History of Plow Creek

Plow Creek Mennonite Church | home site outline

1956 Reba Place Fellowship founded in Evanston, Illinois, by John W. Miller, a Mennonite seminary professor, and others.

1970 Reba Place Fellowship affirms starting a rural community.

1971 Conrad Wetzel and David Gale are sent to select a farm. They find the property near Tiskilwa. David carries $100 in earnest money in his shoe ... Fred and Ruth Warner family moved to into the farm house ... Gale' s, Wetzels, Jim Short and Damien Warther move nearby.. construction of the Alpha House begins in the fall.

1972 Alpha House is finished and the Warners, Art Engler and Rosie Osbourne, move in... in April construction on the Point House is begin.. the Forest River Hutterites helped with building.., the Wetzels moves into it in July ... the first garden was started with mothers and kids working five mornings a week and teens all day ... Saturday is filled with all day work projects ... in August of this year, the Begly family moved from Chicago inner city work into a rental house near Tiskilwa. . .the Corner House was begun in November.

1973 Corner House completed--at least, completed enough--and the Gale family moved in ... Tom and Kay Fleming and Mitch and Ann Kingsley arrive from Bluffton, Ohio and became members one week later ... Plow Creek Builders began doing outside jobs this year, specializing in pole barns. David Gale is been the primary leader.. Carl and Betty Helrich arrive.. Conrad, who had always been a leader, and Fred Warner, are named our first elders

1974 Adam Fleming was born February 15, and Elizabeth Kingsley came on June 23...Mitch becomes an elder.. Jim and Donna Harnish, and Laurie, age 15, arrive. .Begly family and Harnish's move into the residential portion of the newly constructed Common Building, becoming the first “Longhouse” household ... Wes and Elsie Mast family and Bev Fleming arrive ... the first PCF teen group was formed ... the commercial bakery is started, ... Wes finds an oven in Kewanee for $10.00 and Pat Murray and Carl Mummau do most of the baking. ... Plow Creek becomes part of Shalom Covenant Communities.

1975 On March 16, a fire burns part of Alpha House ... Wes and the Reba teens had a “bigger than before” garden, selling produce in Princeton ... on December 28, Bev was baptized and became a member. Leaders from Reba Place intervene helpfully and unhelpfully in various Plow Creek conflicts.

1976 Paul Kingsley is born April 5, Charlotte Mast on June 6, and Aaron Fleming on December 15 ... The Alpha House is rebuilt and becomes a household led by Conrad.. the Townhouse is purchased ... the Kingsleys move to the Longhouse to head a household.. leaders from Reba Place came to Plow Creek and led prayer for the baptism of the Holy Spirit ... Cindy Warner became the first “Creeker” to graduate from Tiskilwa High School.

1977 Kent and Novella Rathjen, Rolland and Bonnie and family, Mike and Karen Davison, Rich and Sarah Foss arrive ... Bill and Connie Taylor arrive seeking help for Connie's mental illness.. two weeks later Connie overdoses on medicines and dies in the hospital in Princeton ... Ed and Esther Johnson and family settle in Peoria as Ed begins an internship and residency in Family Practice medicine ... the Warner family moved away this summer, eventually to join the Bruderhof.

1978 The Mast family leave the Alpha Household and move into the newly purchased “First St. House”.. Ed and Esther Johnson become members and attend many meetings while living in Peoria ... Novella gives birth to two premature babies, David and James, who die and are buried in the valley cemetery ... Bob and Elaine Gridley and Laura, age 17, arrive.. Kenny Stewart, 14, from Reba, arrives to live with the Wetzels after getting involved with a gang in the Reba neighborhood.

1979 Catherine Kingsley, born is Feb. 26 ... we decide to farm all our acreage ourselves with Wes in charge ... July 4, Mark and Louise Stahnke, and family arrive as intentional neighbors from California without a previous visit. ... the bakery closes.

1980 Jeannie Peterson moves to PCF from Reba Place ... the fellowship institutes the Sharing Neighbor step in the membership process.. Benjamin Johnson, Beth Rathjen, Heidi Foss, Sarah Jane Smith and Bethany Fleming are born ... WOW. .. the Johnson's move from Peoria and the Tiskilwa Medical Clinic begins ... Anne Stewart and Brian move from Reba Place.

1981 Reba Place begins congregational membership ... PCF and several members successfully pass IRS audits ... Coordinating Council with Esther as chairperson starts ... PCF peace and justice committee has a booth at THS career days ... Associate Membership category begins for teens who want to be baptized ... the vineyard is planted ... Rick and Lynn Reha move to PCF. . .the Kingsley's move to Reba and Mitch begins Loyola Law School ... Rich Foss and Tom Fleming join Conrad as elders ... Jim and Lyn Fitz and family arrive from New Covenant in Ohio.. Randy Harnish returns after a difficult experience in the Children of God in Europe and Central America ... Conrad is a major support for the Harnish's.

1982 Ellen Davis, fresh out of college in New York, moves to PCF... through the outreach of the Medical Clinic Joyce Winters visits PCF and the Dieci and McPeck families begin worshipping with us . . .Ed begins prayer and counseling ministry ... sessions often lead to working on childhood traumas ... Conrad begins to raise objections to Ed's counseling and community polarizes ... the Rathjens move to Levenworth, Kansas to start a new community with friends from Reba. . .Bruce Wetzel and Laurie Gale are baptized ... PCF hosts 400 people for the Shalom Covenant Conference ... the old farmhouse is demolished and construction begins on the Valley House ... the Ingersoll family arrives from New Covenant in Ohio seeking help with their marriage.

1983 Wes begins to develop strawberries into a major crop ... Vernice starts New Life Services, a vinyl repair business... Eliceo Sossa flees the war in El Salvador and through Overground Railroad lives with the Aschliman' s of Willow Springs Church.. later we help his wife Emma and the Eliceo's children to come to the U.S ... Flemings move into the west end of the Valley House, Johnsons into the east end and Ellen into the center.. Anne Stewart moves back to Reba.. Jonathan Foss is born during members meeting, a home delivery in the Alpha House ... Jeanette Sigler from Reba lives with the Fosses for five months.

1984 Anne Sigler moves to PCF and Jeanette joined her in the upstairs of the Town House ... Meghan Reha is born ... Denise Bowers is baptized in the lake at Camp Menno Haven ... Lyn Fitz is baptized on the same day, in the Common Building, and she and Jim became members.. Larry and Jackie also joins.. in August we welcome the Kingsley family back from Evanston and Mitch begins a law practice on Main St., Tiskilwa. . .East House construction begins, designed to meet some of Rich's special needs.

1985 East House is completed and the Foss family moved in.. Jim begins to develop the vegetable side of the farm and the farmer's market in Princeton ... garden groups work three mornings a week and the teens work 30 hours a week ... we host the SCC conference ... we say goodbye to Bowers, Compy's, Bradshaw's, Sigler's, and Rick Peterson.. Ellen leaves membership and we celebrate her marriage to Dennis Zehr in August.. Joyce Winters becomes a member.

1986 Plow Creek starts a blueberry patch ... Rick Reha and others created the farm logo ... Andy Fitz is born ... Tom and Kay go to Zaire with the Methodist Mission Board.. Conrad is called to be the conference minister for the Illinois Conference and the Central District West. He discontinues being a PCF elder ... Martyne works with him as a secretary. Mitch and Margaret are selected to be elders with Rich ... the teen group does a project in Brownsville, TX ... the Horwath family move to PCF.

1987 Verna Gale, David's mother, begins living with David and Margaret.. to celebrate his graduation from Bethel College, Pete Begly and Vernice join a protest at McConnell AFB and get arrested ... Rolland and Bonnie and family move so that Rolland can teach at Iowa Mennonite High School. ... Lewis and Dale Ingersoll divorce ... Sue Horwath, mid-pregnancy, has a massive hemorrhage.. against all medical predictions, the baby lives, and Sue spends the next 3 months on bed rest in a hospital in Peoria.. Dennis and Ellen start a 3 year term in MCC in Lesotho, cosponsored by PCF and Willow Springs Church.

1988 Katrina (Kati Jo) Horwath is born ending Sue's three month hospital stay.. praise the Lord for His gift of life... Juan Renee, an Overground Railroad refugee, stays with the Wetzels. . .Doug and Cindy Warner Baker and family arrived from Kalamazoo, MI ... Doug kept his same job, doing computer programming for a company in Kalamazoo from an office in the Corner House.

1989 The Horwaths join PCF and Mark H. begins “Someone's in the Kitchen”, a cabinet store in Princeton ... the PCF a vision statement is created ... Hilda Carper gives money to build the retreat cabin out near Daisy Hill ... Kingsleys host Edith and Estella, Overground Railroad refugees ... Jamie Fitz goes to Jesus People Community (JPUSA) for the summer and asks to move there ... Corey asks to join her sister.. Luke Mast asks to moves to Iowa to finish his high school at IMS. . .the community does a poor job of handling these requests of young people and their families. ... in Lesotho, Ellen gives birth to a healthy little girl, Morati, who sadly, dies four weeks later of pneumonia.

1990 Vernice and Polly Begly withdrew from membership and begin attending Willow Springs Church ... Antonio, Santos, and Ena, age 4, Overground Railroad refugees (the last refugees hosted at Plow Creek) live above the Wetzels for several months en route to Canada ... after a year long discernment process we affirmed the Johnson's moving to Fargo so that Ed could attend a residency in psychiatry residency program in Fargo, North Dakota ... Bev Fleming moved to Evanston to get an MSW degree.

1991 CBS interviews us for a Mennonite perspective on the Gulf War ... they air the story, showing Main St., Tiskilwa, and labeling it “Plow Creek, Illinois" ... Tiskilwa has big rally to show their support for the war ...we feel our vulnerability with neighbors ... a new irrigation well is installed in the field along Bottom Road making it possible to move the garden there ... we grieve with Jim and Donna when Randy was found dead in his apartment in Princeton ... we began building the Prairie House, reflecting Rick's interest in “post and beam” construction.

1992 On Ash Wednesday, longtime member, “K” discloses in members meeting a long history of sexual misconduct including child sexual abuse.. chaos follows, deeply shaking Plow Creek Fellowship ... we try to restore relationships with “K” and trust with one another ... ”K” receives therapy at Midwest Family Resources in Chicago.. Rich, Margaret, Mark Horwath, and Wes work as a small group with “K”s family. . .Bev Fleming returns with an MSW degree ... the Reha's move into the partially completed Prairie House... Salome and Tomasa, two leaders from Valle Nuevo, our sister community in El Salvador, visit us for two weeks, staying with “K” and his wife ... Jeannie Peterson goes to Nicaragua with “Christ is the Answer”.. Thanksgiving weekend adult children of PCF return for a reunion ... they start this history.

1993 Esther graduates with a Master's degree in marriage and family therapy, Ed completes his residency and their family returned to Plow Creek, moving into the east end of the Prairie House ... we begin paying teens and Jr. high age kids for garden work ... by the end of May it was becoming clear that things were not working well between the community and “K”... Rich took a summer sabbatical, finishing his first novel, Jonas and Sally, and we all “took the summer off” from the issues around PCF and “K”s family. . .the Kingsley's move to Bluffton, Ohio ... we add Wes and Mark H. to make an “interim leadership team”, along with Rich and Margaret.. in September we began talking about a need for separation from “K”s family. . .five leaders from Reba accept responsibility for relating to the “K”s family for the coming months.

1994 Janet Wollam comes as a consultant in January and again in March, helping us as a group through the grieving process and on towards forgiveness of “K” ... the Horwath family withdraw from common purse and move to Princeton ... Jonas and Sally is published.. “K”s family moves to another town in Illinois. The Wetzels leave Plow Creek.

1995 Members affirm several changes including making it possible for people to join Plow Creek Church without becoming members of Plow Creek Fellowship we also made changes in decision-making our decision-making processes, adopting the high five form of consensus decision-making, and encouraging trust and openness in decision-making.

1996 Wesley Mast and Esther Johnson are affirmed as elders.. Lynn Reha. and Lyn Fitz withdraw from PCF but continue as active members of the church while Rick Reha. and Jim Fitz continue as part of both the church and the fellowship.. Ed and Esther Johnson withdraw from the fellowship and church.

1997 Rich takes the first five months off from eldering to devote full time to directing a capital campaign for Horizon House ... Bev Fleming begins attending Willow Spring Mennonite Church. ... the Gary and Dani Dean family arrive in May and Aaron was born in August ... we hosted a family from Spain during the summer, Arthur, a single man, Angelica and Erlinda, two sisters from Valle Nuevo, El Salvador, our sister community ... we hosted a 25th anniversary celebration, inviting everyone who had been a part of Plow Creek ... Margaret retired from being an elder ... Richard and Ruth Anne Friesen arrive from an MCC assignment in Guatemala.

1998 We held a church retreat at Wooden Bridge in Wisconsin. After Donna Harnish has a stroke, Plow Creek begins to care for her in the Corner House. Michelle Cutts and Steve and Boo Graham and family move to Plow Creek.

1999 Mitch Kingsley, Emma and Joe Richards served as our visitation team. Chuck and Gretchen Kennedy and Neil and Tutuk Horning and family move to Plow Creek. Steve and Boo Graham and Michele Cutts become the first people to join Plow Creek Fellowship since 1989. We affirm the “Sexual boundaries at Plow Creek” guidelines.

2000 Lynn Reha and Louise Stahnke became elders. Matt Reha was baptized. Plow Creek hosted the Illinois Mennonite Conference service to ordain Yeshitela Mengestu for a teaching ministry in Ethiopia. Jim and Meg Foxvog family move to Plow Creek in December.

2001 Michelle Cutts is diagnosed with fast growing terminal cancer ... Masts decide not to return to Plow Creek ... Michelle Cutts moves to JPUSA for hospice care.

2002 The Corner House gets major restoration.... The Begly family moves into Tiskilwa but remains part of Plow Creek.... The Horning family moved from the Alpha House to the Corner House....Helena Graham, Jon Foss and Erin Kindy are baptized.... Jim Fitz decides to quit as farm manager and go into full time peacemaking....Jim Fitz spends time in Colombia with CPT. Neil Horning is new Plow Creek Farm manager. Moore family moves to Plow Creek and moves into the upstairs Alpha House.

2003 Lyn Reha resigns as elder.... Neil Horning is confirmed as new elder...Rick Reha goes on CPT delegation to Hebron, Palestine. Michelle Cutts dies and is buried at Plow Creek... Three summer marriages: Hanna Foss marries Donny Hackworth; Heidi Foss marries Woju Worabo; Helena Graham marries Thomas (Tanis) Rafter... Jim Fitz again spends time in Colombia with CPT. Behrens family moves to Plow Creek and settles in the upstairs East House.