The Hopefield cemetery

For the 2011 Reunion, we are planning a visit to the Hopefield Cemetery.  Here is information from Herb Goering, prepared for the 2000 reunion.

Welcome to the Hopefield Mennonite Church cemetery. This is the final resting place for most of the members of the fifty-three families that settled in this area in the fall of 1874.

The entire village of Kotosufka, Volhynia (now a part of the Ukraine), consisting of 73 (some reports say 78) families, or 441 persons left their homes on August 6, 1874, arriving at New York Harbor on the City of Richmond on August 31, 1874, after a twelve day ocean voyage. Fourteen families of this group went to South Dakota and other took employment with Eastern Mennonites to repay travel loans.

The focal point for the new community [in Kansas] was the quarter section of land donated to the congregation by the Santa Fe Railroad. The Railroad Company constructed a 20′ x 120′ immigrant house at this location which provided shelter for many of the immigrants the first winter and was used for school and church meetings until the church building was erected on this site in 1882.
Editor: the building currently at this location is NOT the 1882 building.

My Grandfather and Grandmother, Johann Goering (24) and Freni Krehbiel Goering (23) and their one year old daughter Anna, birth date 9-16-1987 was one of the families in the group. Also in the group were Grandfather’s mother, Elisabet Graber Goering, variant spelling Elisabeth Graber G (o with an umlaut) ring (41), Grandmother’s father, Johann Krehbiel (45), Grandfather’s brothers and sisters, Peter (22), Elisabet (16), Jacob (13), Maria (11), Freni (8), and Anna (5); and Grandmother’s brothers and sisters, Katharina (21), Carolina (20), Tobias J. (17), Anna (14), Maria (1), Jacob (5) and Elizabeth (2).

The Goering family name can be traced to Moses Gerig who was born about 1760. According to the Tobias J. Krehbiel Family Record, Grandmother was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Jost Kruhenbulh (the u has an umlaut) who as a young man, to escape persecution for this faith, fled from Switzerland in 1671 to South Germany where the name Kruhenbuhl was changed to Krehbiel.

My intention was to locate of the graves of the above named immigrants, but due to the poor condition of the grave stones and the fact that many graves have no markers only some of the graves could be located as shown on the chart on the next page.

What impressed me the most was the large number of babies and children’s graves as well as the good quality of many of the grave markers for the children’s graves. Sometimes I am almost envious of my Grandparents for the adventures and opportunities they had in the new settlement, but when one observes the many grave markers for the very young one is reminded that life must have been extremely difficult in the early years. On second thought, I do not think that I would like to change places.

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Links to Hopefield Cemetery

• Hopefield Cemetery occupants (Art Goering is not on this list.  He was buried next to his Great-Grandmother, Elisabeth Graber Göring.  Aunt Rosie: please correct me if I am wrong!)
• Hopefield Cemetery
• Swiss Mennonite Historical and Cultural Association
• Swiss Mennonite Cultural and Heritage association meeting minutes for 2010-11-18

Location: 4 miles west, 1/2 north and 1/4 east of Moundridge.
On Aztec, east of 18th Street.
Hopefield Church is no longer a Mennonite Church. The cemetery is directly behind the church.

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