Nancy, I love your memories and stories so when you have time I would love to have more, more, more! Yes, I am greedy. Have a joyous Christmas cousin, Mary Randall ----- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Shrum<mailto:[email protected]> To: VASHENAN group<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2007 12:03 PM Subject: [VASHENAN] Another Book about Brethren In Shen Co Holiday Greetings to you all. Now, I am just wanting to read, read and learn more and more about the Brethren history. Came across another book here in my library. It is ONE WHO SERVED about Elder Charles Nesselrodt of Shenandoah County by Terry W. Barkely. It tells the story of Elder Nesselrodt, one of the last "free" and one of the first "set apart" ministers among the Brethren. A farmer and laborer, he served both the Stony Creek and Flat Rock Church, the oldest Brethren congregation in Virginia. Barkley, a professional archivist ( I think at Bridgewater College), wrote One Who Served after becoming a member at Stony Creek Church of the Brethren, located in Basye, Virginia, and becoming acquainted with Nesselrodt's descendants. He was particularly intrigued by a 1905 photograph of a Brethren baptism conducted by Elder Nesselrodt in a local stream. Barkley's engaging style conveys a colorful Valley history, rich in genealogy. The reader quickly becomes absorbed in the lives of the people who lived among the isolated valleys and hills inthe Shenandoah Valley in the late nineteenth century. (2nd edition, 1998, softcover, illustrated, and fully indexed. 109 pp.) This book interested me because it is about Shenandoah County and about an elder in the COB. The forward is by John L. Heatwole. The book opens to the "dead of winter" in the Stony Creek Valley (where Bryce Resort now stands) of western Sheandoah Valley, amid the highlands of the Great North Mountain. "Snow blankets the countryside like a tomb. A soaking rain, colder than snow, falls upon the gathering in the little church cemetery on the ridge. February is an awful time to die, should any time seem appropriate. Funerals appear sadder, grimmer than usual, when the elements fail to cooperate." (I know that feeling. Our last son, "Danny" Shrum, died as an infant on February 6, 1975, and was buried beside his sister, Donna Sue, who died in 1968.) GOD rest their precious little souls. Back to 1887: They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but, for twenty-eight year-old Charles Nesselrodt, a local farmer and day laborer, lightning struck three times in tragic succession. The funerals held that wintry day were for Nesselrodt's wife and infant daughter. The baby had been born and died on February 8th. Catherine. Charles' beloved wife, succumbed to complications from the birth on Feb 10th. She was twenty-five years-old. Mother and child were buried together in the union church cemetery at Powder Springs (Basye), not far from the Nesselrodt's farm. There was a small headstone, just a few feet away, of yet another Catherine, Charles's first wife, who had died during the winter of 1881. She was twenty-three. Nesselrodt was left with three young daughters, two from his first marriage. Nearly a decade would pass before he would be formally called to the ministry. Lots of family history. Although Elder Nesselrodt was not one to keep notes or a diary, there is a lot of history in this small book. One thing I learned was that Orkney Springs (formerly called Yellow Springs) was at the base of Church Mountain, and was for many years a favorite health resort for the German poplutation of Rockingham and Shenandoah Counties. On warmer Sundays there would be preaching there by the German Baptist Brethren. Elder John Kline was one. Later, the character and the name of the place were both changed. Streams of folks started coming and by 1900 it was a popular pleasure resort for the for rich and fashionable. I love going back to Orkney and Shrine Mont now and up to the Outdoor Cathedral. I think there is a cross up on the mountain and I want to go there one day, maybe, towards spring. I didn't realize that the site had been such a sacred place back in olden times. What a glorious place for the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival!!! Another note of great interest comes in the third chapter where it states that according to family traditon and a contemporary diary note that Charles Nesselrodt's paternal great-grandfather, Frederick William Nesselrodt (c. 1746 -1835) was a Hessian soldier. Reputedly, he came to America from Germany as a mercenary to fight for the British during the Revolutionary War. He chose to remain in America after the war and settled first near Brocks Gap and then went westward over the Shenandoah Mtn to the Fort Seybert-Sweedlin Valley area into what is now Pendleton County in WV. Hessians weren't welcomed by patriot neighbors, and they sought homes in the remote and secluded valleys among the mountains. Two of his sons moved back across the Shenandoah Mtn, one to Brocks Gap and the other to Shenandoah County. The Nesselrodt family apprears to have affiliated early with both the German Baptist Brethren (Dunkers) and Mennonite denominations. I remember that when Dr. Eloise Haun spoke about the Revolutionary War Era at the Woodstock Library in Oct, she talked about the Hessians and that some settled back near Camp Strawderman. I'm wanting to learn more about them, too, but will try to slow down for now as my old addled brain is getting into information overload. Although, I've had a great interest in VA/Shenandoah County history since a fourth grader at Strasburg Elementary School when Miss Virginia Cooper taught VA History, it's been only the few last years when I have really pursued it. Also, I was blessed to have Marguerite Miller Helsley as my seventh grade teacher, and she knew her Shenandoah County History!!! She had each student make a scrapbook of Strasburg History and Shenandoah County History. Wish I still had mine. She was one of the authors of the Shenandoah County Geography Supplement in 1931, and I don't know what else. I still have my mother's old ragged copy. I got interested in history again when I picked up where my late mom left off on the quest for more information about my gg grandfather, Samuel Grandstaff. I just feel so blessed to be a member of this group and to be able to learn more from you others. Please bear with me if I share too much. Praying that by sharing what I know or learn we will be able to open more historic horizons here in Shenandoah County besides those of my beloved Fort Valley and the Massanutten Mountains. Well, Christmas is coming and I gotta get busy if we are going to have the family, inlaws and outlaws, too, here on Christmas Day. Yep, the Yankees are getting down here from Vermont today!!! They are our daughter-in-law, Robin's parents. Yesterday, we put the three leaves in the old oak table. My hubby went to Crabill's Meat Shop and got the necessary country ham, scrapple, stuffed sausage and liver puddin'. Yankees are not used to that good stuff. LOL. Last night I made another batch of Ethel Bower's "Surprise Cookies". They are to die for with choc chips, nuts and candied cherries. Ethel's a good neighbor and member of the Valley Pike Church of the Brethren. She and her hubby, Alfred "Abe", live back at the old farmhouse across the fields. They pretty much stick to the old timey ways of living. Somedays, I feel as though I am still living back in the good ol' days, too, but it can be hard work keeping all these "home fires burnin"!!! Merry Christmas. Love and prayers, Nancy "Shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life......." Phil 2:15, 16 NIV ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message