A previous post cited an article about Lois Gunden (here) that had been published in a weekly serial known as The Mennonite. This paper, an official publication of the General Conference Mennonite Church, began in Pennsylvania in 1885 but moved to Newton, Kansas, in 1937. The purpose of The Mennonite was to offer “devotional articles, general articles of information and inspiration, news of General Conference activities, including missions and relief work, and news of General Conference congregations and schools” (Smucker and Shelly 1957). The entire collection of The Mennonite issues is now freely available online in several locations (see here or here), which makes it an inviting resource to explore.
All that is background to the story of this post. I recently searched online for the address at which Peter P and Margaretha and several of their children had lived in Ontario, California: 426 East I Street. One of the results returned was in a 1941 article published in The Mennonite. That article referenced Henry’s MCC appointment, namely, that he had been originally slated to serve in England but was now headed to France (see the 28 January 1941 entry below). Intrigued, I wondered how many other references to Henry or other members of our immediate family the 1941 volume contained.
Several hours later, I had collected from issues spanning 1939 to 1955 nearly one hundred specific references to our immediate family. Most concerned Henry and/or Bea, given the prominent role they played in the MCC, but Peter P, Margaretha, Maria, Sara, and even Benny Jr., Peter P and Margaretha’s grandson who drowned in a sand pit, also appeared. Many of the references are fairly mundane, but others are interesting enough to be quoted here. Several others are so consequential that they will receive their own individual posts.
This post will begin this series by focusing on Henry. The first possible reference to Henry appears in the 28 November 1939 issue of The Mennonite. Since Henry was born 20 December 1915, he would have a month away from his twenty-fourth birthday. Peter P, Margaretha, and family had moved to California three years earlier. Their house in Ontario was roughly 2 miles from the First Mennonite Church of Upland, California, which is mentioned in this first extract (see Hostetler 1959; now the Upland Peace Church; see here).
I used the word possible above because we cannot be certain that the Henry Buller mentioned is Uncle Henry; however, unless there were several Henry Bullers in the Upland church, the identification seems relatively secure.
28 November 1939 (page 9 here, right column)
Pacific Youth at School
The fall semester finds many of our young people enrolled in colleges and universities. …
UPLAND, CALIF. At Bethel: Alice Hostetler, John Toews, Henry Buller …
This brief report places Henry at Bethel College, in North Newton, Kansas, for the fall term of 1939. Was this his first year? his second? third or fourth? Here is where the chronology becomes confusing. According to the 1993 obituary for Henry in the Mennonite Weekly Review (see here), Henry graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Bethel in 1941. If that is correct (but see below), he probably began his college education in 1937 (i.e., four years to complete his degree). If so, then Henry would begun his third, or junior, year in 1939. However, all this is speculation.
Complicating the matter further are the following references to Henry in late 1940 and early 1941:
17 December 1940 (p. 15 here, right column)
—First Mennonite Church of Upland, California—
On December 1st the singers and musicians of this church again rendered “The Messiah” under the able direction of its pastor, Rev. Lester Hostetler. A chorus of fifty-five voices, accompanied by organ and piano and assisted by a string ensemble participated in the rendition of this great masterpiece. Henry Buller has been accepted by the Mennonite Central Committee for Relief work in England. His present address is Butterfield, Minn.
28 January 1941 (p. 7 here, lower left column)
Mennonite Central Committee Relief Notes …
Bro. M. C. Lehman, who has served the Committee from Britain in connection with its relief services in Poland since December 1939, returned to New York from Europe on December 23, 1940. Bro. Lehman plans to remain in the United States until about mid-February and then to again return to his field of service. He is at present engaged in a two-and-one-half weeks tour of Mennonite centers in the middle west and is planning to contact a group of congregations in Ontario before his return. Ernest Bennett, Cumberland, Maryland, who has served in Spain and France for the past two years returned to New York January 14th. It is planned to have Bro. Bennett give full time service to the work of the Committee in the home land. Bro. Henry P. Buller, 426 East “I” Street, Ontario, California, who had been appointed to serve us in England is instead arranging to proceed to unoccupied France and to assist Bro. Wiens at that service. His sailing to Lisbon, Portugal, is arranged for February 1st.
There is a lot of information contained in these reports, but several details stand out. First, although the First Mennonite Church of Upland continued to be Henry’s home church, in December 1940 he is reported as living in Butterfield, Minnesota, a town 6 miles east of the Mennonite community of Mountain Lake. (For a similar comment, see the post here.) If Henry was living in Minnesota in 1940, he was not attending classes in Kansas at that time.
A month later, in January 1941, he is said to be living at home with his parents in Ontario, California. Perhaps this was his legal address, but it gives one pause. Also worth noting is the fact that Henry does not appear in the 1938 Bethel College yearbook (see here), which leads one to wonder if and when he did attend and earn his degree from Bethel.
The picture is clouded further by the next two references to Henry in The Mennonite. As reported above, Henry was accepted for MCC service and was originally assigned to work in England. When Ernest Bennett, who had been serving in France, returned to the U.S., Henry was reassigned to the work there. His ship was set to sail on 1 February 1941, which would seem to preclude a graduation from Bethel later that year.
In any event, during Henry’s cross-country journey to the east coast, he appeared among several Mennonite groups in Pennsylvania.
18 February 1941 (p. 11 here, left column)
Fellowship Banquet
The third annual Y. P. [Young People’s] Fellowship Banquet was held in the newly renovated and very beautiful Zion Mennonite Church, Souderton, Pa. A group of about two hundred young people of the Eastern District Conference gathered on Saturday evening, January 25, for a time of fellowship and inspiration. … We had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Mr. Buller, a young man from California, who was to sail for France on February 5, to do relief work. He spoke briefly about the work being done and the need for continued effort.
18 February 1941 (p. 9 here, right column)
Report of the Third Quarterly Conference of the Eastern District, Held at Bethany Church, Quakertown, [Pennsylvania,] Monday, January 27
Mr. Andrew Shelly spoke to us on the theme: “A Ministerial Student Looks at His Church.” … Of the Relief work he said, “We are doing a large piece of work that is vital in a neutral way. This work needs to be supported. There is much that can be said, but the time is short. This work is kept before us constantly at the present time.” (Then he referred to Mr. Buller who was in our midst and about to leave for France to do relief work.)
We do not know whether Henry set sail on 1 or 5 February or even which passenger line or ship carried him across the Atlantic. All we can say for certain is that Henry arrived at his destination three or so weeks later, as reported in a 26 February 1941 cable included in The Mennonite:
8 April 1941 (p. 14 here, left column)
WORKERS ARRIVE
Cable from Henry Buller, February 26—“HAVE ARRIVED SAFELY MARSEILLE THIS MORNING.”
In all likelihood (based on comparable accounts from that time), Henry took a train from Lisbon to the southern port city of Marseille, France. Today that train journey takes over 22 hours; I expect it took somewhat longer in the mid-twentieth century.
This seems a good place to stop for now, before we explore articles about Henry’s relief work in France in a subsequent post. Before we close, however, it is worth pondering that, at the exact time Henry was sailing to Lisbon and traveling on to Marseille, thousands of Jewish refugees were fleeing the Nazi terror and certain death along the same, albeit reverse, route: through France to Lisbon or perhaps Barcelona, then on to the safety of the U.S. (see here). Ironically, Bea and her family had not been among those Jews who succeeded in leaving France; providentially, they—and Henry as a part of the family—would survive the Nazi threat and make their way to safety after the war.
Works Cited
Hostetler, Lester. 1959. “First Mennonite Church of Upland (Upland, California, USA).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.
Smucker, J. N., and Maynard Shelly. 1957. “Mennonite, The (1885–1998) (Periodical).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.
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