Ronald Keith Stoner

I was born on October 4, 1937, at Harrisburg, Pa., welcomed as the first son of Joseph and Grace Stoner. Not much happened before I was six; the one thing I do remember vividly is our neighbor Clarence Leatherman's barn burning. It happened sometime before my second birthday. I clearly remember watching the blaze from our dining room window. I also remember that I was sick a lot in those early years.

A month before my sixth birthday, I started first grade at the Victory School on Germany Road, just down the hill from our house. Without bragging, I simply state that I was the best student in my class. (There were only three of us.) One was obviously mentally challenged and the other was a below average student. (Twelve years later I would graduate fourth in my class in East Berlin High School, but I was not in the top ten percent because there were only thirty-seven in my graduating class!)

The summer I was six (between first and second grade), I started driving the tractor. At that time Daddy had only one tractor, a WC Allis Chalmers. He had hitched up the wagon with the hay loader behind and set me on the tractor to steer. I did very well until we got to the end of the field and had to make a right turn. I didn?t have the strength to turn fast enough and the front end of the tractor ran into a big tree! We stopped suddenly and the tractor stalled. Fortunately the tractor was not damaged. However, since Daddy couldn't crank it while against the tree, he had to unhitch the wagon and push the tractor away from the tree before he could start it. That was an inauspicious start to my driving career!

From the time I started second grade I began getting up about 5 A.M. to help Daddy with the milking. I didn't operate the milking machines, but I washed the cows' udders. Except for sickness, of which I seemed to have more than my share, that routine of morning and evening milking continued daily until I went to Messiah Academy in Grantham, Pa., for tenth grade.

A significant memory is that of my baptism in May l947, when I was about nine and a half years old. I was baptized just inside the old entrance to Messiah College, at the confluence of Trout Run and the Yellow Breeches Creek. It was COLD! But it was very significant in my spiritual life, for I viewed it then, as I always have since, as a public statement that I was determined to follow Jesus.

My sister Mary Ann, who was two years and three days older than I, had attended Messiah Academy starting there in her freshman year. She was a senior there when I was a sophomore. Our parents wanted us to have a good Christian education and Messiah was the church school of our denomination, the Brethren in Christ. Mary Ann lived on campus in the girls' dormitory. But I boarded that year with my Aunts Mary and Grace Stoner in their home on Grantham Road. Their parents, my grandparents, also lived with them at that time.

During that year in Grantham I developed a close friendship with Dale Asper whom I already knew from the Grantham Church. Dale and I played on an intramural basketball team with college juniors and seniors and our team won the intramural championship.

Being exposed to the college environment at Messiah helped me to decide I wanted to go to college. I persuaded my parents to let me enroll in East Berlin High School so I could save my money for college. (I had paid my own tuition the year I was at Messiah). When I wanted to play basketball in my junior and senior years at East Berlin, Daddy allowed me to play, although he was not thrilled about it. I had pointed out that my younger brothers were big enough to handle the evening chores during the winter months, and I promised not to play a school sport in the fall or spring when there was a lot more farm work to be done.

As it turned out, I was the only one of us nine children to graduate from East Berlin High School. Of course, Mary Ann graduated from Messiah Academy. All of our brothers graduated from Bermudian Springs High School, because of the merging of East Berlin and York Springs Schools.

In 1957 Messiah College did not have many majors available to juniors and seniors. After two years there, I volunteered for two years of alternate civilian service as a conscientious objector to war and military service. I was classified as 1-W by the Selective Service system and worked at the Goodwill Industries of California as a truck driver picking up donations from people who called in to request that service. (That was my first professional driving job.) My friend Dale Asper had encouraged me to do my service there, where he was already doing his. We both boarded at his Aunt Mary Asper's home in Pasadena.

Several important things happened while I was in Pasadena from the end of June 1957, to the first of July 1959. One was my appointment as superintendent of the Pasadena Brethren in Christ Sunday school during those two years. I suspect that opportunity came at the instigation of Price Trautwein, who was the superintendent at that time and wanted a break from the responsibility. Pasadena was a small congregation but it still seemed like a big job for a twenty-year-old. Price's support and encouragement during those two years were invaluable. He continued teaching the young Adult Sunday school class and I surely benefited from his teaching. Price was like a second father to me. I think Price was favorably disposed toward me because he knew I was a nephew of "M.C.K." (Aunt Mary Kreider) as he usually called her. He often expressed his high regard for her as a teacher of his at Upland College. Another valuable benefit from my Pasadena years was I was able to acquire three hours of college credit each of the four semesters I lived there. I attended Pasadena City College, tuition-free, one night a week during the normal school year.

When my good friend, Dale, completed his service in the spring of 1958 he returned to Pa. About that same time my cousin Barbara Kreider (now Nissley) moved from Pa. to Upland, California, to work as a registered nurse in the Upland Hospital. Some of the most delightful experiences I had in California were the times I spent with Barb. Even though she lived about thirty miles away, we went together(sometimes with others) to such fascinating places as San Francisco, Hemet (to see the play Ramona), the Hollywood Bowl, and the Pasadena Civic Auditorium to hear a Marian Anderson concert. Barb was great company and I always remember those times together with pleasure.

Another highlight memory was going to Malibu, Ca., at Mother's prodding to meet her uncle, my Great-Uncle Sam Hoffman. He was such a delightful man! He and Aunt Flossie were so welcoming and gracious that I went back numerous times. I thank Mother now that I got to know them.

When I completed my two years of 1-W service near the end of June 1959, my parents flew to Los Angeles. We spent a few vacation days in Southern California and one in Mexico before heading north to San Francisco in my 1948 Dodge. From San Francisco we headed east, visiting Yosemite Park, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park, Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, The Badlands, Kansas (where Daddy was born), Hannibal, Missouri and Rockford, Illinois on our way home. This trip was certainly Mother's best vacation of the first fifty years of her life. She rode in the front seat of my old Dodge and did not suffer from the motion sickness which often plagued her. And she didn't have to cook for three weeks!

In August, 1959, I had my second professional driving job---mowing the roads of Reading Township. I worked for John Zepp who had contracted with the township to mow their roads. I remember my cousin John Edward Engle commenting that it seemed like "an awfully farmerish job" for someone who had said he didn"t want to be a farmer! Well, it fit the need for a job I could quit after one month!

The real life-changing event of that month happened on August 1: I met Rosemary Lengacher on a blind date arranged by my friend, Dale Asper, and approved by Rosemary's roommate, Dorcas Lady. Rosemary was born and grew up in Indiana. In 1959 she was a voluntary service worker at the Mennonite Central Committee headquarters in Akron, Pa. To make a long story short, our friendship grew and we were married one year, one month, and one day later in the Cuba Mennonite Church near Harlan, In.

After a brief honeymoon in Detroit, Mich., we packed her belongings into a small U-Haul trailer and drove to Gettysburg, Pa. There we set up housekeeping in a second-floor apartment, and I began my senior year at Gettysburg College. Rosemary immediately began working as a secretary so we would have food on the table.

The previous year, I had matriculated as a junior at Gettysburg with a major in biology. After one semester I switched to a history major, having decided on a teaching career and also realizing I did not want to spend the rest of my life doing biology labs. So in 1961, I graduated with a history major, specializing in United States history.

While at Gettysburg College, I worked part-time--usually 20-25 hours per week at Glenn L. Bream's Cadillac/Oldsmobile dealership. I washed cars, changed tires, pumped a little gas, and served as a gopher picking up parts, delivering cars, jump-starting cars, towing cars, cleaning snow off the used cars, etc. It was enjoyable work, often providing the opportunity to drive new or late-model Cadillacs; but pay was minimal!

The second semester of my senior year, I student-taught at Biglerville High School. Shortly before graduating from Gettysburg, I accepted an offer of employment as an English teacher at New Oxford Area High School. I took two English courses that summer toward my Pa. certification. In the following years I took courses from Temple University (at Harrisburg), Pa. State University (at Harrisburg and University Park), Eastern Baptist College (now Eastern University), and Indiana University of Pa. (at Gettysburg College).

I was the first one in my family to graduate from college and the only one of nine siblings to graduate from Gettysburg College. The other eight graduated from Messiah College, where more majors were being offered each year.

In November 1962 Rosemary and I moved from the apartment in Gettysburg to the house just east of Daddy's barn on Germany Road. Daddy had bought that property at Mary Bosserman's estate sale. During the construction of the church building for Morning Hour Chapel in 1961, Mike Engle, the chief builder, had lived there. The house was being remodeled, but was not finished when we moved in.

On the day before Christmas 1962, we were blessed with a lovely baby daughter whom we named Ramona Carol. Randall Curtis (better known as Randy) was born on September 5, 1964. The stories of their lives could fill two more books! Because I am Rh positive and Rosemary is Rh negative, Randy required a blood transfusion immediately after birth. Understanding the risks involved at that time if we were to have more children, we decided that two was enough.

In October 1974 we moved to Elm Avenue in Hanover and began making mortgage payments instead of rent payments. While living there our children graduated from Hanover High School and also from college. In March of 1990 we moved to a new home southeast of Hanover in Penn Township.

I was employed as a teacher in the New Oxford schools for almost thirty-two years, teaching English, history, social studies, and even mathematics to seventh to eleventh grade students. In 1971-1972 I took a sabbatical leave for study and earned a Master's degree in education with a major in social studies, from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University) while commuting from our East Berlin home. During that time I also served as a graduate assistant in the history department at Shippensburg. I took another sabbatical leave for travel in the 1989-90 school year and went on numerous short trips plus a few longer ones. Also during that year I delivered storage sheds and gazebos for the Barnyard located on PA 97 north of Littlestown. Some of my days there counted as travel days for my sabbatical leave and I went as far west as Oakland, Md., and south into Virginia.

For the first twenty-five years of my teaching career, every summer that I was not in school I was working somewhere, usually in transportation. While living in Gettysburg I worked part-time in the summers of 1961 and 1962 for Brinkerhoff Van Lines as a helper on the moving vans. Their Gettysburg office was just across from our apartment on Carlisle Street. From 1963 to 1967 I worked summers for Kramer's Motor Service and Storage in York. There I mainly worked in household moving, did a little work with freight, and even occasionally drove a truck. Between 1968 and 1980 I worked for several bus companies, but most of those years were with Lincoln Bus Lines where I was a coach operator and an occasional tour escort.

After I retired from teaching I worked as a mail clerk and chauffeur for Hanover Foods for about seven months. Then from July 1994 to August 2003 I chauffeured for Diana's Limousine Service transporting a few famous and many not-so-famous people. At the present time, I am driving part-time for the Brethren Home Community, a Retirement community in New Oxford where Rosemary and I now also reside.

Travel has always been a special interest of mine. Before daughter Ramona graduated from college at age twenty, she had been in forty-seven of our fifty states with her mother and me. Since then, Rosemary and I have been in the other three, most recently Hawaii in January and February of 2004. In addition I have been in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and all eleven of the Canadian provinces. I have traveled in most of the states and five of the provinces innumerable times.

It would be impossible to name all the people who have touched my life in some significant way. I have already mentioned Price Trautwein. But I believe the one person aside from family members, who had the greatest positive influence on my life was Dr. C.N. Hostetter, Jr. He was bishop of the Grantham District of the Brethren in Christ Church when I was growing up and was the man who baptized me as a boy. He was the president of Messiah College while I attended there, and a good friend of my father. His preaching, his teaching, and his life have left an indelible imprint on mine. D. J. McCleaf Sollenberger, his secretary for many years at Messiah College, said it best just after Dr. Hostetter was laid to rest in the Grantham Cemetery: "There lies the best man I ever knew." She made that comment with her husband Clyde standing beside her, and he took no offence because he also knew Dr. Hostetter very well.

I think that the accomplishment that probably has given me the greatest satisfaction was the introduction and subsequent passage of an amendment to a motion on the floor of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Cincinnati in 1987. The main motion was primarily to reaffirm positions taken by previous annual conferences regarding various national and international social and economic issues. My amendment was to affirm support for the idea that the United States of America should express apology and make a "just restitution" to the Japanese-Americans who had been wrongfully incarcerated during World War II.

The issue had come to my mind because earlier in the conference we had celebrated the efforts of some brethren who had assisted Japanese-Americans when they were released from the Relocation Centers. The evening before the motion was to come to the floor I had dinner with the other two delegates from the Black Rock Church of the Brethren, Helen Osborne and Oralee Smith. I told them some of the story about the relocation and my concern that Congress would probably soon take up the questions of apology and restitution. I suggested to them that I would like to see Annual Conference go on record to support the cause. They encouraged me and agreed to second my motion to amend. Back in my room that evening, I wrote out the proposed amendment and I prayed!

The next morning I sought out our Black Rock pastor, Gene Bucher, who at that time was serving on the General Board. The main motion printed in the conference booklet read like Gene's wording, so I asked him if he had written it and he acknowledged that he had composed most of it. I asked why there was no mention of redress for the Relocation of the Japanese-Americans and he said he simply hadn't thought of it. I showed him my proposed amendment and he liked it. He said he would talk to the Conference Chair and try to have it received as a "friendly" amendment; otherwise it could be thrown out because of a peculiar rule of Annual Conference.

When I offered the amendment on the floor and Oralee Smith seconded it, I was pleased that it was ruled a friendly amendment and could therefore be considered. I was the only person who spoke in support of the amendment; no one spoke against it. When it was put to a vote, it was close enough to require a count. My recollection is that it passed by about a 3-2 margin. Then the main motion passed with very little opposition. I was elated! I felt I had made a positive contribution to an important cause and I thanked the Lord.

That fall Pastor Bucher shared a brotherhood publication with me stating Congressman Tom Downey (D-NY), a member of the Washington, D.C. Church of the Brethren, had made copies of the amendment I had written and Annual Conference had approved. He sent it to each United States Representative and Senator prior to Congress' passage of the act that expressed apology and provided for restitution. I was thrilled to read that! The thought that my initiative might have had a little influence on an Act of Congress was exhilarating.

I believe the hand of God was working in this event. For example, I was not originally elected as a delegate. The Church Board of our congregation named me as a replacement for an elected delegate who was unable to attend. Also, had not Pastor Bucher been on the General Board at that time, it is very conceivable that the main motion would not have been on the conference agenda. Had such a motion been on the agenda, it is likely that my motion to amend would have been disallowed without Pastor Bucher's strong support of it.

I am also certain that many of the conference delegates had little or no knowledge of the relocation of the Japanese-Americans prior to conference. Yet, they could quickly realize that restitution could use up a lot of tax dollars. The fact that the majority of delegates supported the amendment I attribute to the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The fact that Tom Downey should have been in Congress at that particular time suggests to me that God was working far in advance. Downey's sharing our conference action with the members of Congress leads me to believe that God was working behind the scenes to accomplish his purpose.

I have no way of knowing whether my words changed a single vote, yet I like to think I might have influenced a few votes. The whole episode reminded me how God is able to use ordinary people to help achieve significant results. Surely it was a most unusual thing for the government of the United States to clearly and officially admit wrongdoing. On the civic level, it was another reminder that citizens can have an impact on their government. Although my part in the result was small, I received a lot of satisfaction from this experience, and it is an important part of my life story. God is the One to receive the glory---I just happened (or, I believe, God directed me) to be at the right place at the right time.

On another occasion I found I was at the right place at the right time: Rosemary and I were at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, climbing the concrete stairs to the pedestrian bridge crossing Light Street. Just as I noticed a dangerously loose steel tread ahead of me, the lady in front of me caught her foot on it and began to fall backwards, a fall that could have been deadly. I was able to catch her and help her regain her balance. I believe God didn't want that lady to fall that day.

Four times I, myself, came close to being killed and I often wondered why I was spared. Now I think perhaps it was because God had something for me to do.

The summer I was eleven, I was driving our Ford Ferguson tractor, pulling the mower behind when I fell off and was run over by the right back tractor wheel, with the mower coming at me. I managed to get my hands on the big hay guard and hold myself out of the knife until the tractor and mower stopped. My brother John, only seven, had been riding on the left fender when I fell, and he promptly stepped down on the clutch and brake on the left side, stopping the machines. I thank him, and I thank God! My brother Sam may have had the worst scare because he was riding the mower and could do nothing to help.

A few years later I was helping Daddy erect the steel silo in front of the barn. We were up about thirty-five feet above the ground, standing on a plank scaffold without any safety rope or net when I lost my balance and suddenly realized I was leaning out, away from the silo, about to fall. Somehow, I regained my balance, but my knees were so weak I had to sit down for five or ten minutes.

The third time that I narrowly escaped death or serious injury was about l960, when Rosemary and I were riding with Aunt Grace Stoner (Lady) at night in Ohio on a two-lane road. At the crest of the hill a car was coming toward us in our lane, passing another oncoming car. Aunt Grace swerved to the right, the car being passed swerved to its right, and the "crazy" driver passing at the crest of the hill "threaded the needle" ---we passed three abreast on that two-lane road. It was very close. In all the years I have spent on the road that was the worst scare I ever had.

When I was working for the Barnyard in 1990 I narrowly escaped death again. Two of us were sent to move a big older barn for a man who was moving. We were trying to winch it onto the trailer and it was so heavy the winch could barely tug it. My helper suggested that I get in the truck and use it to push the trailer back underneath the barn while he kept on winching. After I had pushed back as much as I could, I got out of the truck and walked back by the trailer. Just then a clamp on the end of the cable pulled loose and went through the back window of the truck. It hit just above the windshield right over the steering wheel, making a dent in the metal. About thirty seconds earlier my head had been in the direct line that clamp traveled. I realized again that I had been spared. I still wonder, why? But I thank God that my life continues!