This is so coincidental I felt I had to share it. While talking to my husband this morning in his "den," I noticed a book on his shelves titled, "The Mennonites in Iowa," so since I've only just this Summer taken an interest in genealogy, I opened it up to glance at what it had to offer. Wouldn't you know it that I opened to a page about a colony established in Butler County in 1819 by Christian Augspurger and five (unnamed) families from Alsace! Also on this page it mentioned that Peter Maurer was the first member of the Amish faith to come to Ilinois after migrating two years earlier from Alsace to Butler County. I flipped to another page and read, "For instance, Christian Augspurger, an ancestor of Davis County Mennonites, living on a farm of one of Napoleon's spies, set such high standards of agriculture that this farm became the model which was visited by many of the officials of that country. Later Napoleon awarded Augspurger the medal of the Legion of Honor for his service in the field of agriculture." Neither of us has read this book, have Mennonites in our family that we know of, or relatives in Iowa. The book by Melvin Gingerich marked the 100th anniversary of the coming of the Mennonites to Iowa, published in 1939 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. I'll read it now and if someone is interested in buying it, let me know. Rita