mouths to feed, Abraham and Maria Anna receive this opportunity as a gift of God, for the Monible property enables them to augment their modest farm income by operating a sawmill. The farm in fact is known about as Monible Mill, actually as "Moniebel Muhle" among the German-speaking Mennonites and as "Moulin de Monible" among the dominant population, which speaks French.
The Monible Mill and its accompanying farm land lie along the Sorne River, whose water powers the mill. It is situated in a valley between Monible, a small village of some dozen buildings on a plateau about 300 feet above the river, and Sornetan, a larger village on the hillside about 250 feet higher, where the parish church is.
A neighboring farm in the valley is named Planche Aux Boeufs, suggesting long time use as cattle grazing land. Here lives the Zingg family, among them their daughter Maria, a good friend of Mathilde.
Behind the mountain to the northwest lies the area's most dramatic natural feature, the Pichoux Gorge, or "Gorges du Pichoux." Here the Sorne River carves out a 700 to 800 foot deep gorge through the ridge of mountains, creating a spectacular sight that leaves a deep impression on all beholders. Outing to the Gorges du Pichoux - only two kilometers away are a special thrill for the Lehmann family.
The Lehmann-Neukomm house is an old stone one, with walls three feet thick, so wide that the children can lie on the window sills. The mill is connected to the house and so is the barn, with the living quarters above the barn benefiting from the warmth (and odors!) of the animals. To keep warm through the winter the children are sewn into their underwear from fall until spring. In the spring a laundry lady comes for two weeks to wash the winter's accumulation of laundry.
A holding pond of water from the river powers the saw mill. The mill has been there at least a century and half already and shows up on old maps. The attached farmland is call Neuf Clos, offering pasture for the animals.
In November Abraham Lehmann buys an adjacent tract called Tronchat (in Switzerland, all tracts of land seem to have a name). Abraham buys the land from Francois Louis Bandelier for 550 francs, getting a loan from the seller which obliges him to pay half the principle plus interest at 5% at the beginning of 1892 and the remainder plus interest a year later.
The road running along the Sorne River and past the mill comes from Bellelay and the old monastery in the west and continues to the east to Souboz and either Munster/Moutier or Delsberg/Delemont. On all sides rise mountains, only one to three kilometers away, which tower over Monible Mill by up to 1,000 feet. Daylight is scarce, especially in winter, and snow piles high.
This is good Mennonite territory: here they are part of an active congregation known as "Kleintal" (literally, "little valley"), embracing the communities of Monible, Sornetan, Chatelat, Moron, Lajoux, Souboz, and Saicourt. Among the Jura Mennonite congregations, Kleintal ranks as one of the three largest, with those of Sonnenberg and Munsterberg; and while the Kleintal congregation is down in number from the 147 members it had in the Mennonite census 50 years before, it is still of significant size. And it has its own Mennonite schooling for the children. The Kleintal congregation includes their close relatives, the Beers on Mont Tramelan, as well as the Gerbers from Furstenberg, the Nussbaums from right here in Monible, the Zinggs from the neighboring farm, Planche aux Boeufs, the Gerbers from Pres Vannes, and the Nussbaums from Cerniers, as well as more distant relatives or friends, such as the Liechtis at Reconvelier.
Revivalists visit their Kleintal Mennonite congregation, introducing greater emphasis on personal religion, and encouraging gospel singing. The family enjoys singing from a couple of gospel hymn books which 18-year-old daughter, Bertha Lehmann owns, with hymns such as "Come Home, Lost Child!" and "Wash Me Whiter than Snow." (These hymnals are treasured so highly that someday her daughter Rosine Oberli will take them with her to America and keep them for the rest of her life.)
The older girls are not only thinking about marriage, but also about a special kind of adventure which new modes of transportation and new horizons now make possible - namely, to work in the household of some distant well-to-do family which can afford live-in help. Bertha, now 19 years old, secures a copy of the latest how-to manual for household help, "Haushalt-Katechismus", literally, Household-Catechism. Published just the year before in Berlin, The "Haushalt-Katechismus" covers the subject thoroughly. In the first section Bertha and her sisters find a careful description of how to carry out the tasks of cooking, household work (cleaning, washing, serving, tending the heat stove), and personal service (dressing, child care, serving of food, care of the sick) for the householders. For instance, the "Dienstmadchen" is strongly advised that bluing should not be used in children's clothing as it might be harmful to their tender skin. Not preparing the fuel for the stove the night before is a sign of incompetence and carelessness ("Nachlassigkeit"). In part two of the "Household-Catechism" they find a discussion of the overall conduct and attitude of the employee toward the householders and any house guests, residents or family members. Part three tells Bertha how to seek employment, to dress and care for her personal space, and to manage her finances, and to terminate employment. There is even instruction in what to do with one's free Sunday afternoons. After attending church one should visit with a trustworthy woman friend, or better yet, a family, or write letters (unless householders have need of her). Above all, however, one must avoid dance halls, where many a young woman has been led astray.
As the Lehmann-Neukomms put their roots down in Monible, they share in the new anxiety of Mennonites about maintaining their religious freedom in relation to military service. The new federal constitution of Switzerland, adopted in 1875, states that each male citizen, without exception, is liable for military service.
Before then, Mennonites could pay a special tax as an alternative to military service, enabling them, with financial sacrifice, to be true to their faith and its non-resistant principles against bearing of arms. Now in 1880, with their three boys now 14, 13, and 11 and quickly approaching draft age, this is of deepening concern to the family.
Together with the rest of the Mennonite community, they observe the principles of thrift, hard work, simplicity and trust in God. The children are maturing, with work, church and school the center of their lives. Schooling for the children is provided for eight grades. The lower grades are offered in French in their home village of Monible. For the seventh and eighth grades they have a longer hike of about two to three kilometers to Bellelay to a Mennonite school conducted in German with tuition required.
Bellelay is famous for its 18th century Baroque monastery buildings. This site was occupied by the Premonstatensian religious order from 1136 to 1797, when the monastery was closed by Napoleon. The priests of Bellelay were believed to hold the secret for making Monk's head cheese. Some buildings have been converted to a psychiatric hospital. Children are fascinated with the ruins of the old monastery and love to explore them. Sometimes from their home several kilometers away, the Lehmanns can hear the mental patients screaming.
The Lehmann-Neukomm children, like children everywhere, get into an occasional altercation. One time Rosi took a plug of her father's chewing tobacco out of the cupboard and danced around, threatening to chew it; chasing her, one of the siblings by accident pushed her into the pit of liquid manure by the barn, which could have had a very serious outcome.
It is important for the children to learn the skills necessary for operating a farm and home, and they are put to work at as early an age as possible. Tasks are divided up by gender; farm work for the boys; house work, gardening, and home crafts for the girls. Karl dislikes helping take the wagon up the mountain with his father and brothers to cut timber for sawing at their water-powered sawmill. Sometimes the sides of the mountains are so steep they have to put chains on the wheels to keep the wagon from slipping down the slope of the mountain.
Mealtime is quite disciplined and father Abraham serves the food for everyone. A frequent meal is cabbage and potatoes with a hunk of fat on top for seasoning.
The children are expected to eat the fat too, but protest. Sometimes there are also lettuce, turnips, peas, carrots, beans, onions or pumpkins from the garden which the girls and Maria Anna tend. Chicken is served once in awhile, while butter is reserved for those infrequent times when guests are present.
They grow some mint for tea and drink beer or wine with their meals or when they work in the fields. They eat more meat than most families because Abraham helps other households butcher and gets a portion in exchange for his help.
1883: A major decision is made
School, work, and church continue to dominate the life of the family. Mathilde, the youngest, is now in the Monible school, where Arist Bassin is her teacher. She learns to sew and embroider, like all her older sisters, and begins work on her own sampler. The overarching question for the family is how to deal with the troublesome threat of military service for Benjamin, David and Karl. Will they seek to evade by subterfuge, as have some, by cutting off a trigger finger, or sending a crippled man pretending to be a draftee? Will they cross over into Alsace, France, and wait until they are no longer liable for military service? Or what?
Much thought and agony goes into the decision. Finally, as the eldest son, Benjamin reaches 18, it is decided that he and his two brothers, David, 17 and Karl, 16, will go to America. They immediately think of the community of Mennonites in Adams County, Indiana, now called Berne, where seven of their aunts and uncles, both Sprungers and Lehmanns, had emigrated 30 years before.
Certainly these aunts and uncles and their children, the boys' cousins, can be counted on to help them get settled.
For instance, one of the boys' cousins is Rev. S.F. Sprunger, now 44 years old, the pastor who has been so instrumental in building the Munsterberg congregation into the First Mennonite Church of Berne, and is destined to become the largest Mennonite congregation in North America. Selected as pastor at 19, but insisting he be allowed to attend Wadsworth Seminary first, der Sam has brought an unprecedented life and spirit of unity to the Berne church. However, with it come many changes that have drawn the congregation away from what was basically Bernese Anabaptist and moved toward the direction of evangelical denominations. These changes include less attention to submission, simplicity and resisting worldliness; wearing of fashionable clothing, less emphasis on non-resistance; use of photography; and the introduction of the Sunday School, gospel music, and revivalism in the style of evangelists Dwight L. Moody and William Spurgeon.
Meanwhile the founding in 1882 of a Swiss Mennonite bi-monthly "Zionspilger" ("Zion's Pilgrim") is introducing similar changes in Switzerland, but at a slower pace.
Abraham Lehmann and Maria Anna Neukomm are somewhat comforted, and the same time saddened, as their oldest daughter, Emma, and her husband Christian Liechty, also decide to go to Indiana, along with their small children, Selena, four, Rosella Mina, almost two, and Christian, eight months, with another child, Bertha on the way.
The concerns of the family are shared with the relatives and friends in Berne and Jakob P. Habegger expresses interest in giving assistance.**..........
Prompted by the family connection and his own emigrant experience, J.P. Habegger steps forward with the necessary financial backing.
He sends tickets for the boys, which cost $45 each, covering third-class passage from LeHavre, France, on a ship with both sailing masts and steam engine.
What heavy hearts there are as the three Lehmann brothers, Benjamin, David and Karl, 18, 17, and 16 respectively, take leave of their parents once and for all - for the sake of free expression of their religious belief in non-resistance.
Also poignant are the good-byes shared with their sister Emma, her husband Christian and their little children - good-byes to last a lifetime.
Together the Lehman-Liechti band boards the train for Basel and continues on to the port city of Le Havre, France. From there they take the masted steamship to New York, traveling in steerage class.
The tin dishes they eat from fly across the room in the rough seas. At one point, Benjamin is thrown from his upper bunk onto the floor of their cabin.
Many passengers, especially children, take sick and die.
The sight of seeing the unfortunate victims strapped to boards and lowered into the sea is etched indelibly into the boys' memories.
In fear that the whales following the ship will knock it over with their tails, they throw their bananas and other food to distract them. (Several years later the ship will actually capsize and sink.)
The trip concludes with a train ride from New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio to Berne, Indiana.
Disembarking from the train on April 30, 1883, they are at once apprehensive about starting over in a totally new place, thankful that everyone made the voyage safely, and gratified, after hearing so many strange voices and tongues, to be greeted by cousins speaking their very own Bernese dialect.
The land seems awfully flat to them, though, and they can't help but feel somewhat homesick. The boys stay with their sponsor, J.P. Habegger, and it doesn't take long to begin to get settled. They find work right away as hired hands for farmers, including as help in threshing.
Back in the Jura, the Lehmann-Neukomm household feels so empty now without these three lively boys. And the empty space left by their emigration is all the more painful because they don't write much, and little Mathilde sees her mother Maria Anna tearfully read and re-read what little correspondence their is.
1888: More sisters emigrate to America
The biggest news of the Lehmann-Neukomm family this year is that two more of the sisters decide to join their brothers and sister in America.
Leah Lehmann, now 26, .......And the younger sister, Pauline, just 20***........
Left behind is 17-year-old Karolina, itching to go to America herself but having to wait a couple of years; also 16-year-old Cleophas; 15-year-old Rosina; and 14-year-old Mathilde.
Abraham and Maria Anna sit for a portrait, probably for the very first time in their lives, as photographs had until recently been considered too vain for serious Mennonites. The parents' portrait of 1888 shows Abraham in a simple dark coat and vest, though the vest does have a turned-down collar (which the Amish reject as too worldly.) He sports a bushy gray beard, but, like other Mennonite men, no mustache, as mustaches are associated with the military. Maria Anna wears a black dress, a black scarf, and a modest, close fitting cap which covers most of her hair, the exception being a band of an inch or two of combed hair in the front, parted of course, in the middle.
As the family diminishes in Switzerland, it grows in Indiana. On hand in Berne, Indiana, to meet the arriving party of Pauline Lehmann and Leah Lehmann Joss (soon to be Yoss) and her children are their sister Emma, 29, her husband Chris Liechty, 36, and their children, Selena, nine, Rosella Mina, seven, Christian, the younger, six, Benjamin, four, Bertha, three, (this may have been Bertha, three and Benjamin, four -cb) and newborn Ernest.
Word is that John A. Sprunger of Berne, Indiana, will return next year to the Jura, where he was born, to lead some evangelistic meetings among the Mennonites and evangelicals. Abraham and Maria Anna, as well as Mathilde, can't wait to talk to him for first-hand news of their kinfolk so far away.
With more of the immediate family leaving, their remaining friends and family are particularly dear to the Lehmann-Neukomms. They are especially grateful for the close proximity of Abraham's sister Anna, just two years his senior, her husband, Jakob Beer, and their six children, who live nearby on Mont Tramelan. The two couples had married and begun their families at about the same time, and their children enjoy being close to their first cousins.
1894: "I would have walked back"
With Karolina having also gone to America in 1890, four of the Lehmann sisters and three of the brothers have now relocated from Canton Bern to Berne, Indiana. Now this year Cleophas, 22, is the next to get caught up in the spirit of emigration and on April 1, 1894, he arrives in Berne to the warm welcome of his seven brothers and sisters.
In the meantime some of his aunts and uncles have returned to Berne from the Ozarks in Missouri, where the attempt to plant a successful church under uncle Rev. Peter S. Lehmann's leadership has simply failed. Among those returning are Christian Lehmann and his wife Magdalena, and Elisabeth Lehmann Schnegg (a widow since 1879).
There's been much excitement in the Kleintal congregation. On an August day in 1892 over 40 men from the congregation gathered stone, sand and wood (the later milled at the Lehmann sawmill, and in one day erected a meeting house, for use as a school and place of worship. Among the financial contributions to this major undertaking, costing some 7000 francs when eventually fully completed, were Abraham Lehmann, 50 francs, Paul Deroches, the teacher in Bellelay, 30 francs, the neighboring Sonnenberg Mennonite congregation, 500 francs, Abraham's brother-in-law Christian Amstutz, 60 francs, and his future brother-in-law Peter Bogli, 100 francs. There was also a contribution of 100 francs from abroad, actually from John A. Sprunger, the evangelist from Berne, Indiana, who had stirred many Jura Mennonites during his preaching tour three years ago.
Meanwhile, in the six years (1888-1894) since we last checked in with the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, the family continues to grow and expand, but not without its share of sorrows. Emma, the oldest, has lost two children in infancy, Albert in 1899 and Caroline in 1892. Bertha has been more fortunate and her three newborns all have survived; Pauline Gerber (1890), Joel Gerber (1892), and Robert Gerber (1893). Leah has Irene Olga Yoss, born 1891, and Blondine Sara Yoss, born 1894. Ben Lehmann and his wife Sarah, known as "'s Ben Sari," have given birth to Cordella Lehman (1890), Werner B. Lehman (1892) and Waldo M. Lehman (1893).
Deep sorrow comes to the whole family as mother Maria Anna, age 61, dies of breast cancer on November 24.
It is fortunate that Rosine and Mathilde are around the home place in Switzerland in those lonely months as all of them, and especially Abraham, adjust as best they can to life without their wife and mother.
1900: The clan multiplies
Looking in once more on the family another six years later, we find that 64-year-old father Abraham has remarried four years earlier to his widowed sister-in-law, Katharina Sommer Neukomm, now 59. She is the widow of Christian Neukomm, the brother of Maria Anna Neukomm, his wife of 36 years.
Abraham's heart rejoices to learn that his son Cleophas plans to come back to Switzerland for a three-month visit in the coming year. This is most unusual, for those who leave for America almost never return to visit. Abraham is overcome with anticipation to see his son again and to get a first-hand report on the whole family in America.
Abraham begins conversation with the veterinarian in nearby Fornet-dessous about buying from him a small piece of property that sits right in the middle of the Neuf Clos farm and it appears he'll be able to purchase it next year for some 250 francs.
The clan continues to multiply rapidly with new children and the number of Abraham's living grandchildren reaches a remarkable total....56 living grandchildren of the Abraham M. Lehman-Maria Anna Neukomm marriage, with 32 more to come.
1910: "You are so far, far from here"
By this time great-grandchildren to Abraham and Maria Anna are beginning to appear. Selena Liechty Mettler had the first two. The first was Edna Mettler, born in 1902. Then just after Selena's husband John Mettler died in late 1904, Pearl Mettler (1905-1906) was born, and sadly, lived less than two years. Selena remarries to Henry Liechty ("di Liechty Hennr") and they have Milton Liechty, another great-grandchild, in 1910.
Others have been completing their families and bringing to an end long years of child bearing.
The previous year, 1909 has been a sad one. Cleophas is still paralyzed and in pain from his fall. Then Abraham M. Lehmann, the father of the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, takes ill at the old home place, Monible Mill, and after a short illness dies on February 6, 1909, at home at the age of 73. The Mennonite elders join the mourning wife Katharina and family and friends in the home place, offering strength from above through these words from Psalm 90:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place for in all generations ...... Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
As his physical remains are laid to rest in Sornetan, just across the road and up the hill, most of his 11 surviving children, his 79 grandchildren and his two great-grandchildren are far away, unable to be there as the community's minister recites from the Book of Revelation:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." (Rev. 14:13)
Abraham's widow, his second wife, Katharina Sommer Neukomm Lehmann, will outlive her husband by three years.
*Willis Herr in his Sprunger Family history, lists Adele before Emelie Mathilde, and Alice after, giving Maria Anna and Abraham 14 pregnancies, and 14 children. Adele would make the 13 pregnancies McClain speaks of, Alice born later died at age 2.
**Jakob P. Habegger is the son of Abraham's sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter Habegger.
***she was actually only 18.
From Bern to Berne by George D. McClain:
1858: The Lehmann-Neukomm Family begins
Life goes on for those back in Switzerland. ........... And of particular interest to us, Barbara and Peter's son Abraham M. Lehmann, marries Maria Anna Neukomm. The setting for our great-grandparents' wedding is a farmhouse. In this region farms have long had names; the name of the farm where this wedding takes place is called Ecote. This farm, with rocky, resistant soil, is near the small village of Glovelier (in German, Lietingen), primarily known for lumber trade and located in the district of Delemont (Delsberg in German). Both of them bear family names which have been in the Anabaptist tradition since at least 1527 in the case of Neukomm/Nukum, and before 1566 in the case of Lehmann.
In the 1670's Barbara Neukomm fled for her life from Bern to the German Palatinate. Maria Anna (or sometimes called Marianna) Neukomm, was born on September 14, 1833, to Johann Neukomm (the Neukomm family stemming from the village of Eggiwil in the Emmental) and Anna Lehmann (no known relation), also of Eggiwil.
This marriage takes place on February 20, 1858, presided over by an elder in the religious tradition of the Swiss Mennonites. Abraham has just turned 22; Maria Anna is 24. They locate at the Sous le Rochet farm on the Munsterberg, 2 kilometers north of the village of Souboz and 2 kilometers southwest of Soulce. The farm lies at an altitude of 944 meters, or about 3,000 feet, in mountainous terrain of the beautiful Jura mountains.
1876: A growing family in a changing Jura
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is now living at Bevent, a farm close to the village of Courtetelle. Courtetelle itself is only a few kilometers from Delemont (which they call Delsberg in German), a small city and a good market for milk and eggs. The Bevent farm lies on a level plain, with limestone cliffs across the road and the River Sorne to the rear. The sturdy two-story farmhouse with a barn attached has plenty of room for the growing family.
The three older girls, Emma Elise, 16, Bertha Dina, 14, and Maria Leah, 13, are relied upon a great deal to care for the younger children. These include the three older boys, Benjamin, 11, David, just turning 10, and Karl Heinrich, not quite nine, already having to help their father with the outside chores. Then come four more, the ones born here, Pauline Ida, seven, and Anna Carolina, just reaching five, and the little ones, Cleophas, just turning four, and Sara Rosina, going on three.
Mother Maria Anna is pregnant again, this being her 13th pregnancy in 16 years! On the 23rd of February, amidst the severe cold of a Jura winter, she gives birth to her 12th and last child, Emelie Mathilde.* And now, at age 42, the saving grace for Maria Anna is having the older children to pitch in with the care of the younger ones. All her organizational skills are needed to manage this brood.
Father Abraham bids farewell to his oldest sister, Elisabeth, 47, and her husband, Peter Habegger, 52, as the depart for the same Berne, Indiana, settlement where Abraham's half-brothers and half-sisters had settled in 1852. Also leaving, of course are the Habegger children........The major reason for going has to do with the military conscription law just enacted in 1875, which does not provide any further exemption for Mennonite young men. .........
The coming of the railroads and the improvement in roads are bringing major new influences into the life of the Mennonite communities. The building of railroads in the Jura, soon to be complete, connects the Jura to the rest of Switzerland, to France, and indeed to all of Europe and heralds dramatic changes. Travel with distant places can be accomplished with relative ease. Evangelists with different approaches have easy access to the Jura communities. Mail service is becoming much more efficient. Where earlier Swiss Anabaptists were described as typically people with just three books - the Froschauer Bible, the Martyrs Mirror account of early Anabaptist persecution, and the noteless Ausbund hymnal, now periodicals and books of all kinds are becoming available. The traditional simplicity of life is being challenged by the onslaught of new ideas, new fashions and new travel possibilities.
Another change has to with the increasing degree of religious toleration. As the authorities grudgingly practice greater religious toleration, Mennonites more and more participate, though quite selectively, in civil society. They begin to vote in elections, for instance. At the same time there is less and less inclination to grant them what was seen as the special privilege of exempting Mennonite young men from military service. The institution in 1875 of the military conscription of Mennonites is a source of great consternation to the Mennonite community.
Anabaptist religious life is also undergoing significant change. While the basic principles and devotional life associated with "Gelassenheit" or submission, tend to persist, another kind of piety is beginning to make inroads. Evangelicalism and revivalism are beginning to transform Anabaptist spirituality.
Revivalists, some Mennonite and some not, are beginning to make the rounds throughout the Jura, mirroring the revival preaching and gospel singing which is having such an impact in North America, including in Mennonite communities.
Where it takes root, revivalism is causing a certain shift in theological perspective. In the traditional Anabaptist/Mennonite spirit of "Gelassenheit," believers had been reluctant to speak of being sure of their salvation. This seemed immodest. God was simply to be trusted in such matters.
But, revivalism increasingly is raising the question of one's personal salvation, and whether one can be certain of it. Further, revivalism's emphasis upon personal salvation bespeaks a new focus on the individual rather than the community. The concern and desire personally to know, control, plan, and believe regarding one's relation to God reflects the profound impact of modern individualism upon religious life.
Nowhere are the changes in Mennonite life brought by this revivalistic piety more evident than in the hymns being sung.
Alongside traditional hymns of the Ausbund hymnal, sung without written notation, are also gospel songs, with written notes, sung to sprightly melodies and emphasizing evangelism, personal conversion and personal salvation.
1880: Life at the Monible Mill
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is settling in on the new farm they moved to just the year before. Never mind that the French-speaking folks in the area resent the Mennonites for moving around as much as they do. They are hopeful that this move from Bevent, their farm at Courtetelle, to one at Monible may be their last move for a long while.
With all the mouths to feed, Abraham and Maria Anna receive this opportunity as a gift of God, for the Monible property enables them to augment their modest farm income by operating a sawmill. The farm in fact is known about as Monible Mill, actually as "Moniebel Muhle" among the German-speaking Mennonites and as "Moulin de Monible" among the dominant population, which speaks French.
The Monible Mill and its accompanying farm land lie along the Sorne River, whose water powers the mill. It is situated in a valley between Monible, a small village of some dozen buildings on a plateau about 300 feet above the river, and Sornetan, a larger village on the hillside about 250 feet higher, where the parish church is.
A neighboring farm in the valley is named Planche Aux Boeufs, suggesting long time use as cattle grazing land. Here lives the Zingg family, among them their daughter Maria, a good friend of Mathilde.
Behind the mountain to the northwest lies the area's most dramatic natural feature, the Pichoux Gorge, or "Gorges du Pichoux." Here the Sorne River carves out a 700 to 800 foot deep gorge through the ridge of mountains, creating a spectacular sight that leaves a deep impression on all beholders. Outing to the Gorges du Pichoux - only two kilometers away are a special thrill for the Lehmann family.
The Lehmann-Neukomm house is an old stone one, with walls three feet thick, so wide that the children can lie on the window sills. The mill is connected to the house and so is the barn, with the living quarters above the barn benefiting from the warmth (and odors!) of the animals. To keep warm through the winter the children are sewn into their underwear from fall until spring. In the spring a laundry lady comes for two weeks to wash the winter's accumulation of laundry.
A holding pond of water from the river powers the saw mill. The mill has been there at least a century and half already and shows up on old maps. The attached farmland is call Neuf Clos, offering pasture for the animals.
In November Abraham Lehmann buys an adjacent tract called Tronchat (in Switzerland, all tracts of land seem to have a name). Abraham buys the land from Francois Louis Bandelier for 550 francs, getting a loan from the seller which obliges him to pay half the principle plus interest at 5% at the beginning of 1892 and the remainder plus interest a year later.
The road running along the Sorne River and past the mill comes from Bellelay and the old monastery in the west and continues to the east to Souboz and either Munster/Moutier or Delsberg/Delemont. On all sides rise mountains, only one to three kilometers away, which tower over Monible Mill by up to 1,000 feet. Daylight is scarce, especially in winter, and snow piles high.
This is good Mennonite territory: here they are part of an active congregation known as "Kleintal" (literally, "little valley"), embracing the communities of Monible, Sornetan, Chatelat, Moron, Lajoux, Souboz, and Saicourt. Among the Jura Mennonite congregations, Kleintal ranks as one of the three largest, with those of Sonnenberg and Munsterberg; and while the Kleintal congregation is down in number from the 147 members it had in the Mennonite census 50 years before, it is still of significant size. And it has its own Mennonite schooling for the children. The Kleintal congregation includes their close relatives, the Beers on Mont Tramelan, as well as the Gerbers from Furstenberg, the Nussbaums from right here in Monible, the Zinggs from the neighboring farm, Planche aux Boeufs, the Gerbers from Pres Vannes, and the Nussbaums from Cerniers, as well as more distant relatives or friends, such as the Liechtis at Reconvelier.
Revivalists visit their Kleintal Mennonite congregation, introducing greater emphasis on personal religion, and encouraging gospel singing. The family enjoys singing from a couple of gospel hymn books which 18-year-old daughter, Bertha Lehmann owns, with hymns such as "Come Home, Lost Child!" and "Wash Me Whiter than Snow." (These hymnals are treasured so highly that someday her daughter Rosine Oberli will take them with her to America and keep them for the rest of her life.)
The older girls are not only thinking about marriage, but also about a special kind of adventure which new modes of transportation and new horizons now make possible - namely, to work in the household of some distant well-to-do family which can afford live-in help. Bertha, now 19 years old, secures a copy of the latest how-to manual for household help, "Haushalt-Katechismus", literally, Household-Catechism. Published just the year before in Berlin, The "Haushalt-Katechismus" covers the subject thoroughly. In the first section Bertha and her sisters find a careful description of how to carry out the tasks of cooking, household work (cleaning, washing, serving, tending the heat stove), and personal service (dressing, child care, serving of food, care of the sick) for the householders. For instance, the "Dienstmadchen" is strongly advised that bluing should not be used in children's clothing as it might be harmful to their tender skin. Not preparing the fuel for the stove the night before is a sign of incompetence and carelessness ("Nachlassigkeit"). In part two of the "Household-Catechism" they find a discussion of the overall conduct and attitude of the employee toward the householders and any house guests, residents or family members. Part three tells Bertha how to seek employment, to dress and care for her personal space, and to manage her finances, and to terminate employment. There is even instruction in what to do with one's free Sunday afternoons. After attending church one should visit with a trustworthy woman friend, or better yet, a family, or write letters (unless householders have need of her). Above all, however, one must avoid dance halls, where many a young woman has been led astray.
As the Lehmann-Neukomms put their roots down in Monible, they share in the new anxiety of Mennonites about maintaining their religious freedom in relation to military service. The new federal constitution of Switzerland, adopted in 1875, states that each male citizen, without exception, is liable for military service.
Before then, Mennonites could pay a special tax as an alternative to military service, enabling them, with financial sacrifice, to be true to their faith and its non-resistant principles against bearing of arms. Now in 1880, with their three boys now 14, 13, and 11 and quickly approaching draft age, this is of deepening concern to the family.
Together with the rest of the Mennonite community, they observe the principles of thrift, hard work, simplicity and trust in God. The children are maturing, with work, church and school the center of their lives. Schooling for the children is provided for eight grades. The lower grades are offered in French in their home village of Monible. For the seventh and eighth grades they have a longer hike of about two to three kilometers to Bellelay to a Mennonite school conducted in German with tuition required.
Bellelay is famous for its 18th century Baroque monastery buildings. This site was occupied by the Premonstatensian religious order from 1136 to 1797, when the monastery was closed by Napoleon. The priests of Bellelay were believed to hold the secret for making Monk's head cheese. Some buildings have been converted to a psychiatric hospital. Children are fascinated with the ruins of the old monastery and love to explore them. Sometimes from their home several kilometers away, the Lehmanns can hear the mental patients screaming.
The Lehmann-Neukomm children, like children everywhere, get into an occasional altercation. One time Rosi took a plug of her father's chewing tobacco out of the cupboard and danced around, threatening to chew it; chasing her, one of the siblings by accident pushed her into the pit of liquid manure by the barn, which could have had a very serious outcome.
It is important for the children to learn the skills necessary for operating a farm and home, and they are put to work at as early an age as possible. Tasks are divided up by gender; farm work for the boys; house work, gardening, and home crafts for the girls. Karl dislikes helping take the wagon up the mountain with his father and brothers to cut timber for sawing at their water-powered sawmill. Sometimes the sides of the mountains are so steep they have to put chains on the wheels to keep the wagon from slipping down the slope of the mountain.
Mealtime is quite disciplined and father Abraham serves the food for everyone. A frequent meal is cabbage and potatoes with a hunk of fat on top for seasoning.
The children are expected to eat the fat too, but protest. Sometimes there are also lettuce, turnips, peas, carrots, beans, onions or pumpkins from the garden which the girls and Maria Anna tend. Chicken is served once in awhile, while butter is reserved for those infrequent times when guests are present.
They grow some mint for tea and drink beer or wine with their meals or when they work in the fields. They eat more meat than most families because Abraham helps other households butcher and gets a portion in exchange for his help.
1883: A major decision is made
School, work, and church continue to dominate the life of the family. Mathilde, the youngest, is now in the Monible school, where Arist Bassin is her teacher. She learns to sew and embroider, like all her older sisters, and begins work on her own sampler. The overarching question for the family is how to deal with the troublesome threat of military service for Benjamin, David and Karl. Will they seek to evade by subterfuge, as have some, by cutting off a trigger finger, or sending a crippled man pretending to be a draftee? Will they cross over into Alsace, France, and wait until they are no longer liable for military service? Or what?
Much thought and agony goes into the decision. Finally, as the eldest son, Benjamin reaches 18, it is decided that he and his two brothers, David, 17 and Karl, 16, will go to America. They immediately think of the community of Mennonites in Adams County, Indiana, now called Berne, where seven of their aunts and uncles, both Sprungers and Lehmanns, had emigrated 30 years before.
Certainly these aunts and uncles and their children, the boys' cousins, can be counted on to help them get settled.
For instance, one of the boys' cousins is Rev. S.F. Sprunger, now 44 years old, the pastor who has been so instrumental in building the Munsterberg congregation into the First Mennonite Church of Berne, and is destined to become the largest Mennonite congregation in North America. Selected as pastor at 19, but insisting he be allowed to attend Wadsworth Seminary first, der Sam has brought an unprecedented life and spirit of unity to the Berne church. However, with it come many changes that have drawn the congregation away from what was basically Bernese Anabaptist and moved toward the direction of evangelical denominations. These changes include less attention to submission, simplicity and resisting worldliness; wearing of fashionable clothing, less emphasis on non-resistance; use of photography; and the introduction of the Sunday School, gospel music, and revivalism in the style of evangelists Dwight L. Moody and William Spurgeon.
Meanwhile the founding in 1882 of a Swiss Mennonite bi-monthly "Zionspilger" ("Zion's Pilgrim") is introducing similar changes in Switzerland, but at a slower pace.
Abraham Lehmann and Maria Anna Neukomm are somewhat comforted, and the same time saddened, as their oldest daughter, Emma, and her husband Christian Liechty, also decide to go to Indiana, along with their small children, Selena, four, Rosella Mina, almost two, and Christian, eight months, with another child, Bertha on the way.
The concerns of the family are shared with the relatives and friends in Berne and Jakob P. Habegger expresses interest in giving assistance.**..........
Prompted by the family connection and his own emigrant experience, J.P. Habegger steps forward with the necessary financial backing.
He sends tickets for the boys, which cost $45 each, covering third-class passage from LeHavre, France, on a ship with both sailing masts and steam engine.
What heavy hearts there are as the three Lehmann brothers, Benjamin, David and Karl, 18, 17, and 16 respectively, take leave of their parents once and for all - for the sake of free expression of their religious belief in non-resistance.
Also poignant are the good-byes shared with their sister Emma, her husband Christian and their little children - good-byes to last a lifetime.
Together the Lehman-Liechti band boards the train for Basel and continues on to the port city of Le Havre, France. From there they take the masted steamship to New York, traveling in steerage class.
The tin dishes they eat from fly across the room in the rough seas. At one point, Benjamin is thrown from his upper bunk onto the floor of their cabin.
Many passengers, especially children, take sick and die.
The sight of seeing the unfortunate victims strapped to boards and lowered into the sea is etched indelibly into the boys' memories.
In fear that the whales following the ship will knock it over with their tails, they throw their bananas and other food to distract them. (Several years later the ship will actually capsize and sink.)
The trip concludes with a train ride from New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio to Berne, Indiana.
Disembarking from the train on April 30, 1883, they are at once apprehensive about starting over in a totally new place, thankful that everyone made the voyage safely, and gratified, after hearing so many strange voices and tongues, to be greeted by cousins speaking their very own Bernese dialect.
The land seems awfully flat to them, though, and they can't help but feel somewhat homesick. The boys stay with their sponsor, J.P. Habegger, and it doesn't take long to begin to get settled. They find work right away as hired hands for farmers, including as help in threshing.
Back in the Jura, the Lehmann-Neukomm household feels so empty now without these three lively boys. And the empty space left by their emigration is all the more painful because they don't write much, and little Mathilde sees her mother Maria Anna tearfully read and re-read what little correspondence their is.
1888: More sisters emigrate to America
The biggest news of the Lehmann-Neukomm family this year is that two more of the sisters decide to join their brothers and sister in America.
Leah Lehmann, now 26, .......And the younger sister, Pauline, just 20***........
Left behind is 17-year-old Karolina, itching to go to America herself but having to wait a couple of years; also 16-year-old Cleophas; 15-year-old Rosina; and 14-year-old Mathilde.
Abraham and Maria Anna sit for a portrait, probably for the very first time in their lives, as photographs had until recently been considered too vain for serious Mennonites. The parents' portrait of 1888 shows Abraham in a simple dark coat and vest, though the vest does have a turned-down collar (which the Amish reject as too worldly.) He sports a bushy gray beard, but, like other Mennonite men, no mustache, as mustaches are associated with the military. Maria Anna wears a black dress, a black scarf, and a modest, close fitting cap which covers most of her hair, the exception being a band of an inch or two of combed hair in the front, parted of course, in the middle.
As the family diminishes in Switzerland, it grows in Indiana. On hand in Berne, Indiana, to meet the arriving party of Pauline Lehmann and Leah Lehmann Joss (soon to be Yoss) and her children are their sister Emma, 29, her husband Chris Liechty, 36, and their children, Selena, nine, Rosella Mina, seven, Christian, the younger, six, Benjamin, four, Bertha, three, (this may have been Bertha, three and Benjamin, four -cb) and newborn Ernest.
Word is that John A. Sprunger of Berne, Indiana, will return next year to the Jura, where he was born, to lead some evangelistic meetings among the Mennonites and evangelicals. Abraham and Maria Anna, as well as Mathilde, can't wait to talk to him for first-hand news of their kinfolk so far away.
With more of the immediate family leaving, their remaining friends and family are particularly dear to the Lehmann-Neukomms. They are especially grateful for the close proximity of Abraham's sister Anna, just two years his senior, her husband, Jakob Beer, and their six children, who live nearby on Mont Tramelan. The two couples had married and begun their families at about the same time, and their children enjoy being close to their first cousins.
1894: "I would have walked back"
With Karolina having also gone to America in 1890, four of the Lehmann sisters and three of the brothers have now relocated from Canton Bern to Berne, Indiana. Now this year Cleophas, 22, is the next to get caught up in the spirit of emigration and on April 1, 1894, he arrives in Berne to the warm welcome of his seven brothers and sisters.
In the meantime some of his aunts and uncles have returned to Berne from the Ozarks in Missouri, where the attempt to plant a successful church under uncle Rev. Peter S. Lehmann's leadership has simply failed. Among those returning are Christian Lehmann and his wife Magdalena, and Elisabeth Lehmann Schnegg (a widow since 1879).
There's been much excitement in the Kleintal congregation. On an August day in 1892 over 40 men from the congregation gathered stone, sand and wood (the later milled at the Lehmann sawmill, and in one day erected a meeting house, for use as a school and place of worship. Among the financial contributions to this major undertaking, costing some 7000 francs when eventually fully completed, were Abraham Lehmann, 50 francs, Paul Deroches, the teacher in Bellelay, 30 francs, the neighboring Sonnenberg Mennonite congregation, 500 francs, Abraham's brother-in-law Christian Amstutz, 60 francs, and his future brother-in-law Peter Bogli, 100 francs. There was also a contribution of 100 francs from abroad, actually from John A. Sprunger, the evangelist from Berne, Indiana, who had stirred many Jura Mennonites during his preaching tour three years ago.
Meanwhile, in the six years (1888-1894) since we last checked in with the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, the family continues to grow and expand, but not without its share of sorrows. Emma, the oldest, has lost two children in infancy, Albert in 1899 and Caroline in 1892. Bertha has been more fortunate and her three newborns all have survived; Pauline Gerber (1890), Joel Gerber (1892), and Robert Gerber (1893). Leah has Irene Olga Yoss, born 1891, and Blondine Sara Yoss, born 1894. Ben Lehmann and his wife Sarah, known as "'s Ben Sari," have given birth to Cordella Lehman (1890), Werner B. Lehman (1892) and Waldo M. Lehman (1893).
Deep sorrow comes to the whole family as mother Maria Anna, age 61, dies of breast cancer on November 24.
It is fortunate that Rosine and Mathilde are around the home place in Switzerland in those lonely months as all of them, and especially Abraham, adjust as best they can to life without their wife and mother.
1900: The clan multiplies
Looking in once more on the family another six years later, we find that 64-year-old father Abraham has remarried four years earlier to his widowed sister-in-law, Katharina Sommer Neukomm, now 59. She is the widow of Christian Neukomm, the brother of Maria Anna Neukomm, his wife of 36 years.
Abraham's heart rejoices to learn that his son Cleophas plans to come back to Switzerland for a three-month visit in the coming year. This is most unusual, for those who leave for America almost never return to visit. Abraham is overcome with anticipation to see his son again and to get a first-hand report on the whole family in America.
Abraham begins conversation with the veterinarian in nearby Fornet-dessous about buying from him a small piece of property that sits right in the middle of the Neuf Clos farm and it appears he'll be able to purchase it next year for some 250 francs.
The clan continues to multiply rapidly with new children and the number of Abraham's living grandchildren reaches a remarkable total....56 living grandchildren of the Abraham M. Lehman-Maria Anna Neukomm marriage, with 32 more to come.
1910: "You are so far, far from here"
By this time great-grandchildren to Abraham and Maria Anna are beginning to appear. Selena Liechty Mettler had the first two. The first was Edna Mettler, born in 1902. Then just after Selena's husband John Mettler died in late 1904, Pearl Mettler (1905-1906) was born, and sadly, lived less than two years. Selena remarries to Henry Liechty ("di Liechty Hennr") and they have Milton Liechty, another great-grandchild, in 1910.
Others have been completing their families and bringing to an end long years of child bearing.
The previous year, 1909 has been a sad one. Cleophas is still paralyzed and in pain from his fall. Then Abraham M. Lehmann, the father of the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, takes ill at the old home place, Monible Mill, and after a short illness dies on February 6, 1909, at home at the age of 73. The Mennonite elders join the mourning wife Katharina and family and friends in the home place, offering strength from above through these words from Psalm 90:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place for in all generations ...... Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
As his physical remains are laid to rest in Sornetan, just across the road and up the hill, most of his 11 surviving children, his 79 grandchildren and his two great-grandchildren are far away, unable to be there as the community's minister recites from the Book of Revelation:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." (Rev. 14:13)
Abraham's widow, his second wife, Katharina Sommer Neukomm Lehmann, will outlive her husband by three years.
*Willis Herr in his Sprunger Family history, lists Adele before Emelie Mathilde, and Alice after, giving Maria Anna and Abraham 14 pregnancies, and 14 children. Adele would make the 13 pregnancies McClain speaks of, Alice born later died at age 2.
**Jakob P. Habegger is the son of Abraham's sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter Habegger.
***she was actually only 18.
Son of Peter and Barbara (Sprunger) Lehmann, born in Musterburg or Sous Le Rouchet, Obt. Moutier, Switzerland; Died in the old home place, Monible Mill, Jura, Canton Bern, Switzerland.
From Bern to Berne by George D. McClain:
1858: The Lehmann-Neukomm Family begins
Life goes on for those back in Switzerland. ........... And of particular interest to us, Barbara and Peter's son Abraham M. Lehmann, marries Maria Anna Neukomm. The setting for our great-grandparents' wedding is a farmhouse. In this region farms have long had names; the name of the farm where this wedding takes place is called Ecote. This farm, with rocky, resistant soil, is near the small village of Glovelier (in German, Lietingen), primarily known for lumber trade and located in the district of Delemont (Delsberg in German). Both of them bear family names which have been in the Anabaptist tradition since at least 1527 in the case of Neukomm/Nukum, and before 1566 in the case of Lehmann.
In the 1670's Barbara Neukomm fled for her life from Bern to the German Palatinate. Maria Anna (or sometimes called Marianna) Neukomm, was born on September 14, 1833, to Johann Neukomm (the Neukomm family stemming from the village of Eggiwil in the Emmental) and Anna Lehmann (no known relation), also of Eggiwil.
This marriage takes place on February 20, 1858, presided over by an elder in the religious tradition of the Swiss Mennonites. Abraham has just turned 22; Maria Anna is 24. They locate at the Sous le Rochet farm on the Munsterberg, 2 kilometers north of the village of Souboz and 2 kilometers southwest of Soulce. The farm lies at an altitude of 944 meters, or about 3,000 feet, in mountainous terrain of the beautiful Jura mountains.
1876: A growing family in a changing Jura
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is now living at Bevent, a farm close to the village of Courtetelle. Courtetelle itself is only a few kilometers from Delemont (which they call Delsberg in German), a small city and a good market for milk and eggs. The Bevent farm lies on a level plain, with limestone cliffs across the road and the River Sorne to the rear. The sturdy two-story farmhouse with a barn attached has plenty of room for the growing family.
The three older girls, Emma Elise, 16, Bertha Dina, 14, and Maria Leah, 13, are relied upon a great deal to care for the younger children. These include the three older boys, Benjamin, 11, David, just turning 10, and Karl Heinrich, not quite nine, already having to help their father with the outside chores. Then come four more, the ones born here, Pauline Ida, seven, and Anna Carolina, just reaching five, and the little ones, Cleophas, just turning four, and Sara Rosina, going on three.
Mother Maria Anna is pregnant again, this being her 13th pregnancy in 16 years! On the 23rd of February, amidst the severe cold of a Jura winter, she gives birth to her 12th and last child, Emelie Mathilde.* And now, at age 42, the saving grace for Maria Anna is having the older children to pitch in with the care of the younger ones. All her organizational skills are needed to manage this brood.
Father Abraham bids farewell to his oldest sister, Elisabeth, 47, and her husband, Peter Habegger, 52, as the depart for the same Berne, Indiana, settlement where Abraham's half-brothers and half-sisters had settled in 1852. Also leaving, of course are the Habegger children........The major reason for going has to do with the military conscription law just enacted in 1875, which does not provide any further exemption for Mennonite young men. .........
The coming of the railroads and the improvement in roads are bringing major new influences into the life of the Mennonite communities. The building of railroads in the Jura, soon to be complete, connects the Jura to the rest of Switzerland, to France, and indeed to all of Europe and heralds dramatic changes. Travel with distant places can be accomplished with relative ease. Evangelists with different approaches have easy access to the Jura communities. Mail service is becoming much more efficient. Where earlier Swiss Anabaptists were described as typically people with just three books - the Froschauer Bible, the Martyrs Mirror account of early Anabaptist persecution, and the noteless Ausbund hymnal, now periodicals and books of all kinds are becoming available. The traditional simplicity of life is being challenged by the onslaught of new ideas, new fashions and new travel possibilities.
Another change has to with the increasing degree of religious toleration. As the authorities grudgingly practice greater religious toleration, Mennonites more and more participate, though quite selectively, in civil society. They begin to vote in elections, for instance. At the same time there is less and less inclination to grant them what was seen as the special privilege of exempting Mennonite young men from military service. The institution in 1875 of the military conscription of Mennonites is a source of great consternation to the Mennonite community.
Anabaptist religious life is also undergoing significant change. While the basic principles and devotional life associated with "Gelassenheit" or submission, tend to persist, another kind of piety is beginning to make inroads. Evangelicalism and revivalism are beginning to transform Anabaptist spirituality.
Revivalists, some Mennonite and some not, are beginning to make the rounds throughout the Jura, mirroring the revival preaching and gospel singing which is having such an impact in North America, including in Mennonite communities.
Where it takes root, revivalism is causing a certain shift in theological perspective. In the traditional Anabaptist/Mennonite spirit of "Gelassenheit," believers had been reluctant to speak of being sure of their salvation. This seemed immodest. God was simply to be trusted in such matters.
But, revivalism increasingly is raising the question of one's personal salvation, and whether one can be certain of it. Further, revivalism's emphasis upon personal salvation bespeaks a new focus on the individual rather than the community. The concern and desire personally to know, control, plan, and believe regarding one's relation to God reflects the profound impact of modern individualism upon religious life.
Nowhere are the changes in Mennonite life brought by this revivalistic piety more evident than in the hymns being sung.
Alongside traditional hymns of the Ausbund hymnal, sung without written notation, are also gospel songs, with written notes, sung to sprightly melodies and emphasizing evangelism, personal conversion and personal salvation.
1880: Life at the Monible Mill
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is settling in on the new farm they moved to just the year before. Never mind that the French-speaking folks in the area resent the Mennonites for moving around as much as they do. They are hopeful that this move from Bevent, their farm at Courtetelle, to one at Monible may be their last move for a long while.
With all the mouths to feed, Abraham and Maria Anna receive this opportunity as a gift of God, for the Monible property enables them to augment their modest farm income by operating a sawmill. The farm in fact is known about as Monible Mill, actually as "Moniebel Muhle" among the German-speaking Mennonites and as "Moulin de Monible" among the dominant population, which speaks French.
The Monible Mill and its accompanying farm land lie along the Sorne River, whose water powers the mill. It is situated in a valley between Monible, a small village of some dozen buildings on a plateau about 300 feet above the river, and Sornetan, a larger village on the hillside about 250 feet higher, where the parish church is.
A neighboring farm in the valley is named Planche Aux Boeufs, suggesting long time use as cattle grazing land. Here lives the Zingg family, among them their daughter Maria, a good friend of Mathilde.
Behind the mountain to the northwest lies the area's most dramatic natural feature, the Pichoux Gorge, or "Gorges du Pichoux." Here the Sorne River carves out a 700 to 800 foot deep gorge through the ridge of mountains, creating a spectacular sight that leaves a deep impression on all beholders. Outing to the Gorges du Pichoux - only two kilometers away are a special thrill for the Lehmann family.
The Lehmann-Neukomm house is an old stone one, with walls three feet thick, so wide that the children can lie on the window sills. The mill is connected to the house and so is the barn, with the living quarters above the barn benefiting from the warmth (and odors!) of the animals. To keep warm through the winter the children are sewn into their underwear from fall until spring. In the spring a laundry lady comes for two weeks to wash the winter's accumulation of laundry.
A holding pond of water from the river powers the saw mill. The mill has been there at least a century and half already and shows up on old maps. The attached farmland is call Neuf Clos, offering pasture for the animals.
In November Abraham Lehmann buys an adjacent tract called Tronchat (in Switzerland, all tracts of land seem to have a name). Abraham buys the land from Francois Louis Bandelier for 550 francs, getting a loan from the seller which obliges him to pay half the principle plus interest at 5% at the beginning of 1892 and the remainder plus interest a year later.
The road running along the Sorne River and past the mill comes from Bellelay and the old monastery in the west and continues to the east to Souboz and either Munster/Moutier or Delsberg/Delemont. On all sides rise mountains, only one to three kilometers away, which tower over Monible Mill by up to 1,000 feet. Daylight is scarce, especially in winter, and snow piles high.
This is good Mennonite territory: here they are part of an active congregation known as "Kleintal" (literally, "little valley"), embracing the communities of Monible, Sornetan, Chatelat, Moron, Lajoux, Souboz, and Saicourt. Among the Jura Mennonite congregations, Kleintal ranks as one of the three largest, with those of Sonnenberg and Munsterberg; and while the Kleintal congregation is down in number from the 147 members it had in the Mennonite census 50 years before, it is still of significant size. And it has its own Mennonite schooling for the children. The Kleintal congregation includes their close relatives, the Beers on Mont Tramelan, as well as the Gerbers from Furstenberg, the Nussbaums from right here in Monible, the Zinggs from the neighboring farm, Planche aux Boeufs, the Gerbers from Pres Vannes, and the Nussbaums from Cerniers, as well as more distant relatives or friends, such as the Liechtis at Reconvelier.
Revivalists visit their Kleintal Mennonite congregation, introducing greater emphasis on personal religion, and encouraging gospel singing. The family enjoys singing from a couple of gospel hymn books which 18-year-old daughter, Bertha Lehmann owns, with hymns such as "Come Home, Lost Child!" and "Wash Me Whiter than Snow." (These hymnals are treasured so highly that someday her daughter Rosine Oberli will take them with her to America and keep them for the rest of her life.)
The older girls are not only thinking about marriage, but also about a special kind of adventure which new modes of transportation and new horizons now make possible - namely, to work in the household of some distant well-to-do family which can afford live-in help. Bertha, now 19 years old, secures a copy of the latest how-to manual for household help, "Haushalt-Katechismus", literally, Household-Catechism. Published just the year before in Berlin, The "Haushalt-Katechismus" covers the subject thoroughly. In the first section Bertha and her sisters find a careful description of how to carry out the tasks of cooking, household work (cleaning, washing, serving, tending the heat stove), and personal service (dressing, child care, serving of food, care of the sick) for the householders. For instance, the "Dienstmadchen" is strongly advised that bluing should not be used in children's clothing as it might be harmful to their tender skin. Not preparing the fuel for the stove the night before is a sign of incompetence and carelessness ("Nachlassigkeit"). In part two of the "Household-Catechism" they find a discussion of the overall conduct and attitude of the employee toward the householders and any house guests, residents or family members. Part three tells Bertha how to seek employment, to dress and care for her personal space, and to manage her finances, and to terminate employment. There is even instruction in what to do with one's free Sunday afternoons. After attending church one should visit with a trustworthy woman friend, or better yet, a family, or write letters (unless householders have need of her). Above all, however, one must avoid dance halls, where many a young woman has been led astray.
As the Lehmann-Neukomms put their roots down in Monible, they share in the new anxiety of Mennonites about maintaining their religious freedom in relation to military service. The new federal constitution of Switzerland, adopted in 1875, states that each male citizen, without exception, is liable for military service.
Before then, Mennonites could pay a special tax as an alternative to military service, enabling them, with financial sacrifice, to be true to their faith and its non-resistant principles against bearing of arms. Now in 1880, with their three boys now 14, 13, and 11 and quickly approaching draft age, this is of deepening concern to the family.
Together with the rest of the Mennonite community, they observe the principles of thrift, hard work, simplicity and trust in God. The children are maturing, with work, church and school the center of their lives. Schooling for the children is provided for eight grades. The lower grades are offered in French in their home village of Monible. For the seventh and eighth grades they have a longer hike of about two to three kilometers to Bellelay to a Mennonite school conducted in German with tuition required.
Bellelay is famous for its 18th century Baroque monastery buildings. This site was occupied by the Premonstatensian religious order from 1136 to 1797, when the monastery was closed by Napoleon. The priests of Bellelay were believed to hold the secret for making Monk's head cheese. Some buildings have been converted to a psychiatric hospital. Children are fascinated with the ruins of the old monastery and love to explore them. Sometimes from their home several kilometers away, the Lehmanns can hear the mental patients screaming.
The Lehmann-Neukomm children, like children everywhere, get into an occasional altercation. One time Rosi took a plug of her father's chewing tobacco out of the cupboard and danced around, threatening to chew it; chasing her, one of the siblings by accident pushed her into the pit of liquid manure by the barn, which could have had a very serious outcome.
It is important for the children to learn the skills necessary for operating a farm and home, and they are put to work at as early an age as possible. Tasks are divided up by gender; farm work for the boys; house work, gardening, and home crafts for the girls. Karl dislikes helping take the wagon up the mountain with his father and brothers to cut timber for sawing at their water-powered sawmill. Sometimes the sides of the mountains are so steep they have to put chains on the wheels to keep the wagon from slipping down the slope of the mountain.
Mealtime is quite disciplined and father Abraham serves the food for everyone. A frequent meal is cabbage and potatoes with a hunk of fat on top for seasoning.
The children are expected to eat the fat too, but protest. Sometimes there are also lettuce, turnips, peas, carrots, beans, onions or pumpkins from the garden which the girls and Maria Anna tend. Chicken is served once in awhile, while butter is reserved for those infrequent times when guests are present.
They grow some mint for tea and drink beer or wine with their meals or when they work in the fields. They eat more meat than most families because Abraham helps other households butcher and gets a portion in exchange for his help.
1883: A major decision is made
School, work, and church continue to dominate the life of the family. Mathilde, the youngest, is now in the Monible school, where Arist Bassin is her teacher. She learns to sew and embroider, like all her older sisters, and begins work on her own sampler. The overarching question for the family is how to deal with the troublesome threat of military service for Benjamin, David and Karl. Will they seek to evade by subterfuge, as have some, by cutting off a trigger finger, or sending a crippled man pretending to be a draftee? Will they cross over into Alsace, France, and wait until they are no longer liable for military service? Or what?
Much thought and agony goes into the decision. Finally, as the eldest son, Benjamin reaches 18, it is decided that he and his two brothers, David, 17 and Karl, 16, will go to America. They immediately think of the community of Mennonites in Adams County, Indiana, now called Berne, where seven of their aunts and uncles, both Sprungers and Lehmanns, had emigrated 30 years before.
Certainly these aunts and uncles and their children, the boys' cousins, can be counted on to help them get settled.
For instance, one of the boys' cousins is Rev. S.F. Sprunger, now 44 years old, the pastor who has been so instrumental in building the Munsterberg congregation into the First Mennonite Church of Berne, and is destined to become the largest Mennonite congregation in North America. Selected as pastor at 19, but insisting he be allowed to attend Wadsworth Seminary first, der Sam has brought an unprecedented life and spirit of unity to the Berne church. However, with it come many changes that have drawn the congregation away from what was basically Bernese Anabaptist and moved toward the direction of evangelical denominations. These changes include less attention to submission, simplicity and resisting worldliness; wearing of fashionable clothing, less emphasis on non-resistance; use of photography; and the introduction of the Sunday School, gospel music, and revivalism in the style of evangelists Dwight L. Moody and William Spurgeon.
Meanwhile the founding in 1882 of a Swiss Mennonite bi-monthly "Zionspilger" ("Zion's Pilgrim") is introducing similar changes in Switzerland, but at a slower pace.
Abraham Lehmann and Maria Anna Neukomm are somewhat comforted, and the same time saddened, as their oldest daughter, Emma, and her husband Christian Liechty, also decide to go to Indiana, along with their small children, Selena, four, Rosella Mina, almost two, and Christian, eight months, with another child, Bertha on the way.
The concerns of the family are shared with the relatives and friends in Berne and Jakob P. Habegger expresses interest in giving assistance.**..........
Prompted by the family connection and his own emigrant experience, J.P. Habegger steps forward with the necessary financial backing.
He sends tickets for the boys, which cost $45 each, covering third-class passage from LeHavre, France, on a ship with both sailing masts and steam engine.
What heavy hearts there are as the three Lehmann brothers, Benjamin, David and Karl, 18, 17, and 16 respectively, take leave of their parents once and for all - for the sake of free expression of their religious belief in non-resistance.
Also poignant are the good-byes shared with their sister Emma, her husband Christian and their little children - good-byes to last a lifetime.
Together the Lehman-Liechti band boards the train for Basel and continues on to the port city of Le Havre, France. From there they take the masted steamship to New York, traveling in steerage class.
The tin dishes they eat from fly across the room in the rough seas. At one point, Benjamin is thrown from his upper bunk onto the floor of their cabin.
Many passengers, especially children, take sick and die.
The sight of seeing the unfortunate victims strapped to boards and lowered into the sea is etched indelibly into the boys' memories.
In fear that the whales following the ship will knock it over with their tails, they throw their bananas and other food to distract them. (Several years later the ship will actually capsize and sink.)
The trip concludes with a train ride from New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio to Berne, Indiana.
Disembarking from the train on April 30, 1883, they are at once apprehensive about starting over in a totally new place, thankful that everyone made the voyage safely, and gratified, after hearing so many strange voices and tongues, to be greeted by cousins speaking their very own Bernese dialect.
The land seems awfully flat to them, though, and they can't help but feel somewhat homesick. The boys stay with their sponsor, J.P. Habegger, and it doesn't take long to begin to get settled. They find work right away as hired hands for farmers, including as help in threshing.
Back in the Jura, the Lehmann-Neukomm household feels so empty now without these three lively boys. And the empty space left by their emigration is all the more painful because they don't write much, and little Mathilde sees her mother Maria Anna tearfully read and re-read what little correspondence their is.
1888: More sisters emigrate to America
The biggest news of the Lehmann-Neukomm family this year is that two more of the sisters decide to join their brothers and sister in America.
Leah Lehmann, now 26, .......And the younger sister, Pauline, just 20***........
Left behind is 17-year-old Karolina, itching to go to America herself but having to wait a couple of years; also 16-year-old Cleophas; 15-year-old Rosina; and 14-year-old Mathilde.
Abraham and Maria Anna sit for a portrait, probably for the very first time in their lives, as photographs had until recently been considered too vain for serious Mennonites. The parents' portrait of 1888 shows Abraham in a simple dark coat and vest, though the vest does have a turned-down collar (which the Amish reject as too worldly.) He sports a bushy gray beard, but, like other Mennonite men, no mustache, as mustaches are associated with the military. Maria Anna wears a black dress, a black scarf, and a modest, close fitting cap which covers most of her hair, the exception being a band of an inch or two of combed hair in the front, parted of course, in the middle.
As the family diminishes in Switzerland, it grows in Indiana. On hand in Berne, Indiana, to meet the arriving party of Pauline Lehmann and Leah Lehmann Joss (soon to be Yoss) and her children are their sister Emma, 29, her husband Chris Liechty, 36, and their children, Selena, nine, Rosella Mina, seven, Christian, the younger, six, Benjamin, four, Bertha, three, (this may have been Bertha, three and Benjamin, four -cb) and newborn Ernest.
Word is that John A. Sprunger of Berne, Indiana, will return next year to the Jura, where he was born, to lead some evangelistic meetings among the Mennonites and evangelicals. Abraham and Maria Anna, as well as Mathilde, can't wait to talk to him for first-hand news of their kinfolk so far away.
With more of the immediate family leaving, their remaining friends and family are particularly dear to the Lehmann-Neukomms. They are especially grateful for the close proximity of Abraham's sister Anna, just two years his senior, her husband, Jakob Beer, and their six children, who live nearby on Mont Tramelan. The two couples had married and begun their families at about the same time, and their children enjoy being close to their first cousins.
1894: "I would have walked back"
With Karolina having also gone to America in 1890, four of the Lehmann sisters and three of the brothers have now relocated from Canton Bern to Berne, Indiana. Now this year Cleophas, 22, is the next to get caught up in the spirit of emigration and on April 1, 1894, he arrives in Berne to the warm welcome of his seven brothers and sisters.
In the meantime some of his aunts and uncles have returned to Berne from the Ozarks in Missouri, where the attempt to plant a successful church under uncle Rev. Peter S. Lehmann's leadership has simply failed. Among those returning are Christian Lehmann and his wife Magdalena, and Elisabeth Lehmann Schnegg (a widow since 1879).
There's been much excitement in the Kleintal congregation. On an August day in 1892 over 40 men from the congregation gathered stone, sand and wood (the later milled at the Lehmann sawmill, and in one day erected a meeting house, for use as a school and place of worship. Among the financial contributions to this major undertaking, costing some 7000 francs when eventually fully completed, were Abraham Lehmann, 50 francs, Paul Deroches, the teacher in Bellelay, 30 francs, the neighboring Sonnenberg Mennonite congregation, 500 francs, Abraham's brother-in-law Christian Amstutz, 60 francs, and his future brother-in-law Peter Bogli, 100 francs. There was also a contribution of 100 francs from abroad, actually from John A. Sprunger, the evangelist from Berne, Indiana, who had stirred many Jura Mennonites during his preaching tour three years ago.
Meanwhile, in the six years (1888-1894) since we last checked in with the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, the family continues to grow and expand, but not without its share of sorrows. Emma, the oldest, has lost two children in infancy, Albert in 1899 and Caroline in 1892. Bertha has been more fortunate and her three newborns all have survived; Pauline Gerber (1890), Joel Gerber (1892), and Robert Gerber (1893). Leah has Irene Olga Yoss, born 1891, and Blondine Sara Yoss, born 1894. Ben Lehmann and his wife Sarah, known as "'s Ben Sari," have given birth to Cordella Lehman (1890), Werner B. Lehman (1892) and Waldo M. Lehman (1893).
Deep sorrow comes to the whole family as mother Maria Anna, age 61, dies of breast cancer on November 24.
It is fortunate that Rosine and Mathilde are around the home place in Switzerland in those lonely months as all of them, and especially Abraham, adjust as best they can to life without their wife and mother.
1900: The clan multiplies
Looking in once more on the family another six years later, we find that 64-year-old father Abraham has remarried four years earlier to his widowed sister-in-law, Katharina Sommer Neukomm, now 59. She is the widow of Christian Neukomm, the brother of Maria Anna Neukomm, his wife of 36 years.
Abraham's heart rejoices to learn that his son Cleophas plans to come back to Switzerland for a three-month visit in the coming year. This is most unusual, for those who leave for America almost never return to visit. Abraham is overcome with anticipation to see his son again and to get a first-hand report on the whole family in America.
Abraham begins conversation with the veterinarian in nearby Fornet-dessous about buying from him a small piece of property that sits right in the middle of the Neuf Clos farm and it appears he'll be able to purchase it next year for some 250 francs.
The clan continues to multiply rapidly with new children and the number of Abraham's living grandchildren reaches a remarkable total....56 living grandchildren of the Abraham M. Lehman-Maria Anna Neukomm marriage, with 32 more to come.
1910: "You are so far, far from here"
By this time great-grandchildren to Abraham and Maria Anna are beginning to appear. Selena Liechty Mettler had the first two. The first was Edna Mettler, born in 1902. Then just after Selena's husband John Mettler died in late 1904, Pearl Mettler (1905-1906) was born, and sadly, lived less than two years. Selena remarries to Henry Liechty ("di Liechty Hennr") and they have Milton Liechty, another great-grandchild, in 1910.
Others have been completing their families and bringing to an end long years of child bearing.
The previous year, 1909 has been a sad one. Cleophas is still paralyzed and in pain from his fall. Then Abraham M. Lehmann, the father of the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, takes ill at the old home place, Monible Mill, and after a short illness dies on February 6, 1909, at home at the age of 73. The Mennonite elders join the mourning wife Katharina and family and friends in the home place, offering strength from above through these words from Psalm 90:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place for in all generations ...... Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
As his physical remains are laid to rest in Sornetan, just across the road and up the hill, most of his 11 surviving children, his 79 grandchildren and his two great-grandchildren are far away, unable to be there as the community's minister recites from the Book of Revelation:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." (Rev. 14:13)
Abraham's widow, his second wife, Katharina Sommer Neukomm Lehmann, will outlive her husband by three years.
*Willis Herr in his Sprunger Family history, lists Adele before Emelie Mathilde, and Alice after, giving Maria Anna and Abraham 14 pregnancies, and 14 children. Adele would make the 13 pregnancies McClain speaks of, Alice born later died at age 2.
**Jakob P. Habegger is the son of Abraham's sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter Habegger.
***she was actually only 18.
From Bern to Berne by George D. McClain:
1858: The Lehmann-Neukomm Family begins
Life goes on for those back in Switzerland. ........... And of particular interest to us, Barbara and Peter's son Abraham M. Lehmann, marries Maria Anna Neukomm. The setting for our great-grandparents' wedding is a farmhouse. In this region farms have long had names; the name of the farm where this wedding takes place is called Ecote. This farm, with rocky, resistant soil, is near the small village of Glovelier (in German, Lietingen), primarily known for lumber trade and located in the district of Delemont (Delsberg in German). Both of them bear family names which have been in the Anabaptist tradition since at least 1527 in the case of Neukomm/Nukum, and before 1566 in the case of Lehmann.
In the 1670's Barbara Neukomm fled for her life from Bern to the German Palatinate. Maria Anna (or sometimes called Marianna) Neukomm, was born on September 14, 1833, to Johann Neukomm (the Neukomm family stemming from the village of Eggiwil in the Emmental) and Anna Lehmann (no known relation), also of Eggiwil.
This marriage takes place on February 20, 1858, presided over by an elder in the religious tradition of the Swiss Mennonites. Abraham has just turned 22; Maria Anna is 24. They locate at the Sous le Rochet farm on the Munsterberg, 2 kilometers north of the village of Souboz and 2 kilometers southwest of Soulce. The farm lies at an altitude of 944 meters, or about 3,000 feet, in mountainous terrain of the beautiful Jura mountains.
1876: A growing family in a changing Jura
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is now living at Bevent, a farm close to the village of Courtetelle. Courtetelle itself is only a few kilometers from Delemont (which they call Delsberg in German), a small city and a good market for milk and eggs. The Bevent farm lies on a level plain, with limestone cliffs across the road and the River Sorne to the rear. The sturdy two-story farmhouse with a barn attached has plenty of room for the growing family.
The three older girls, Emma Elise, 16, Bertha Dina, 14, and Maria Leah, 13, are relied upon a great deal to care for the younger children. These include the three older boys, Benjamin, 11, David, just turning 10, and Karl Heinrich, not quite nine, already having to help their father with the outside chores. Then come four more, the ones born here, Pauline Ida, seven, and Anna Carolina, just reaching five, and the little ones, Cleophas, just turning four, and Sara Rosina, going on three.
Mother Maria Anna is pregnant again, this being her 13th pregnancy in 16 years! On the 23rd of February, amidst the severe cold of a Jura winter, she gives birth to her 12th and last child, Emelie Mathilde.* And now, at age 42, the saving grace for Maria Anna is having the older children to pitch in with the care of the younger ones. All her organizational skills are needed to manage this brood.
Father Abraham bids farewell to his oldest sister, Elisabeth, 47, and her husband, Peter Habegger, 52, as the depart for the same Berne, Indiana, settlement where Abraham's half-brothers and half-sisters had settled in 1852. Also leaving, of course are the Habegger children........The major reason for going has to do with the military conscription law just enacted in 1875, which does not provide any further exemption for Mennonite young men. .........
The coming of the railroads and the improvement in roads are bringing major new influences into the life of the Mennonite communities. The building of railroads in the Jura, soon to be complete, connects the Jura to the rest of Switzerland, to France, and indeed to all of Europe and heralds dramatic changes. Travel with distant places can be accomplished with relative ease. Evangelists with different approaches have easy access to the Jura communities. Mail service is becoming much more efficient. Where earlier Swiss Anabaptists were described as typically people with just three books - the Froschauer Bible, the Martyrs Mirror account of early Anabaptist persecution, and the noteless Ausbund hymnal, now periodicals and books of all kinds are becoming available. The traditional simplicity of life is being challenged by the onslaught of new ideas, new fashions and new travel possibilities.
Another change has to with the increasing degree of religious toleration. As the authorities grudgingly practice greater religious toleration, Mennonites more and more participate, though quite selectively, in civil society. They begin to vote in elections, for instance. At the same time there is less and less inclination to grant them what was seen as the special privilege of exempting Mennonite young men from military service. The institution in 1875 of the military conscription of Mennonites is a source of great consternation to the Mennonite community.
Anabaptist religious life is also undergoing significant change. While the basic principles and devotional life associated with "Gelassenheit" or submission, tend to persist, another kind of piety is beginning to make inroads. Evangelicalism and revivalism are beginning to transform Anabaptist spirituality.
Revivalists, some Mennonite and some not, are beginning to make the rounds throughout the Jura, mirroring the revival preaching and gospel singing which is having such an impact in North America, including in Mennonite communities.
Where it takes root, revivalism is causing a certain shift in theological perspective. In the traditional Anabaptist/Mennonite spirit of "Gelassenheit," believers had been reluctant to speak of being sure of their salvation. This seemed immodest. God was simply to be trusted in such matters.
But, revivalism increasingly is raising the question of one's personal salvation, and whether one can be certain of it. Further, revivalism's emphasis upon personal salvation bespeaks a new focus on the individual rather than the community. The concern and desire personally to know, control, plan, and believe regarding one's relation to God reflects the profound impact of modern individualism upon religious life.
Nowhere are the changes in Mennonite life brought by this revivalistic piety more evident than in the hymns being sung.
Alongside traditional hymns of the Ausbund hymnal, sung without written notation, are also gospel songs, with written notes, sung to sprightly melodies and emphasizing evangelism, personal conversion and personal salvation.
1880: Life at the Monible Mill
The Lehmann-Neukomm family is settling in on the new farm they moved to just the year before. Never mind that the French-speaking folks in the area resent the Mennonites for moving around as much as they do. They are hopeful that this move from Bevent, their farm at Courtetelle, to one at Monible may be their last move for a long while.
With all the mouths to feed, Abraham and Maria Anna receive this opportunity as a gift of God, for the Monible property enables them to augment their modest farm income by operating a sawmill. The farm in fact is known about as Monible Mill, actually as "Moniebel Muhle" among the German-speaking Mennonites and as "Moulin de Monible" among the dominant population, which speaks French.
The Monible Mill and its accompanying farm land lie along the Sorne River, whose water powers the mill. It is situated in a valley between Monible, a small village of some dozen buildings on a plateau about 300 feet above the river, and Sornetan, a larger village on the hillside about 250 feet higher, where the parish church is.
A neighboring farm in the valley is named Planche Aux Boeufs, suggesting long time use as cattle grazing land. Here lives the Zingg family, among them their daughter Maria, a good friend of Mathilde.
Behind the mountain to the northwest lies the area's most dramatic natural feature, the Pichoux Gorge, or "Gorges du Pichoux." Here the Sorne River carves out a 700 to 800 foot deep gorge through the ridge of mountains, creating a spectacular sight that leaves a deep impression on all beholders. Outing to the Gorges du Pichoux - only two kilometers away are a special thrill for the Lehmann family.
The Lehmann-Neukomm house is an old stone one, with walls three feet thick, so wide that the children can lie on the window sills. The mill is connected to the house and so is the barn, with the living quarters above the barn benefiting from the warmth (and odors!) of the animals. To keep warm through the winter the children are sewn into their underwear from fall until spring. In the spring a laundry lady comes for two weeks to wash the winter's accumulation of laundry.
A holding pond of water from the river powers the saw mill. The mill has been there at least a century and half already and shows up on old maps. The attached farmland is call Neuf Clos, offering pasture for the animals.
In November Abraham Lehmann buys an adjacent tract called Tronchat (in Switzerland, all tracts of land seem to have a name). Abraham buys the land from Francois Louis Bandelier for 550 francs, getting a loan from the seller which obliges him to pay half the principle plus interest at 5% at the beginning of 1892 and the remainder plus interest a year later.
The road running along the Sorne River and past the mill comes from Bellelay and the old monastery in the west and continues to the east to Souboz and either Munster/Moutier or Delsberg/Delemont. On all sides rise mountains, only one to three kilometers away, which tower over Monible Mill by up to 1,000 feet. Daylight is scarce, especially in winter, and snow piles high.
This is good Mennonite territory: here they are part of an active congregation known as "Kleintal" (literally, "little valley"), embracing the communities of Monible, Sornetan, Chatelat, Moron, Lajoux, Souboz, and Saicourt. Among the Jura Mennonite congregations, Kleintal ranks as one of the three largest, with those of Sonnenberg and Munsterberg; and while the Kleintal congregation is down in number from the 147 members it had in the Mennonite census 50 years before, it is still of significant size. And it has its own Mennonite schooling for the children. The Kleintal congregation includes their close relatives, the Beers on Mont Tramelan, as well as the Gerbers from Furstenberg, the Nussbaums from right here in Monible, the Zinggs from the neighboring farm, Planche aux Boeufs, the Gerbers from Pres Vannes, and the Nussbaums from Cerniers, as well as more distant relatives or friends, such as the Liechtis at Reconvelier.
Revivalists visit their Kleintal Mennonite congregation, introducing greater emphasis on personal religion, and encouraging gospel singing. The family enjoys singing from a couple of gospel hymn books which 18-year-old daughter, Bertha Lehmann owns, with hymns such as "Come Home, Lost Child!" and "Wash Me Whiter than Snow." (These hymnals are treasured so highly that someday her daughter Rosine Oberli will take them with her to America and keep them for the rest of her life.)
The older girls are not only thinking about marriage, but also about a special kind of adventure which new modes of transportation and new horizons now make possible - namely, to work in the household of some distant well-to-do family which can afford live-in help. Bertha, now 19 years old, secures a copy of the latest how-to manual for household help, "Haushalt-Katechismus", literally, Household-Catechism. Published just the year before in Berlin, The "Haushalt-Katechismus" covers the subject thoroughly. In the first section Bertha and her sisters find a careful description of how to carry out the tasks of cooking, household work (cleaning, washing, serving, tending the heat stove), and personal service (dressing, child care, serving of food, care of the sick) for the householders. For instance, the "Dienstmadchen" is strongly advised that bluing should not be used in children's clothing as it might be harmful to their tender skin. Not preparing the fuel for the stove the night before is a sign of incompetence and carelessness ("Nachlassigkeit"). In part two of the "Household-Catechism" they find a discussion of the overall conduct and attitude of the employee toward the householders and any house guests, residents or family members. Part three tells Bertha how to seek employment, to dress and care for her personal space, and to manage her finances, and to terminate employment. There is even instruction in what to do with one's free Sunday afternoons. After attending church one should visit with a trustworthy woman friend, or better yet, a family, or write letters (unless householders have need of her). Above all, however, one must avoid dance halls, where many a young woman has been led astray.
As the Lehmann-Neukomms put their roots down in Monible, they share in the new anxiety of Mennonites about maintaining their religious freedom in relation to military service. The new federal constitution of Switzerland, adopted in 1875, states that each male citizen, without exception, is liable for military service.
Before then, Mennonites could pay a special tax as an alternative to military service, enabling them, with financial sacrifice, to be true to their faith and its non-resistant principles against bearing of arms. Now in 1880, with their three boys now 14, 13, and 11 and quickly approaching draft age, this is of deepening concern to the family.
Together with the rest of the Mennonite community, they observe the principles of thrift, hard work, simplicity and trust in God. The children are maturing, with work, church and school the center of their lives. Schooling for the children is provided for eight grades. The lower grades are offered in French in their home village of Monible. For the seventh and eighth grades they have a longer hike of about two to three kilometers to Bellelay to a Mennonite school conducted in German with tuition required.
Bellelay is famous for its 18th century Baroque monastery buildings. This site was occupied by the Premonstatensian religious order from 1136 to 1797, when the monastery was closed by Napoleon. The priests of Bellelay were believed to hold the secret for making Monk's head cheese. Some buildings have been converted to a psychiatric hospital. Children are fascinated with the ruins of the old monastery and love to explore them. Sometimes from their home several kilometers away, the Lehmanns can hear the mental patients screaming.
The Lehmann-Neukomm children, like children everywhere, get into an occasional altercation. One time Rosi took a plug of her father's chewing tobacco out of the cupboard and danced around, threatening to chew it; chasing her, one of the siblings by accident pushed her into the pit of liquid manure by the barn, which could have had a very serious outcome.
It is important for the children to learn the skills necessary for operating a farm and home, and they are put to work at as early an age as possible. Tasks are divided up by gender; farm work for the boys; house work, gardening, and home crafts for the girls. Karl dislikes helping take the wagon up the mountain with his father and brothers to cut timber for sawing at their water-powered sawmill. Sometimes the sides of the mountains are so steep they have to put chains on the wheels to keep the wagon from slipping down the slope of the mountain.
Mealtime is quite disciplined and father Abraham serves the food for everyone. A frequent meal is cabbage and potatoes with a hunk of fat on top for seasoning.
The children are expected to eat the fat too, but protest. Sometimes there are also lettuce, turnips, peas, carrots, beans, onions or pumpkins from the garden which the girls and Maria Anna tend. Chicken is served once in awhile, while butter is reserved for those infrequent times when guests are present.
They grow some mint for tea and drink beer or wine with their meals or when they work in the fields. They eat more meat than most families because Abraham helps other households butcher and gets a portion in exchange for his help.
1883: A major decision is made
School, work, and church continue to dominate the life of the family. Mathilde, the youngest, is now in the Monible school, where Arist Bassin is her teacher. She learns to sew and embroider, like all her older sisters, and begins work on her own sampler. The overarching question for the family is how to deal with the troublesome threat of military service for Benjamin, David and Karl. Will they seek to evade by subterfuge, as have some, by cutting off a trigger finger, or sending a crippled man pretending to be a draftee? Will they cross over into Alsace, France, and wait until they are no longer liable for military service? Or what?
Much thought and agony goes into the decision. Finally, as the eldest son, Benjamin reaches 18, it is decided that he and his two brothers, David, 17 and Karl, 16, will go to America. They immediately think of the community of Mennonites in Adams County, Indiana, now called Berne, where seven of their aunts and uncles, both Sprungers and Lehmanns, had emigrated 30 years before.
Certainly these aunts and uncles and their children, the boys' cousins, can be counted on to help them get settled.
For instance, one of the boys' cousins is Rev. S.F. Sprunger, now 44 years old, the pastor who has been so instrumental in building the Munsterberg congregation into the First Mennonite Church of Berne, and is destined to become the largest Mennonite congregation in North America. Selected as pastor at 19, but insisting he be allowed to attend Wadsworth Seminary first, der Sam has brought an unprecedented life and spirit of unity to the Berne church. However, with it come many changes that have drawn the congregation away from what was basically Bernese Anabaptist and moved toward the direction of evangelical denominations. These changes include less attention to submission, simplicity and resisting worldliness; wearing of fashionable clothing, less emphasis on non-resistance; use of photography; and the introduction of the Sunday School, gospel music, and revivalism in the style of evangelists Dwight L. Moody and William Spurgeon.
Meanwhile the founding in 1882 of a Swiss Mennonite bi-monthly "Zionspilger" ("Zion's Pilgrim") is introducing similar changes in Switzerland, but at a slower pace.
Abraham Lehmann and Maria Anna Neukomm are somewhat comforted, and the same time saddened, as their oldest daughter, Emma, and her husband Christian Liechty, also decide to go to Indiana, along with their small children, Selena, four, Rosella Mina, almost two, and Christian, eight months, with another child, Bertha on the way.
The concerns of the family are shared with the relatives and friends in Berne and Jakob P. Habegger expresses interest in giving assistance.**..........
Prompted by the family connection and his own emigrant experience, J.P. Habegger steps forward with the necessary financial backing.
He sends tickets for the boys, which cost $45 each, covering third-class passage from LeHavre, France, on a ship with both sailing masts and steam engine.
What heavy hearts there are as the three Lehmann brothers, Benjamin, David and Karl, 18, 17, and 16 respectively, take leave of their parents once and for all - for the sake of free expression of their religious belief in non-resistance.
Also poignant are the good-byes shared with their sister Emma, her husband Christian and their little children - good-byes to last a lifetime.
Together the Lehman-Liechti band boards the train for Basel and continues on to the port city of Le Havre, France. From there they take the masted steamship to New York, traveling in steerage class.
The tin dishes they eat from fly across the room in the rough seas. At one point, Benjamin is thrown from his upper bunk onto the floor of their cabin.
Many passengers, especially children, take sick and die.
The sight of seeing the unfortunate victims strapped to boards and lowered into the sea is etched indelibly into the boys' memories.
In fear that the whales following the ship will knock it over with their tails, they throw their bananas and other food to distract them. (Several years later the ship will actually capsize and sink.)
The trip concludes with a train ride from New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio to Berne, Indiana.
Disembarking from the train on April 30, 1883, they are at once apprehensive about starting over in a totally new place, thankful that everyone made the voyage safely, and gratified, after hearing so many strange voices and tongues, to be greeted by cousins speaking their very own Bernese dialect.
The land seems awfully flat to them, though, and they can't help but feel somewhat homesick. The boys stay with their sponsor, J.P. Habegger, and it doesn't take long to begin to get settled. They find work right away as hired hands for farmers, including as help in threshing.
Back in the Jura, the Lehmann-Neukomm household feels so empty now without these three lively boys. And the empty space left by their emigration is all the more painful because they don't write much, and little Mathilde sees her mother Maria Anna tearfully read and re-read what little correspondence their is.
1888: More sisters emigrate to America
The biggest news of the Lehmann-Neukomm family this year is that two more of the sisters decide to join their brothers and sister in America.
Leah Lehmann, now 26, .......And the younger sister, Pauline, just 20***........
Left behind is 17-year-old Karolina, itching to go to America herself but having to wait a couple of years; also 16-year-old Cleophas; 15-year-old Rosina; and 14-year-old Mathilde.
Abraham and Maria Anna sit for a portrait, probably for the very first time in their lives, as photographs had until recently been considered too vain for serious Mennonites. The parents' portrait of 1888 shows Abraham in a simple dark coat and vest, though the vest does have a turned-down collar (which the Amish reject as too worldly.) He sports a bushy gray beard, but, like other Mennonite men, no mustache, as mustaches are associated with the military. Maria Anna wears a black dress, a black scarf, and a modest, close fitting cap which covers most of her hair, the exception being a band of an inch or two of combed hair in the front, parted of course, in the middle.
As the family diminishes in Switzerland, it grows in Indiana. On hand in Berne, Indiana, to meet the arriving party of Pauline Lehmann and Leah Lehmann Joss (soon to be Yoss) and her children are their sister Emma, 29, her husband Chris Liechty, 36, and their children, Selena, nine, Rosella Mina, seven, Christian, the younger, six, Benjamin, four, Bertha, three, (this may have been Bertha, three and Benjamin, four -cb) and newborn Ernest.
Word is that John A. Sprunger of Berne, Indiana, will return next year to the Jura, where he was born, to lead some evangelistic meetings among the Mennonites and evangelicals. Abraham and Maria Anna, as well as Mathilde, can't wait to talk to him for first-hand news of their kinfolk so far away.
With more of the immediate family leaving, their remaining friends and family are particularly dear to the Lehmann-Neukomms. They are especially grateful for the close proximity of Abraham's sister Anna, just two years his senior, her husband, Jakob Beer, and their six children, who live nearby on Mont Tramelan. The two couples had married and begun their families at about the same time, and their children enjoy being close to their first cousins.
1894: "I would have walked back"
With Karolina having also gone to America in 1890, four of the Lehmann sisters and three of the brothers have now relocated from Canton Bern to Berne, Indiana. Now this year Cleophas, 22, is the next to get caught up in the spirit of emigration and on April 1, 1894, he arrives in Berne to the warm welcome of his seven brothers and sisters.
In the meantime some of his aunts and uncles have returned to Berne from the Ozarks in Missouri, where the attempt to plant a successful church under uncle Rev. Peter S. Lehmann's leadership has simply failed. Among those returning are Christian Lehmann and his wife Magdalena, and Elisabeth Lehmann Schnegg (a widow since 1879).
There's been much excitement in the Kleintal congregation. On an August day in 1892 over 40 men from the congregation gathered stone, sand and wood (the later milled at the Lehmann sawmill, and in one day erected a meeting house, for use as a school and place of worship. Among the financial contributions to this major undertaking, costing some 7000 francs when eventually fully completed, were Abraham Lehmann, 50 francs, Paul Deroches, the teacher in Bellelay, 30 francs, the neighboring Sonnenberg Mennonite congregation, 500 francs, Abraham's brother-in-law Christian Amstutz, 60 francs, and his future brother-in-law Peter Bogli, 100 francs. There was also a contribution of 100 francs from abroad, actually from John A. Sprunger, the evangelist from Berne, Indiana, who had stirred many Jura Mennonites during his preaching tour three years ago.
Meanwhile, in the six years (1888-1894) since we last checked in with the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, the family continues to grow and expand, but not without its share of sorrows. Emma, the oldest, has lost two children in infancy, Albert in 1899 and Caroline in 1892. Bertha has been more fortunate and her three newborns all have survived; Pauline Gerber (1890), Joel Gerber (1892), and Robert Gerber (1893). Leah has Irene Olga Yoss, born 1891, and Blondine Sara Yoss, born 1894. Ben Lehmann and his wife Sarah, known as "'s Ben Sari," have given birth to Cordella Lehman (1890), Werner B. Lehman (1892) and Waldo M. Lehman (1893).
Deep sorrow comes to the whole family as mother Maria Anna, age 61, dies of breast cancer on November 24.
It is fortunate that Rosine and Mathilde are around the home place in Switzerland in those lonely months as all of them, and especially Abraham, adjust as best they can to life without their wife and mother.
1900: The clan multiplies
Looking in once more on the family another six years later, we find that 64-year-old father Abraham has remarried four years earlier to his widowed sister-in-law, Katharina Sommer Neukomm, now 59. She is the widow of Christian Neukomm, the brother of Maria Anna Neukomm, his wife of 36 years.
Abraham's heart rejoices to learn that his son Cleophas plans to come back to Switzerland for a three-month visit in the coming year. This is most unusual, for those who leave for America almost never return to visit. Abraham is overcome with anticipation to see his son again and to get a first-hand report on the whole family in America.
Abraham begins conversation with the veterinarian in nearby Fornet-dessous about buying from him a small piece of property that sits right in the middle of the Neuf Clos farm and it appears he'll be able to purchase it next year for some 250 francs.
The clan continues to multiply rapidly with new children and the number of Abraham's living grandchildren reaches a remarkable total....56 living grandchildren of the Abraham M. Lehman-Maria Anna Neukomm marriage, with 32 more to come.
1910: "You are so far, far from here"
By this time great-grandchildren to Abraham and Maria Anna are beginning to appear. Selena Liechty Mettler had the first two. The first was Edna Mettler, born in 1902. Then just after Selena's husband John Mettler died in late 1904, Pearl Mettler (1905-1906) was born, and sadly, lived less than two years. Selena remarries to Henry Liechty ("di Liechty Hennr") and they have Milton Liechty, another great-grandchild, in 1910.
Others have been completing their families and bringing to an end long years of child bearing.
The previous year, 1909 has been a sad one. Cleophas is still paralyzed and in pain from his fall. Then Abraham M. Lehmann, the father of the Lehmann-Neukomm clan, takes ill at the old home place, Monible Mill, and after a short illness dies on February 6, 1909, at home at the age of 73. The Mennonite elders join the mourning wife Katharina and family and friends in the home place, offering strength from above through these words from Psalm 90:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place for in all generations ...... Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
As his physical remains are laid to rest in Sornetan, just across the road and up the hill, most of his 11 surviving children, his 79 grandchildren and his two great-grandchildren are far away, unable to be there as the community's minister recites from the Book of Revelation:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." (Rev. 14:13)
Abraham's widow, his second wife, Katharina Sommer Neukomm Lehmann, will outlive her husband by three years.
*Willis Herr in his Sprunger Family history, lists Adele before Emelie Mathilde, and Alice after, giving Maria Anna and Abraham 14 pregnancies, and 14 children. Adele would make the 13 pregnancies McClain speaks of, Alice born later died at age 2.
**Jakob P. Habegger is the son of Abraham's sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter Habegger.
***she was actually only 18.
Family Members
Children
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Emma Elsie Lehmann Liechty
1859–1939
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Bertha Dina Lehman Gerber
1861–1947
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Marie Leah Lehman Yoss
1862–1950
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Abraham Lehman
1863 – unknown
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Benjamin F. "Ben" Lehmann
1864–1896
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David Frederick Lehman
1866–1941
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Karl H. Lehman
1867–1950
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Pauline Ida Lehmann Harris
1869–1944
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Caroline Lehmann Flueckiger
1871–1949
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Cleophas Lehman
1872–1910
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Sara Rosalie "Rosi" Lehman Geiser
1873–1921
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Adele Lehman Jeanneret
1874 – unknown
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Emilie Mathilda Lehmann Nagel
1876–1972
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Alice Lehman
1881–1883
