Bontrager, Willis (1907-1965)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Apr 15 p.1, 16

Birth date: 1907 Aug 10

text of obituary:

TWIN DEATH CLOUDS — Two separate funnel clouds hugging the earth, spread devastation along U.S. 33 a quarter of a mile west of Elkhart, Ind. The New York Central Railroad tracks are at right. Path of the tornado was about one and a half miles south of the Mennonite Biblical Seminary campus. Picture was made by the Elkhart Truth photographer Bill Borneman shortly before the twisters struck the Dunlap community south of Elkhart, killing some two dozen persons. (Photo courtesy of the Hutchinson News and Associated Press.)

Mennonite Churches Destroyed

Multiple Tornadoes Leave 70 Dead In Two Northern Indiana Counties By Richard Blosser, Assoc. Ed.

MENNONITE CHURCHES and communities in Indiana and Ohio share in the suffering, destruction and bereavement in the wake of the vicious wave of tornadoes which raked large sections of the Great Lakes Region last Sunday evening, leaving more than 250 dead, some 5,000 injured and millions in property damage.

Believed hardest hit of all is the Elkhart and Lagrange County region of northern Indiana, with approximately 73 known dead as of Tuesday night, over 400 injured, and at least 1,400 homeless. Of the dead about 20 are Mennonites. For both counties, it was the worst disaster in their history.

Telephone reports from Dr. Melvin Gingerich of Goshen and Dr. Erland Waltner of Elkhart on Wednesday morning gave further details of the tragedy. They confirmed that the number of deaths and the full extent of damage had not yet been accurately determined. The area was under martial law. President Lyndon Johnson was scheduled to arrive at Elkhart on Wednesday to personally survey the damage.

PROPERTY DAMAGE in the two-county area is in the millions, and demolished structures include two Mennonite churches — the Sunnyside (Old) Mennonite Church in Dunlap and the Shore (Old) Mennonite Church near Shipshewana in Lagrange County. At least nine members of the latter church were killed. The storm reportedly hit while evening services were in progress.

The greatest destruction and loss of life occurred in the unincorporated community of Dunlap (population about 2,500) between Goshen and Elkhart. The two cities are about 10 miles apart.

A twin funnel descended on the area about 6:15 p.m., traveling in an easterly direction. The storm ripped through the Midway Mobile Home Court along US-33, demolishing some 30 trailer homes and killing or injuring a number of their occupants. It then continued in a northeasterly direction and smashed a suburban area north of Goshen on SR-15.

About an hour later another funnel struck north Dunlap, flattening the Sunnyside Addition, including the Sunnyside Church.

ONE OR MORE of the funnels continued eastward and dipped down in the Middlebury community about 15 miles east of Elkhart and also in the Shipshewana area in Lagrange County, some 20 miles east of Elkhart. Property damage and loss of life was heavy in both communities. , In the predominantly Amish and Mennonite community of Shipshewana, four persons were killed as they engaged in quartet practice in a home. They were Leroy Yoder of Topeka, principal of the Honeyville School, his wife, and Yoder's uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Willis Bontrager.

Others in the Shipshewana area who lost their lives, as reported by the Associated Press, were Charles Clindaniel, Frank and Grace Haarer, Bernice Hostetler, Bessie Hostetler, David Miller, 20, Ida Miller, Iva Nofzinger, 30 [sic 54], and Mr. and Mrs. John S. Yoder. Also reported killed was Noble Haarer, 35, of Lagrange.

A mass funeral service for th dead of the Shore Church and the Forks (Old) Mennonite Church is to be held Thursday at the Shipshewana High School.

AMONG THOSE KILLED in the Middlebury area were Mrs. Jean Krehbiel, 35, and 18-month-old Timothy Krehbiel, wife and son of Rev. Myron Krehbiel, pastor of the Pleasant Grove Mennonite Church (General Conference). It was reported that Mrs. Krehbiel and son, were en route to their home when a building was tossed onto their car by the storm. The double funeral in to be Thursday at the Pleasant Oaks Church — the first funeral in the new church building.

IN A BRIEF REPORT written on Monday, Dr. Gingerich writes of how the community responded in meeting the emergency. He states, “Hundreds of people were seriously injured and were rushed to the Goshen, Elkhart, South Bend and possibly other hospitals. All doctors, nurses, and aides were pressed into service.

“More than 100 of the seriously hurt were treated at the Goshen Hospital, and the overflow crowd of less seriously injured patients were housed in the Goshen College High Park girls dormitory which is near the hospital, and which fortunately was empty during spring vacation.

“The community responded magnificently to the crisis and all kinds of organizations offered their services. Clothing and food was collected in various centers all day today (Monday) and homes were opened to the homeless. Mennonite disaster Service along with the Red cross {sic] and other agencies has been on the job through the night and today.”

Later Dr. Gingerich reported that large quantities of relief goods had been brought to the Goshen College Church, where women of the church were sorting it for distribution by the Red Cross.

FORTUNATELY, the storms hit before dark, and there was ample warning of severe weather by radio and television. Otherwise the toll of dead and injured might have been much higher.

Dr. Gingerich states there were numerous reports of people racing out of the storm's path in their cars, or being spared by taking refuge in basements. Dr. and Mrs. Guy Hershberger of Goshen were visiting their son Paul Hershberger and family in the Sunnyside Addition, Dunlap, when they noted the second funnel approaching. They quickly got in a car and left the area. Moments later Sunnyside was hit and the Paul Hershberger home demolished.

AT LEAST ONE of the funnels passed about one and a half miles south of the Mennonite Biblical Seminary campus in Elkhart. Dr. Waltner, president of the seminary, reports that the seminary was not damaged, and all personnel are safe. However, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Dean of the Midway Trailer Court in Dunlap and members of the Hively Ave. Mennonite Church, Elkhart, were severely injured. They are reported recovering. Mrs. Dean is a daughter of Mrs. Vinora Saltzman, assistant librarian at the seminary.

Four other families of the Hively Avenue Church residing in a housing development at the south edge of Elkhart lost their homes. However, the families had all taken refuge in their basements, and were not injured.

They are the Dr. Leonard Smucker, Dr. Otto Klassen, Alden Bohn and Harold Hartman families, all associated with the Oaklawn Psychiatric Center. Mrs. Hartman and Mrs. Klassen are sisters of Alden Bohn, and their parents are Rev. and Mrs. Ernest Bohn.

Students and staff members of the Elkhart seminary are assisting in the tornado relief work.

OTHER storm-ravaged regions of Indiana include Howard County in the north central region and Adams County in east central Indiana, both with large Mennonite settlements. The little towns of Russiaville and Alto near Kokomo were virtually wiped out, as was Linngrove southwest of Berne in Adams County.

Among the dozen or more listed as killed in Howard County were Mrs. Alice Shenk of Kokomo and Leroy Alvin Kuhns, 65, of Russiaville. Reported killed at Linngrove were Martin Graber and Elroy Stauffer. Reports from Berne are incomplete, but indicate some property damage there.

IN A TELEPHONE REPORT to the Review Tuesday night, Mrs. Eldon Graber of Bluffton College reported that 10 were dead in Allen County, Ohio including five in the Bluffton area. None of these were Mennonites. The tornado moved into the area about 9:45 p.m. Sunday, hitting west of Beaverdam and in an area south of Bluffton and then continuing east of town. The town of Bluffton escaped.

Among the dead were Mrs. Ulysses Reichenbach, 41, her son Joe Steiner, 20, and her mother, Mrs. lva H. Clymer of Findlay, all members of the Methodist Church. Mr. Reichenbach, however, is a Mennonite.

Three families of the Bluffton First Mennonite Church were affected but no one was injured. The Robert Flick farm home was leveled, and at the Truman Bixler farm the home was slightly damaged and all out-buildings demolished.

Bluffton College students were helping to patrol the affected areas to prevent looting.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Apr 22 p. 1, 7

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GRAVES OF TORNADO VICTIMS — Eight members of the Shore Mennonite Church near Shipshewana, Ind. were buried April 15 in the cemetery adjoining the remains of their church, wrecked by the Palm Sunday twister. The storm also took the lives of five other Mennonites in the vicinity.

Mass Service at Shore Church

Indiana Communities Mourn Dead, Begin Huge Task of Rebuilding By J. Daniel Hess.

GOSHEN, IND.,April 15. — Melvin Gingerich and I sat down in the back row of the Shipshewana-Scott High School auditorium.

At the front right were four bronze caskets containing the bodies of Mrs. Bernice Hostetler, 36, her mother, Mrs. Bessie Hosteler, 65, John S. Yorker, 66, and his wife, Mrs. Jennie Yoder, 60, all of Route 2, Shipshewana.

Opposite were four additional caskets. The dead were Mrs. Iva Nofzinger, 56, Frank Haarer, 71, his wife, Mrs. Grace Haarer, 70, and their son, Noble Haarere, 35, same address.

Here on a rainy Thursday afternoon, April 15, the Shore Mennonite congregation and nearly 1,000 neighbors and friends gathered in a memorial service for eight of its members killed by one of three tornadoes to hit Lagrange and Elkhart counties of northern Indiana, April 11.

WE WERE onlookers — Bro. Gingerich and I — yet participants, wishing to learn and tell the story of Indiana's (and probably any Mennonite community's) worst natural disaster of this century.

SPEAKER'S PLATFORM OF SUNNYSIDE CHURCH, DUNLAP, STANDS AMID RUINS

STORM VICTIMS GET EMERGENCY AID AT GOSHEN HOSPITAL

Orvin H. Hooley, minister of the Shore Church, read a telegram from Indiana senator Vance Hartke who expressed his sympathy and promised financial aid.

“We confess,” prayed Arnold Roth, former pastor of the congregation, “that we do not understand all these experiences through which You are leading us . . . but we draw near to You.”

SEVERAL MILES to the southeast of this school, where US Route 20 jogs around Rainbow Lake, lay a pile of rubble formerly the Shore Church. Just recently a $100,000 brick addition had been completed. A few half-walls, sections of floor, and splintered church furniture remained.

The tornado hit the community one-half hour before the Palm Sunday evening service was to begin.

(Editor's Note: Earlier reports stated that the funnel hit after the service had started, which is incorrect. The deaths resulted when homes in the area were demolished. Among the homes destroyed was that of Pastor Orvin Hooley and family, but they had taken refuge in the basement.)

We approached Titus Speicher who was awaiting the funeral procession. “My sister died this morning,” he volunteered, referring to Mrs. Mable Mishler,60, the ninth of the 275-member Shore congregation killed by the storm.

He told us an automobile was thrown into the cemetery and that 95 percent of the tombstones had been strewn across the property.

Mr. Speicher, owner of the Lagrange Monument Works, was called to replace the stones. 'i stayed to dig gravels last night,” he added.

IN THE FIELD beyond the church yard, Mennonite and Amish volunteers continued to pick bricks, corrugated iron, chickens, and house furnishings, from the area. Fires consumed piles of twisted lumber. An oil tank rested in the middle of corn stubble.

The eight caskets were lowered.

When we left the church we drove slowly west on Route 20. One collection of debris by several torn tree trunks marked the house where Leroy and Florence Yorker of Topeka (Forks Church) were visiting Willis and Grace [sic Grayce] Bontrager of Shipshewana (Forks Church). All four were killed. The two wives and a friend had been practicing a church trio. The friend sought refuge in the basement and her life was spared.

A mile west a Red Cross station coordinated the clean-up efforts. To the right a group of Amis were already laying cement blocks.

THIS TORNADO, which cut a one-fourth to one mile wide swath, to the east of the other two storms, arrived about 6:30 Sunday night. It entered Elkhart County north of Nappanee, inflicted severe but scattered damage until it reached the southeastern corner of Goshen, then hopped over the Goshen General Hospital, Goshen College, and a large Goshen residential area, but the fairgrounds . . lifted again, then ripped at ground-level through the Shore Church community in Lagrange County.

”I'll be burying 16 bodies. No, it's 17, now that Mrs. Mishler died,' reported Funeral Director Richard Miller (Middlebury, First Mennonite Church).

DEMOLISHED MIDWAY TRAILER COURT NEAR US-33 AND NYC TRACKS, DUNLAP, INDIANA

REMAINS OF SHORE CHURCH NEAR US-20 IN LAGRANGE COUNTY

TRAVELING WEST into Elkhart County, we saw scattered evidence of the next tornado which moved between the other two geographically, but struck first at 6:15.

This funnel made its gravest impact at the Midway Trailer Court on Route 33 between Elkhart and Goshen. Eighty percent of the homes in this large park were demolished. Minutes after the impact, rescue squads, ambulances, station wagons, and police cars began carrying the dead and injured into the Goshen General Hospital. Later, J. B. Shank of Goshen College offered High Park Dormitory. Soon it too was filled with tornado victims.

Ten residents of this one trailer court had died, as of today.

Bro. Gingerich stopped the car at a point further northeast, but in the same line of destruction. Here at the Jefferson School community of Route 15 the funnel demolished the new residential area, plus another trailer court operated by Earl M. Lehman (Goshen College Church). As the ominous clouds formed Sunday evening, Lehman called his neighbors to join him under a Route 15 bridge.

Up the road a house was thrown on top of a passing car killing Mrs. Myron (Jean) Krehbiel, 28, and her five-month-old son, Timothy. Myron is pastor of the Warren Street Mennonite Church, Middlebury. The first service in their new church the Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church, was to have ben held on Easter Sunday. Instead the first service was the funeral of Mrs. Krehbiel and infant son.

WE PROCEEDED westward to the area damaged by the third tornado. First we viewed the wreckage where Route 15 crosses US-20. Seven were killed here. Hedgerows and woodlands were defoliated or flattened. Here a house roof was torn, there a farm leveled, here a house apparently exploded, there a mile of no buildings intact.

This western tornado entered Elkhart County and killed one its members, Mrs. Merrill (Clara Mae) Weaver, 62, of Route 2, Osceola. Next it ripped into Prairie Street south of Elkhart, just missing several homes of Mission Board and Elkhart Seminary personnel. However, it leveled a large area including the homes of Harold Hartman, Elkhart high school teacher, Dr. Leonard Smucker, Dr. Otto Klassen, and Alden Bohn, all staff members of the Oaklawn Psychiatric Center. All of the families were in the basements of their homes, none was injured.

NORTHEAST A MILE the destruction was worse. The tornado crossed US-33 and rammed into Dunlop, wiping out a 25-block area including the entire Sunnyside Addition, killing 28 people (at last count.)

National Guardsmen admitted our car when they saw the Mennonite Disaster Service badges. The acres of wreckage lay before us.

Two days after the storm, President Johnson came to Dunlap, stood across the street from the rubble of the former Sunnyside Mennonite Church and said, “I have never seen such complete destruction.” Even today, four days after the storm, rescue workers found another body.

The Sunnyside Church lost one of its children, Carolyn Ford, 4, whose parents are members.

OUR TOUR ENDED at the Mennonite Disaster Service headquarters in Dunlap. At the moment they were preparing to move to larger quarters, next to the Concord fire house.

MDS was activated immediately after the tornadoes hit. First the organization gathered food and clothing. In the Goshen College Church are rows of coats, boxes of shoes, and cans of vegetables. As soon as Red Cross and the National Guardsmen cleared MDS, volunteers went to practically every area.

Today more than 200 volunteers were at work at Sunnyside, Midway Trailer Court, and farms in the Wakarusa area, according to Glenn E. Bixler, secretary-treasurr. Carloads of volunteers from out of state have joined local workers.

Just now I read the offer in the newspaper: PERSONS WANTING HELP SHOULD CALL, 875-5134. This is the number of the Mennonite Disaster Service headquarters in Dunlap.

OUR TOUR of northern Indiana has come to a close and I ponder what to write. There are statistics: Killed; Lagrange County 19, Elkhart County, 48; of these 17 were Mennonites. There are memories; the winds sounding like freight trains, the ambulances flashing through the rain, MDS clearing the debris from the Walter Drudge home, the folks sitting quietly in the Shipshewana-Scott auditorium.

But these darker memories are blended with two brighter ones. Shortly after the tornadoes, I assisted the staff of Radio Station WKAM in its emergency communications. Among the calls from pharmacies and doctors offering bales of bandages and cases of medicines came the soft offer from an older woman: “I just wanted to tell you I have three sheets and one pillow case you may use. They are ready now.”

And tonight, after returning with Melvin Gingerich, I chatted with a neighbor who described another funeral in our area, this for a mother and her infant son, “I haven't been to a funeral in a long time,” he said, “that baby was the same age as ours . . . at the close of the service, when the congregation sang 'Praise to the Lord,' I looked up — the bereft husband was singing.”

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Apr 22 p. 3

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Services Held For 18 Who Died In Two Counties

Funeral services were conducted in Elkhart and Lagrange Counties in Indiana last week for 17 Mennonites who died as a result of the Palm Sunday tornadoes. Services for an 18th victim were held last Sunday.

A mass service for eight members of the Shore Mennonite Church was held Thursday at the Shipshewana-Scott High School as reported elsewhere in this week's Review. Orvin H. Hooley, the pastor, was in charge, assisted by Rev. Arnold Roth of South Bend, a former pastor of the church, and Dr. Dean Brubaker of the Plato Mennonite Church, Lagrange. A 12-member choir sang a hymn in memory of each of the eight dead.

The same afternoon the Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church near Middlebury was filled to capacity for the double funeral service for Mrs. Myron Krehbiel, 28, and her infant son, Timothy. The husband and father is pastor of the church. Rev. Vernon F. Miller, Brethren ministr of Goshen, officiated, assisted by Rev.Wilbur Yoder of the First Mennonite Church, Middlebury.

Mrs. Krehbiel was the former Jean Noffsinger, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Noffsinger, Dayton, Ohio.

The services for Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Yoder of Topeka were held Wednesday forenoon at the Forks Mennonite Church, with Donald Yoderand Sylvester Haarer in charge. The following day a memorial service was held at the Honeyville School for Mr. Yoder who was pricipal of the school and had served in th Topeka-Honeyville schools for 35 years.

The services for Mr. and Mrs. Willis Bontrager also were held at the Forks Church, although details are not known.

Services for Mrs. Lester J. (Josephine) Miller, 42, were held Wednesday afternoon at the Griner Mennonite Church. She was visiting at the home of her parnts, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Graber, near Middlebury when it was hit by a tornado. Her parents and a daughter Emily were seriously hurt. The Miller home nearby was also demolished.

The funeral of Mrs. Clara Mae Weaver of near Osceola was held Thursday afternoon at the Olive Mennonite Church. Services for four-year-old Carolyn Jane Ford, who with her parents attended the Sunnyside Church, were conducted Thursday at an Elkhart funeral home by Rev. Leonard Garber, pastor of the church.

Mrs. Mable Mishler of Shipshewana died April 15 in a Fort Wayne hospital of injuries sustained in the storm. Services were to be held Sunday at the Forks Mennonite Church.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 April 22 p. 6, 9

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REPORT FROM GOSHEN CORRESPONDENT

Tragedy Brings Tears of Sympathy, Increased Concern and Neighborliness By Erma Miller Erb

GOSHEN, IND., April 15. — Goshen today stands not for a place “flowing with milk and honey” nor for the “little Boston of the West” but rather a place on the map of “blood, sweat and tears” since the rash of tornadoes on Palm Sunday, April 11.

In a sisters' prayer meeting at the College Church on April 14, Ruth Mosemann directed our thinking to the compassion of Chirst [sic Christ]. The lobby at the Goshen College Church is full of boxes of good canned fruit and vegetables, and the fellowship rooms of the church likewise are full of clothing, new and used, in response to calls for help. Truckloads have been hauled away to Red Cross supervision at the Masonic Temple, and people have been asked to bring no more at present.

In the Sunnyside Addition there are 37 deaths and the loss of nearly 200 homes and the Mennonite church is razed.

THE SHORE CHURCH, recently enlarged and remodeled, is gone. Today the funerals of eight of its members is being held. Yesterday were the funerals of four others of the Topeka area — Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Yoder (Mr. Yoder was a brother of Mrs. Daniel Diener and Mrs. Yoder was a sister to Harold Buzzard), and Mr. and Mrs. Willis Bontrager (Mr. Bontrager was a brother to Oliver Bontrager). These two couples were together Sunday along with Mr. and Mrs. Harley Miller. Mr. Miller had gone on home and the ladies were practicing music. Mrs. Miller got to the basement before the tornado struck, but the other four were taken before they could get there.

The Midway Trailer Court is flattened and there were a number of deaths there. The Country Restaurant Court is also nearly demolished.

THE ORA HOOLEY HOME near Shore Church was partially demolished and the barn was flattened. Here occurred one of those almost ludicrous happenings of tornadoes. When they were lifting up debris of the barn, calves jumped up and ran out into the winds with their tails in the air.

The Clifford Benders' new house was taken while they crouched in the southwest corner of the basement. All the furniture is gone and they could find no trace of it, but they found Mrs. Bender's salt and pepper collection unbroken.

Rev. Myron Krehbiel's wife Jean and their little son Timothy, four and one-half months old, were fatally injured while in a car. She had served as a registered nurse in Goshen Hospital. When she was brought to the hospital, fellow nurses burst into tears upon seeing her suffering condition.

THIS AFTERNOON a funeral for eight will be held at the Shipshewana-Scott High School gymnasium. They are Mrs. Orla Hostetler and daughter Bernis [sic Bernice], Mr. and Mrs. Frank Haarer and son Noble Haarer, Mr. and Mrs. John S. Yoder, and Mrs. Iva Nafziger [sic Nafzinger]. All will be buried in the cemetery of the Shore church, where they were members.

The Goshen College Dormitory furnished beds and meals for homeless victims as did other homes. High Park Medical Center was filled with suffering victims, and the Goshen Hospital took care of an overflow number of patients. The Masonic temple also furnished meals and care.

The first tornado struck at 6:30 Sunday evening and the second soon after. Our clocks stopped at 6:30 as well as all the other utilities and we were without heat lights, T V, radio and water until Tuesday evening when kind neighbors got skilled workmen in to restore what we usually take too much for granted. These men have worked around the clock. With all the suffering and devastation, we would have asked for nothing now.

WHAT A DISGRACE it was that our mayor was forced to get help from nearby cities for patrolling at such a time, as there was looting going on from the start, and announcers begged that sightseers stay at home and quit interfering.

The lovely A. E. Kreisler country home, now occupied by the Walter Drudges, was moved off its foundation and must be rebuilt.

The David Bixler home is down as is the home of Dr. Otto D. Klassen of Oaklawn, and many, many others. There are many stories of kindness and bravery — nurses with their day off but working double-time, sacrificial giving, and tears of sympathy and increased neighborliness and concern for others.

Any other news items must wait in the light of this great catastrophe, with one exception. There was an error in my March news notes. The marriage of Lila Zehr and Ronald King will take place in August and not June, as will the marriage of her roommate, Sara Lou Gingerich, to John Wengerd on August 27.

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Apr 22 p. 3, 6, 9

[Ref. MennObits index, May 11, 1965 [1]