A little Mary Emma history
I did a little research on our new favorite Mennonite cookbook author and thought it might be helpful as we begin this venture.
First, I asked one of our favorite historians, Joe S., about who was the first Menno woman to receive her doctorate. Of course like with all historians' responses to questions, it was quite qualified (there were Menno women doctors, which he wasn't including in his response). I now forget who he thought was the first (though he wasn't completely sure), but he was pretty sure it wasn't Mary Emma. He thought she was up there in the top three though. I am still hunting down an article I read about her from a year or two ago with more extensive info, but until then this is what I collected from the web:
Mary Emma Showalter Eby (She must have gotten married after this cookbook's publication...I imagine it was difficult for any Mennonite woman with a doctorate to find a husband at that point!) created the landmark Mennonite Community Cookbook in 1950, which is still in print (43 printings later!) and has sold more than 450,000 copies. Herald Press was the publisher, and the cookbook was the first and one of the most successful Mennonite cookbooks.
Mary Emma grew up in Broadway, Va., and founded the home economics department at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg and taught there from 1946 until her retirement in 1972. She earned a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in State College. Before teaching, she served with Mennonite Central Committee as a nutritionist in refugee camps in the Sinai Desert and as a hostess and cook at the MCC office in London, England.
An interesting note about the cookbook's history is that it comes out of the “Mennonite community movement,” which was an effort by church people “to extol the virtues of rural community” after WWII as they observed the migration to urban areas. The magazine which later became Christian Living was another byproduct of the era.
Mary Emma died at the age of 90 on May 3, 2003, at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community in Harrisonburg. Among her survivors are her husband, Ira, and three stepchildren.
And in her own words about why she embarked on this venture:
My first position after finishing college took me throughout the United States. I soon began to observe that, wherever I went, to California, to Iowa or Ohio, our [Mennonite] cooking was much the same. Some of the recipes that my mother had recorded in her little book were being used even in the Far West.
Since a cookbook of the favorite recipes of Mennonite families had never been published, I now began to sense that the handwritten recipe books were responsible. I asked to see them wherever I went and was astonished to learn how many of them had been destroyed in recent years. The daughters of today were guilty of pushing them aside in favor of the new, just as I had done one day. It is true that many of our mothers were still using the old favorite recipes, but were doing so by memory. When I found them, the little notebooks were usually at the bottom of a stack of modern cookbooks and were kept only for memory's sake. Through the years many had become so worn and soiled that in places they were no longer legible. . . . I was challenged with the thought that now is the time to preserve them. So this book is an attempt to preserve for posterity our own peculiar type of cookery that has been handed down for many generations.
First, I asked one of our favorite historians, Joe S., about who was the first Menno woman to receive her doctorate. Of course like with all historians' responses to questions, it was quite qualified (there were Menno women doctors, which he wasn't including in his response). I now forget who he thought was the first (though he wasn't completely sure), but he was pretty sure it wasn't Mary Emma. He thought she was up there in the top three though. I am still hunting down an article I read about her from a year or two ago with more extensive info, but until then this is what I collected from the web:
Mary Emma Showalter Eby (She must have gotten married after this cookbook's publication...I imagine it was difficult for any Mennonite woman with a doctorate to find a husband at that point!) created the landmark Mennonite Community Cookbook in 1950, which is still in print (43 printings later!) and has sold more than 450,000 copies. Herald Press was the publisher, and the cookbook was the first and one of the most successful Mennonite cookbooks.
Mary Emma grew up in Broadway, Va., and founded the home economics department at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg and taught there from 1946 until her retirement in 1972. She earned a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in State College. Before teaching, she served with Mennonite Central Committee as a nutritionist in refugee camps in the Sinai Desert and as a hostess and cook at the MCC office in London, England.
An interesting note about the cookbook's history is that it comes out of the “Mennonite community movement,” which was an effort by church people “to extol the virtues of rural community” after WWII as they observed the migration to urban areas. The magazine which later became Christian Living was another byproduct of the era.
Mary Emma died at the age of 90 on May 3, 2003, at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community in Harrisonburg. Among her survivors are her husband, Ira, and three stepchildren.
And in her own words about why she embarked on this venture:
My first position after finishing college took me throughout the United States. I soon began to observe that, wherever I went, to California, to Iowa or Ohio, our [Mennonite] cooking was much the same. Some of the recipes that my mother had recorded in her little book were being used even in the Far West.
Since a cookbook of the favorite recipes of Mennonite families had never been published, I now began to sense that the handwritten recipe books were responsible. I asked to see them wherever I went and was astonished to learn how many of them had been destroyed in recent years. The daughters of today were guilty of pushing them aside in favor of the new, just as I had done one day. It is true that many of our mothers were still using the old favorite recipes, but were doing so by memory. When I found them, the little notebooks were usually at the bottom of a stack of modern cookbooks and were kept only for memory's sake. Through the years many had become so worn and soiled that in places they were no longer legible. . . . I was challenged with the thought that now is the time to preserve them. So this book is an attempt to preserve for posterity our own peculiar type of cookery that has been handed down for many generations.
posted by jshb at 1:07 PM
3 Comments:
I got to know Mary Emma's stepson Rob Eby a bit when doing my internship at the Mennonite Publishing House (when it was still in Scottdale). His wife was a calligraphist (sp?) at MPH. Great people! I remember taking a roadtrip with them and singing along to the Messiah in the car.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
According to Joe, the historian, he was thinking that Alta Schrock was the first woman, but since then (and since looking it up), he has new info.
According to Elaine Sommers Rich, Mennonite Women ((Herald Press 1983), pp. 122-23 Bertha R. Leaman (1893-1975) is "said to be" the first female graduate of Goshen College to earn a Ph.D. (from University of Chicago, 1935). Dissertation topic: "French Foreign and Colonial Policy under Radical-Socialist Party Control, 1898-1905." It doesn't seem that she remained in Menno circles though, so is often not included in such a list. And I am not sure if we can extrapolate that the first Mennonite woman from GC to receive her Ph.D. is also the same as the first Mennonite woman to receive her Ph.D. What do you think?
The earliest Mennonite female M.D. seems to have been Florence Cooprider Friesen (1887-1985) who graduated from Missionary Medical College, Battle Creek, MI in 1914. Several more Mennonite women also earned M.D.s before Bertha Leaman would have earned a Ph.D. (Including Ella Garber Bauman in 1924 and Esther Smucker Hodel in 1931.)
But, he also said that it is probably safest to say things like "may have been" or "is thought to have been" -- something that allows others to come forward and say "but so and so got this even earlier." And he was only referring to North American Mennos, as a European Menno woman may have done this prior.
Mary Emma was apparently the first EMU female faculty member to hold a doctorate.
Post a Comment
<< Home