Telling A Story That Has Told Me

By Ron Kennel

 

Stories have an impact on those who hear them. Stories also have an impact on those who tell them.

This is certainly true for the great biblical story of salvation. That story is told to evoke obedience and faith in God for those who hear it (Ps. 78:1-8; Luke 1:1-4; Rom. 1:1-6), and for those who tell it (Deut. 26:1-19; Ps. 96; 1 Cor. 11:23-34).

I found this to be true, also, for a small, recent chapter of God's great story of salvation-the story of my great-grandfather, Peter Kennel, Sr.

My father, Lester Kennel, who faintly remembers Great-Grandpa, was the first to tell me about him. He told me that Great-Grandpa came from France. So when in elementary school I was asked about my family's nationality, I proudly said, "French!" as though Great-Grandpa was my only ancestor. I was unaware that his roots were actually Swiss and German. Dad told me how Great-Grandpa had been a highly-respected bishop of our Salem Mennonite Church, near Shickley, Nebraska. This reinforced my identification with ministers such as my grandfather, Peter Kennel, Jr., my uncle, LeRoy Kennel and others. I felt as though I belonged to a family of church leaders. Dad told me that if I thought he (Dad) was strict in his discipline of me, Grandpa had been stricter, and Great-Grandpa had been stricter yet! This created in me a sense of awe and fascination of Great-Grandpa. Dad also told me that Great-Grandpa was a good manager, a hard worker, and that his motto was "Idleness is a curse." This reinforced within me the value of hard work and good management, which Dad and other Kennel family members had modeled.
The images Dad gave me were later confirmed by what Grandpa told me. Grandpa showed me pictures of his parents, grandmother, uncles, and aunt. Their faces seemed attractive and dignified. It is understandable then, that years later (1966) when I was taking J. C. Wenger's Mennonite History course at seminary, I chose to write about Peter Kennel, Sr.

In this project I was transformed from a story-hearer to a story-teller. I felt I was doing something very significant. I was saving a story from obscurity by writing it down.

I started by learning more of the story. I read conference and church records. I interviewed Grandpa Kennel, great-uncles, and other church leaders who had known Great-Grandpa. How excited I was when I held in my hand Great-Grandpa's passport, other vital papers, his Bibles, and his sermon notes! The excitement of primary research made this paper the most enjoyable writing project I had ever undertaken.

I learned many new things about Great-Grandpa. He was the only one of his family to migrate to North America. The stated reason was to escape military service. He could speak three languages. He was a good preacher and a highly respected bishop. As a leader he was progressive, yet he remained committed to Anabaptist-Mennonite perspectives. His children respected him. In addition to his church work, he was a successful farmer and won the respect of the local banker, who used Great-Grandpa as a consultant. He was clear and direct in his communication. He expressed his faith in his daily life. He was energetic and engaging. He walked swiftly, as I do.

The more I learned about him, the more I liked him. I began to feel as though I knew him personally. In all my research I came upon little negative information about him. Consequently, the story I wrote was complementary and idealistic. Nevertheless, in J. C. Wenger's estimation, it was good enough for an "A."

Believing that I had produced something worth sharing, I made copies and distributed them to others in the family. One of these was Lloyd Troyer, Jr., the son of Great-Grandpa's only daughter, Emma. In 1967, after he and his wife, Erma, attended Mennonite World Conference in Amsterdam, they visited France to try to locate and to re-connect with our European cousins. This was an important mission, since contact with them had been broken when Great-Grandpa died in 1923. They took with them a copy of my paper on Great-Grandpa. After an unsuccessful search, they left their copy of my paper at Bienenberg Bible School in Liestal, Switzerland.

In 1969, about two weeks before they were scheduled to leave for Kenya, Africa to visit their daughter and son-in-law, Lloyd and Erma received a once-in-a-life-time letter. It was from a French Mennonite minister named Andre Goll. Goll reported that his job was to visit all the French-speaking Mennonite families in France. He had heard of the Troyers' unsuccessful search in 1967, and had found my paper on Peter Kennel, Sr. at Bienenberg. And, most exciting of all, he had located our relatives in the city of Toul, in eastern France!

Needless to say, Lloyd and Erma immediately changed their itinerary to include a stop in France. They met Andre Goll, who took them to Toul to meet the relatives he had identified. When the Troyers laid out photographs they'd brought along of Great-Grandpa, his mother and siblings, they heard excited exclamations, "This is our grandmother! These are our uncles! This is our mother!" It was an unforgettable reunion. After 46 years, contact between the two parts of our family had been re-established.
Since that time we have corresponded with our French cousins, Several members of our family in the U.S. have visited them in France. Andre Goll and his family has visited us.

As a result of all these contacts, much new information came to light, which I compiled in a series of papers over several years and distributed to interested family members.

In 1981 a seminary class on family and marital therapy provided me with an opportunity to do additional research on Great-Grandpa from a family systems perspective. I interviewed more people how had known him. While much of what I heard reinforced my liking for him, other things caused me discomfort. The opposition of his siblings to his emigration--especially since he was the oldest son, and his mother was a widow--raised questions for me about the quality of his relationship with them. His directness in communication sometimes seemed insensitive. The disciplining of his children seemed too harsh. His frequent, extended absences from home to attend to his bishop assignment must have placed great strains on Great-Grandma who had borne ten children. I began to wonder how he and I would have related had we been contemporaries. This new information helped to demythologize him. He seemed more human.

Later that year we were greatly delighted when our French cousin, Robert Guingrich came to visit us. He was the son of Great-Grandpa's youngest sister, Emelie. Robert was the first Kennel relative from Europe to visit the American Kennels since Great-Grandpa immigrated. What a grand reunion we had! Significantly, that year, 1981, was exactly 100 years after Great-Grandpa had migrated to North America, never to see his family again.

In 1990 the coordinators of our triennial Kennel family reunion asked me to give the Sunday morning meditation. Having become Great-Grandpa's historian, I told his story. I also offered to compile my research and write a new biography. They took me up on the offer.

Immediately I faced a problem. Having just begun a new pastorate, I could not find adequate time to begin this project. Three years later, I had produced nothing. When our next family reunion rolled around, my conscience was troubled. It was not until early I996 that I managed to block out the time necessary to write this story.

This time my research was primarily rechecking my sources, reviewing what I had already written, and rummaging through my notes. I had few new sources. I had hoped to find Great-Grandpa's name on the immigrant ship lists on microfilm at the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. But it was not to be. After many tedious hours of searching, I was unable to find his name on any of the ship lists.

The Challenges

As I worked on this project, I became aware more than ever of the challenges of writing history.

One was a justice challenge. Having been sensitized to women's concerns in recent years, I had learned to appreciate the role of women in Great-Grandpa's story. In my research I had gathered some data on the women in the story, but I wished I had more. Though I focused on Great-Grandpa, I included as much about the women as was available to me.

Another challenge was objectivity. In spite of the fact that Great-Grandpa had been somewhat demythologized for me in 1981, I still felt pressured by my earlier idealistic view. Most of the data I had gathered about him was positive. I struggled with what negative information to include, and how to present it. I had some anxiety about how it might be received by other members of the family. In a few instances I omitted names of certain family members. I left out one matter entirely-his pipe-smoking habit--which now would be perceived as negative, but which in Great-Grandpa's time would have been rather insignificant. However, if I had it to do over again, I would include it with appropriate background information.

A third challenge was accuracy. I was glad that in my recent project I was able to correct some inaccuracies in my earlier paper. However, while I had a good deal of reliable data, most of my anecdotal material was based on memory, which can be subjective and historically inaccurate. Where I felt it necessary to reconstruct narrative on the basis of historical background, I tried to be as accurate as possible.

A fourth challenge was evenness. Since my data covered some parts of Great-Grandpa's journey more fully than others, and since my resource materials varied in genre from anecdotal to statistical, an unevenness crept into my final draft.

A fifth challenge was clarity of communication. Assuming not all readers would be aware of the historical contexts of Great-Grandpa's life, I provided some background information. However, I believe that I was not attentive enough to the range of ages and the various educational levels of my potential readers. In some places, I could have used simpler language.

A sixth challenge was unity. In looking for themes, I found several which stood out. One was "migration" and the other "home." Consequently, I decided on the title, Journey Home. Were I to do it over again, I would search for a more dynamic title.

Giving glory to God was a seventh challenge. I did not want this project to be ancestor worship. I wanted it to bear witness to Jesus Christ. So, I attempted to place it in the context of salvation history. Great-Grandpa's ministry and faith legacy made this a good fit.

As I dealt with these challenges, it became apparent to me that what I was writing was not simple history or biography. It was more a reflection on a life in the context of God's salvation story. Thus I chose the subtitle, Peter Kennel, Sr., Reflections on His Life and Times.

Beside these, I found preparing a book for publication to be a real challenge. Decisions needed to be made about format, layout, size, type, pictures, chapter headings, footnotes and jacket design. Then, too, there was proofreading. I learned the importance of having other people do the proofreading, and that more than one proofreading is essential. I also had to choose a printer.

Finally, I had to decide how many copies to print and how much to charge.
By God's grace, the book was completed, and 100 copies were ready for our family reunion in July 1996. It was well received. Since I had done thirty years of research and writing in conversation with the family, and much of my data had been gathered from various family members, this project was really a family project. After I presented it to our reunion, my uncle and mentor, LeRoy Kennel asked me a question: "What has happened to you, personally, during this project?" I'm still working on an answer. These reflections are a partial answer.

Hearing and Telling, a Means of Grace

In summary, this project has deepened my sense of roots and identity. It also helped me to become more realistic in my views of ancestors and, in family systems language, to differentiate myself from my family of origin. Great-Grandpa and Grandma's faithfulness to Christ and to the church inspires and encourages me to faithful discipleship. Great-Grandpa's decisions to migrate to North America, to follow Christ, and to serve the church impress on me the significance of such decisions for future generations. I am reminded how it is only by God's grace that I am allowed to benefit from the legacy of my ancestors.

In storyteller John Shea's words, the story I've written has "told me." It has told me about myself. It's a story that I have internalized. Since it is about my family of origin, it is a vital part of my story. Most important, it belongs in God's great story of salvation. Hearing and telling it has been for me a means of grace.
Although I'm no longer preoccupied with it, questions remain. I have only two copies of my book left for distribution. I've found errors that were missed in proofreading. I wonder if the picture I painted of Peter Kennel, Sr. is still too idealistic. I've had second thoughts about the title. What should I do if new information comes to light? Should I prepare a revision? If so, how soon? When is a project like this ever finished?

Perhaps trying to answer this last question is futile. In the final analysis, I know that what I've written is never the final word. The final word is what God has written. About Great-Grandpa Kennel, about me, and all of us.

Ron Kennel is pastor of Clinton Brick Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana.

Mennonite Historical Bulletin, January 1999

Last updated 1 December 1999