MENNONITES

MENNONITES. Mennonites, practitioners of an Anabaptist religion, founded their first church in Texas in 1905 at Tuleta, northwest of Corpus Christi. The congregation grew to more than 100 members before a drought in 1917 caused many to leave. In 1927 and 1928 Mennonite churches were established southwest of Corpus Christi at Premont and Falfurrias. Seven Mennonite missions are located near the Texas-Mexico border between Laredo and Brownsville. Those missions direct their activities primarily toward the Mexican-American population. Two Mennonite congregations exist in the Panhandle, one at Perryton and the other at Waka. A Mennonite church was organized near Texline in 1930, but it lost most of its forty members during the drought of the 1930s and was gone by 1940. In 1914 two groups of Mennonites agreed to purchase land from the Littlefield Land Company, spurring hopes that the South Plains might become a major center of Mennonite settlement. By 1916 more than 160 Mennonites had moved to Lamb County and begun farming. Most of them came from Kansas, but some migrated from as far away as California and Manitoba. Severe drought in 1916 and 1917 caused most of the colonists to abandon the area, and the colony failed.

The most recent Mennonite colonization in Texas began in 1977, when two groups of Mennonites purchased land in Gaines and Andrews counties near Seminole: Old Colony Mennonites and a less conservative group affiliated with the General Conference Mennonite Church. Both were descended from Old Colony Mennonites who had settled in Mexico in the 1920s. The Old Colony Mennonites believe in total separation from the outside world, use a Low German dialect, dress distinctively, and keep separate schools. Most of the colonists in Gaines and Andrews counties came from Mennonite communities in Chihuahua, Mexico, but some were from Canada.

The Mennonites picked West Texas for colonization because large blocks of land were available, population was not concentrated, and private schools were not heavily regulated, among other reasons. The Old Colony group purchased a block of 6,420 acres, and the General Conference group acquired 1,172 acres. Early in 1977 the first colonists arrived believing that, having purchased land in the United States, they would be allowed to enter the country as legal immigrants, but they were not. In July of that year forty-three of the Mennonite families were ordered by the immigration and naturalization service to leave the United States. Additionally, some 250 families that were to have emigrated stayed in Mexico, and without their assistance the Old Colony group was not able to meet its mortgage payments. The plight of the Mennonites received widespread publicity, and in October 1980 members of the Texas congressional delegation succeeded, through a private bill, in legalizing the status of more than 600 colonists. But it was too late to save the land of the Old Colony group, which had been sold at auction in April 1979. The General Conference group retained its land.

Despite their problems, the colonists persisted. In July 1984 an estimated 2,000 Mennonites lived in Gaines and Andrews counties, and about ten more families were scattered over a large area south of Stanton. Approximately ten families had moved to Lubbock, and an indeterminate but small number lived scattered in surrounding counties. Most of the Mennonite colonists made their living by farming or as skilled or semiskilled laborers. In 1982 there were four Mennonite churches and three schools in Seminole. Two of the schools were conducted in German, and the third was taught primarily in English with supplementary instruction in German. All of the schools were primary; secondary students attended public school or Mennonite boarding schools. In 1993 Mennonites from Mexico and Canada continued to immigrate to West Texas increasing the Mennonite population to 3,000. Those who have come after the 1980 dispensation still face immigration difficulties.