Part I. The journey of Jacob Graf -- Part II. A stone house in the wilderness.
Summary
The book, enlivened with description and dialogue, is suitable for middle-school-age and older readers. The material is based on Grove's visits to sites in Switzerland and Germany as well as research done here. Chapters in Part I are set in Europe and recount the journey of patriarch Jacob Graf (1618-1683), whose roots go back to the 1500s in the Swiss canton of Zurich, where Anabaptism was born. Grove explains that, by law, everyone underwent infant baptism into the state church. But as adults, Anabaptists made a Christian commitment and were baptized again, a practice forbidden by the state. To avoid prosecution and persecution, Anabaptists fled to Germany and the Netherlands. They were united by a traveling Dutch priest named Menno Simons and eventually became known as Mennonites. Part II is set after Mennonites' arrival in America in 1710, when seven families -- Kendig, Meylin, Herr, Bauman, Miller, Funk and Groff -- arranged with William Penn's agents to participate in his Holy Experiment in what was then Chester County. An early building in the settlement was Willow Street's Hans Herr House, depicted on the book's cover by artist P. Buckley Moss. Inside the book are 30 pen-and- ink drawings by Ohio art teacher Peg Knueve. [from LancasterOnline]