The 1997 Annual Meeting of the California Mennonite Historical Society began at 2:30 p.m. with a genealogical workshop in the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, led by Alan Peters. Alan updated participants on the GRANDMA CD-ROM project. More people attended the session than could be accommodated in the Center; this session will be moved to a larger space in future years.
At 4:15 the meeting moved to the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary Chapel for a showing of "The Great Trek," a documentary film about the experience of German-speaking people in the Soviet Union during World War II. The film came to an unfortunate and unexpected conclusion about two minutes early when a nearby electrical transformer failed, leaving a large area of southeast Fresno without power.
After a forty-minute wait, the lights came back on at 6:15, just as participants were sitting down for what would have been a dimly-lit dinner in the Seminary's British Columbia Lounge. Following a brief business meeting, participants returned to the chapel for Paul Toews's keynote address: "Sailing Against the Current and Drifting Downstream: American Mennonites in the Twentieth Century." Total attendance for this year's meeting was about 110 persons.
A list of all past CMHS annual meetings is also available
© 1997 California Mennonite Historical Society
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modified: 4/17/97