A celebration of Mennonite German Americans of the Palatine of the France German border and from Switzerland who settled Philadelphia from its start. Visionary people who lived in peace amid all the ramifications of war, faithful people who sought to live life in the inner garden that Christ's blood made in the world. The locus here is a woman who in another day would have been a surgeon but in early 20th century Philadelphia was a watercolor artist, rank curmudgeon, archivist and distinct observer of the time, long lived to 93. The account is written by her nephew, the poet AE Reiff, from long phone calls and visits in the last years of her life but inspired by knowing her from birth. Their conversations range meaningfully upon the Peace and the price of peace since her family descends from the Reiffs of Wadenswil, home of Hans Landis, executed 1614 for refusing to follow the state-run church. Her early forebearers started churches themselves in Philadelphia. Jacob Reiff (b. 1698) married into this Landis family, contended throughout against religion, as did later members who married with the Dutch Quaker Hendricks family of strong anit-slavery bias, as noted in Jacob Reiff the Elder and Succeeding Families. https: //pennsylvaniafathers.blogspot.com/2008/08/acknowledgments-modern-work-on-many-of_4622.html These strengths were further enriched by marriage with the Bechtel Mack families of nineteenth century Mennonite Bishops of Philadelphia whose names were chosen from a hat, but produced her uncle, Andrew Mack, another distinguished head of the faith. With all this piety it would seem this work to be stilted and dogmatic, but it is just the opposite, full of the humor, irony and wit of these two minds together. His wit and her irony fuel this absorbing read against the background of Pennsylvania life. .
