James Robert Engle

I was born on November 12,1940, in Campbelltown, Pennsylvania, the second of 6 children born to John Hoffman and Anna Kreider Engle. My earliest childhood memories especially revolve around my older brother, John Edward, and my next younger sister, Marilyn. Joanne was about 5 years younger than I, and I vaguely remember pushing her around the house in a big wicker baby carriage. I think perhaps I spent some time at Grandma Kreider's when Mother went to the Hoffman "Aunties" for Joanne's birth. Gene and Rich were enough younger than I that I probably was less involved with them. I have a few photos of them which I'm sure I took myself - probably with a box camera given to me by my parents for Christmas. (At some point I developed and printed some black and white photos, but I was probably attending Hershey High School then.) While living at Upper Lawn I had a memorable accident when I bumped a glass gallon jug (used for carrying water from Buckshot Springs), against the iron stove, breaking the jug and cutting my hand. The cut required 5 stitches and left a scar on my left hand.

I was still young when our family moved to a small farm (40-60 acres) near Colebrook, several miles south of Campbelltown on Route 117; practically every room in the farmhouse and every section of the barn still hold memories for me. Much of the "living" took place in the kitchen which was heated by a coal stove (although Mother cooked on an electric stove), or in the so-called "dining room" - even though we always ate in the kitchen. The dining room was heated with a fuel oil stove, which needed to be frequently refilled from a 5-gallon container.

In addition to meals, the kitchen was also the setting for table games and for regular family prayers and Bible reading. I can still clearly visualize the backs of the chairs, which we faced when we knelt for prayer; I used to practice spreading my fingers between those vertical rods. Among the table games we played was a homemade Monopoly game made by John Edward from his memory of one he had seen, probably at Uncle Harold Engle's house. Eventually we got our own "real" game.

Outside we would play hide and seek, tag, kick-the-can and blind man's bluff. We tried to play baseball with an axe handle for a bat and a rubber ball with air in it. In time we ordered some "real" softball equipment through a catalog, using money saved up from pursuits such as trapping muskrats, picking blackberries and raising bantams.

In the barn we played bag-tag and arranged forts and tunnels with the hay bales. In the tobacco shed - we called it that even though it was never used for tobacco, though for a time we did store a tobacco planter in there which I think Uncle Paul Engle only used to plant tomatoes. I remember that planting machine because I fell off it once and hurt myself badly enough that even after I walked to the house, I almost fainted. Well, in the tobacco shed, we older siblings would trade or sell with homemade money, things such as "jewels"(colored glass from broken bottles or clear window panes carefully chipped and shaped by crushing the edges with a hammer), or cars (cut-outs from magazines or advertising brochures), and "tobacco" (pokeberry leaves hung on a small sharpened stick to cure). Pokeberry juice was nice for purple-red writing on our documents. We never ate the pokeberries, which looked a little like elderberries, which were edible and used for pies. Elderberry stalks have a woody stem, hollow or pithy inside, which could be whittled to make nice whistles.

We often played in the "crick," the stream which originated from several springs right on our own land. We would occasionally lean down and suck up the clear water from an undisturbed area of the flowing stream. In order to "swim", we would build dams with rocks and clay to stop up the water. The minnows were too small to count as real fish, but the clay was amazingly fine and good for making small dishes that we sometimes dried in the sun. "Swimming" without shirts on taught us about sunburn. I think I had the fairest skin of the family, so I got my share of blisters (not unlike bubblegum bubbles) and peeling skin - not to mention the reddened, burning skin! By and by we learned to work a suntan more gradually.

I attended Lawn-Colebrook Elementary School. I was always in a room that included two grades, with the teacher dividing her attention between the two groups. Though some of my siblings skipped a grade or two, I don't remember feeling inferior because I didn't. I believe that I always trusted my own "smarts" for whatever day-by-day, down-to-earth activities or decisions interested me.

As I recall, raising bantams was especially my project. Waiting for the eggs to hatch sometimes seemed too long to me; so I had to check to see if the egg was rotten or whether there was a peep developing inside the shell. Unfortunately, my method of checking was always fatal if there was indeed a chick in the making. However, I got some bob-tailed banties when Pep Epler's big Barred Rock tailless rooster crossed the street!

I attempted to do some gardening in my own special corner; some cherry seeds I planted actually grew into trees. By high school age John and I were taking turns helping Daddy milk our one cow, or feeding our two pigs. Probably we also gathered eggs and fed the chickens that we had. I hated Daddy's "favorite" Saturday morning pastime of cutting briars which always threatened to take over the meadow. Anyway, we learned the discipline of working whether we felt like it or not. After finishing elementary school, I went to Hershey High School, graduating there in 1958.

My memories of cousins in the Campbelltown area center around frequent visits to Grandma Kreider, which later included Aunt Mary. I hardly remember Grandpa - I think he helped us to husk corn with a hook/claw attached to his hand with a leather strap? Did he get goose feather quills from our neighbor to cut and use as nose inserts/nostril expanders, or is that something I dreamed? I remember the Ethan Kreider boys liked to throw a ball high into the air and then run madly to catch it. Someone once remarked that Ray was hard on his toys; I suppose he often broke them or somehow wore them out. I heard that Ray learned to ride a bicycle before he could reach the pedals, because he would reach the one pedal by putting his leg under the crossbar and reach the pedal on the far side. (That particularly impressed me because I was embarrassed that it took me so long to learn to ride a bike, around 5th Grade). Ray was a good high school athlete and I admired his nice healthy-looking hands with beautiful veins. It didn't seem quite so daunting to me to go out for track in high school, when I heard that Ellis had done some running even before Ray went into football. And I especially remember the time Marlin visited us with his amazing maroon convertible, and took us for a ride.

Across the fields at Uncle Herbert's farm, I especially remember Dale and his saxophone. It seemed so utterly different from the trumpet I played. (I had started piano lessons, but I suppose my parents or piano teacher astutely perceived that I might do better with an instrument that didn't require one to keep track of more than one note at a time!) I saw Dale as an especially kind and polite person, a true gentleman. Marian and Kathy were my age, but it seems that I was more impressed with the slightly-older male role models.

At Uncle John Kreider's farm south of Elizabethtown, I recall my interest in picking tomatoes - I didn't last long because my watery-eye and runny-nose allergic reaction to animal hair, grass pollen and dust made me so miserable that I didn't stay around long. But I was there long enough to learn from Henry the art of throwing 3 tomatoes with 3 different trajectories timed so that they all hit the victim at the same time! It was Uncle John who gave me some bee-keeping equipment and got me started on that fascinating hobby.

On occasion our family would drive to Adams County to visit the Stoner family. They had an automatic dishwasher and electric hair clippers - both justifiable because of all their boys. They had a large dairy operation, but also a basketball hoop near the barn, and it seems that Ronnie, especially, was into basketball. Sam and John were closest to my age, and they were good self-confident, practical, trust-my-judgment Stoners from my early memories on. It was they, or perhaps Ronnie, who taught me, "You're a poet and don't know it, 'cause your feet show it. They're Longfellows." It was usually a Sunday afternoon when we visited them, and somehow Uncle Joe and Daddy would agree that it didn't make sense for both of them to fight sleep and try to converse, so they mutually agreed to take a nap on the soft furniture.

Back to Grandma's house in Campbelltown - I suppose that all my Kreider cousins got that wonderful walnut taffy from Grandma at Christmas. In retrospect it must have been a daunting project for her; and where did she find enough Christmas card boxes for all that candy?

After graduating from high school, I enrolled at Messiah College, majoring in natural science, and graduated with a B.A. degree. That same year Patricia Souder and I were married.

We spent the next two years in Voluntary Service in Newfoundland where I taught math at Twillingate Regional High School. Our first son, David, was born there on November 17, 1963, delivered at the regional hospital by the head nurse, who was also serving in the Mennonite VS Unit in Twillingate.

The three of us moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where I spent the next three years studying at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, learning to know many students and teachers from both the former General Conference and "Old Mennonite" groups. In Elkhart I did an internship at the Castle EUB Church. During these years Michael (2-16- 65) and Jesse (10-23-66) joined our family.

After graduating from seminary in 1967, we moved to Canton, Ohio, where I pastored Valley Chapel Brethren in Christ Church for 3 years. Since this was a part-time assignment, I also did part-time teaching (math again) in public schools near Canton. The boys were heard to pray for a little sister, and in due time their prayers were answered. And so came Karis (4-19-69), our first and only daughter.

In 1970, the six of us moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so I could do graduate studies in Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary/University of Pittsburgh. I recall receiving encouragement for doctoral studies from Bishop Henry Ginder: "A farmer invests heavily in his dairy herd, why should a student not invest heavily in studies?" Cousin Marlin Kreider advised,"Go ahead and get your education and trust God to find you a job when the time is right." D. Ray Heisey, university professor then worshipping at Valley Chapel, enthusiastically encouraged,"Go for it." Working in construction during the summers, I spent three 6-week stints doing archaeological work in Israel and Jordan during the Pittsburgh years; and stretching out my program for nine years, I eventually got my Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970.

While I was concentrating on being a "professional student", Patsy was busy being a "professional mother." We agreed to care for pre-adoptive foster children. After seeing several of these babies adopted by other families as young children, it became possible for us to keep and adopt the last two foster children. That is how Jonathan (born March 25, 1975) and Charles (Daniel), (born November 30, 1975) became "angels". That same year that Jon and Charlie officially became Engles, Joseph (1-19-79) was born. When we left Pittsburgh in the summer of 1979, the four older children were either in elementary school or early high school.

Leaving Pittsburgh, our family of 9 set out for what seemed like the far west - Freeman, South Dakota, with all our earthly possessions packed in a rental truck. In several respects we identified with Abraham setting out for the promised land, moving ahead in faith, not really knowing what future living conditions might be. However, we were warmly received into the largely Mennonite community in rural South Dakota. There I taught Bible at Freeman Junior College and Academy, a Mennonite school, for the next 5 years. It was a crucial time, in a good sense, for the children: a time to be surrounded by youth and adults who shared some of the peculiar beliefs of their parents, not so common in the big city. (That it was time to leave big city life had become apparent when the early agricultural endeavors of one of the older boys showed up as five-leaved "weeds" evenly spaced along the chain-link fence on the border of our city property!

Here in Freeman, I had the marvelous opportunity of teaching each of our four oldest children in formally-structured Bible classes either at the academy/high school or at the junior college level. Unfortunately, it was also during these years that marriage tensions surfaced, due to over-concentration on my own studies, my teaching too many years with too little money, and too little attention to Patsy's needs.

In 1984 I accepted the invitation of Eastern Mennonite Seminary to come and teach at EMU, where I continue to teach at the time of this writing in 2006. About that time the older children were beginning to leave home for college and other ventures, so it was basically Patsy and I and the four younger children moving to Harrisonburg, Virginia. During these mid-1980's, Patsy and I worked through a separation and then divorce. Patsy went on to marry Dave Jordan, and they reside near Baker, West Virginia.

Our oldest son, David, graduated from Bethel College, Newton, Kansas, and married Marj Good in 1986. Later he graduated from seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. Presently, he is teaching Bible and Mennonite history/theology at Western Mennonite High School in Salem, Oregon. Marj works in the public library and does occasional free-lance artwork. Dave and Marj have two daughters, Audrey (born 6-9-89) and Erin (born 9-15-92).

Mike graduated from EMU and then married Marcy Zehr in 1993. Mike works in computer technology in Harrisonburg. Marcy is Director of Human Resources at EMU. / They have two sons, Austin (born 8-15-98 and Joshua (born 5-14-04).

Jesse married Naomi Epp from close to Freeman, South Dakota. Jesse and Naomi both graduated from Oral Roberts University. After about a decade of elementary school teaching, and after acquiring a Masters' degree in education, Jesse and his family left Tulsa for Virginia. They Both earned degrees from EMU and are co-pastoring Aurora Mennonite Church near Cleveland, Ohio. They have three daughters, Anna (born 8-23- 89), Grace (born 5-23-91), and Marie (born 6-11-93).

Karis graduated from Bethel College and has done some social work, community development and paralegal activity. She has spent time in Haiti and traveled to places such as Mexico, Ethiopia, Israel/Palestine, and the Far East. She continues to use her Creole and Spanish in community work in Belle Glade, Florida.

Jon graduated from Spotswood High School, near Harrisonburg, Virginia. He was a successful athlete in football and track, but especially excelled in wrestling, winning the state title in the 160-pound class in his senior year. Jon married Amy Sine. Both work in the Harrisonburg area: Amy for a book-printing company, and Jon for an air-conditioning business. They have three boys, Trent (born 7-26-95), Tyreeq (born 9-28-98), and Jathan (born 4-21-06).

Charles (Danny) attended Spotswood High School. He has worked at numerous fastfood establishments. Currently he is employed at a KFC restaurant. He married Kelly Johnson Knott and they live near Staunton, Virginia with daughter Brianna (born 9-8-02).

Joe was born with Down Syndrome, but has learned self-care skills and acquired limited ability to read and write. Joe lives a semi-independent life in a group home where he gets coaching and regular monitoring on his cooking, laundry and cleaning routines. Joe works as clothing hanger for Goodwill Industries. He is something of an expert on his favorite TV shows.

Anna Margaret (Peg) Groff first entered my life when she came to study at EMS during a leave from her 20+ years as a missionary nurse and nurse/teacher in Ethiopia. Gradually my world enlarged to include not only Peg and her family and friends, but a whole host of Ethiopian friends as well. We were married in Ethiopia in August of 1990. We have enjoyed several trips to Ethiopia, including two sabbatical leaves from teaching at EMS, in order to teach at an emerging Mennonite college, Meserete Kristos College. Peg received her R.N. degree and training at Lancaster General Hospital, earned a Masters' degree in Public Health Nursing at the University of Michigan, and attended EMS. She is employed part-time by Lindale Mennonite Church as Minister of Pastoral Care. Peg has beautifully embraced my family and continues to increasingly make it her own.