Description

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Old Order Mennonites are deeply faithful, agrarian-rooted, Swiss-German Anabaptists who have called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home for 300 years. Their meetinghouses silently embody their religious traditions, and yet few outsiders have seen the startling utilitarian beauty of these rural structures up close. The author and photographer were allowed rare access to 22 austere houses of worship. The result is a one-of-a-kind book featuring over 300 photos and diagrams that document all aspects of the meetinghouses, from the design of their benches and buggy sheds to the arrangement of tables central to worship. As fast-growing Lancaster County encroaches on the Old Order way of life, their communities are changing. This book is a record of an extraordinary religious heritage.

About the Author

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Beth Oberholtzer is a book designer, editor, and author from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. John Herr is an architecture photographer, also from Lancaster County, whose work documents contemporary and historic buildings. Beth and John are descendants of Swiss-German Mennonites who in the early 1700s escaped religious persecution and settled in Lancaster County.