Swiss Historical Society provides program on new book

BLUFFTON — You can take the boy out of Bluffton, but you can't take Bluffton out of the boy. Take Fred Steiner, for instance. The Bluffton native now calls Cincinnati home, but he's still connected to the place where he spent most of his life. Steiner has worked to preserve the village's history through his publications like "Bluffton — A Good Place to Miss," for the Bluffton sesquicentennial; "A Century of Pirates," commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Bluffton News; and an updating of the local history book, "Town at the Fork of the Rileys: Historical Sketches of Old Shannon and Bluffton, Ohio." A program focusing on the upcoming release of a new history book by the Bluffton-Pandora Swiss Community Historical Society will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the society's Heritage Center, 8350 Bixel Road. "Our Swiss Story" contains details of the Swiss immigrants who settled in Allen County's Richland Township and Putnam County's Riley Township beginning in the 1830s and 1840s. The 264-page book is set for release in late spring, according to Gary Wetherill, president of the historical society. Steiner, who is the project's editor, will be the speaker. He has been researching the non-Mennonite families of "The Settlement" known as the "Swiss Reformed." Several families will be featured, plus more stories from the period. "Venturing into this Settlement world becomes a never-end history lesson as several generations distance me from the many events and people in this book," wrote Steiner in the book's introduction. What we call the Bluffton-Pandora Swiss Settlement encompasses much more than geography, he noted. "Its existence thrives in a heritage involving family, faith, food and farm, wrapped in cultural pride that recognizes the country from where we all came," Steiner said. Wetherill said "Our Swiss Story" contains three sections. First is a reprint of the 1925 P.B. Amstutz book, "Historical Events of the Mennonite Swiss Settlement in Allen and Putnam Counties, Ohio." "I grew up immersed in stories of this world," said Steiner. "My grandmother Bertha Althaus Hahn introduced me to the 1925 P.B. Amstutz German edition of this book when I was in grade school. She pointed out the story of her mother's parents, Peter and Barbara Lugibuhl Amstutz." Hahn next showed Steiner the story of her father's brother, Gotthard and Elizabeth Steiner Althaus. This family introduction came despite the fact that she could not read German even though she was a second-generation immigrant. She was not alone, he said, as not all owners of the book could read it. "I witnessed a parade of visitors in her home — whose cousins', parents' and grandparents' stories came alive in the book. I heard their stories," Steiner said. "These visitors ranged from Levi and Willie Althaus, Wilhelm Amstutz, Hiram Kohli, Evan Basinger, and others." "Always … always … their many conversations were in Swiss dialect, their own first language," he added. "And, as a Swiss saying I once heard goes, 'When two or more Swiss get together, pretty soon they are laughing.' Even though I couldn't understand, the inflection they used telling their stories made me laugh, too." As Steiner grew older, his understanding of the people in this story became more clear through conversations with Delbert Gratz, Herman Hilty, Elam Suter, Herman Schumacher, Ezra Bucher, Darvin Luginbuhl, Dale and Alan Grismore, Jim Suter and others. From them, he learned extraordinary stories about everyday people in everyday life situations, Steiner said. He learned that the first Pandora High School football team of 1923, whose mascot was The Flying Dutchman, called its plays in Swiss dialect. "I discovered that smoked sausage is really a local product going back to the days of Fred Bigler, which he brought from Switzerland. From several county school graduates I heard of their fear of entering high school because they were country kids," he said. Steiner also found that certain church differences were so diverse that one family moved the burials of their parents from a church cemetery to Maple Grove Cemetery. The more he researched, the more he learned. Steiner said certain pieces of the book came together unexpectedly, thanks to his 52-weeks as editor of The Pandora Times in 1972-73. "Right out of journalism school, I created a series of nearly 24 features on Settlement country schools. Fifty-three years later I am using the information I gathered in this book," he said. In the early 1980s, as Bluffton News editor, Steiner interviewed Agnes Amstutz, Esta Lugabill Dye, Geraldine Bucher and Milt Sprunger about New Year's Eve caroling experiences, also used in the book. There are countless other examples, including interviews with John Thut, May Bixel and Bertha Schifferly Goetsch, the latter provided him with to a helpful understanding of the Reformed Settlement community. Historical material published for the first time makes up the remaining chapters. New material includes historical events of the Swiss Reformed Settlement in Richland Township, a section on Swiss immigrant women, Settlement country schools and significant persons who grew up in the Settlement, he said. Sunday's program is free and open to the public. Homemade pies and hot beverages will be available. Two nut pies, hickory and walnut, made from Dr. Ollie Lugibihl's famous recipe, will be offered for silent auction to support the society. The event will be livestreamed and available after the event on YouTube. To livestream, go to the First Mennonite Church website and click on the livestream tab.