Peter, George, John, Anna, and the Ephrata Cloister

First, we meet Peter Miller.

Born in the Palatinate in either 1709 or 1710, he came to America as a Reformed German preacher in 1730.  After serving in various pastorates in Ephrata and surrounding areas, he joined the 7th Day Adventists, and took up residence in the Ephrata Cloister.

Peter was highly educated, and likely the most skilled linguist in the American colonies.  It was he who translated the Martyr's Mirror from its original Dutch to German, at the request of the German Mennonites in Pennsylvania.

He also, at Thomas Jefferson's request, translated the Declaration of Independence into seven other languages, thus helping to explain across the world what the United States America was about.

Peter Miller was widely known, having many friends and acquaintances.  A notable one was his personal friendship with General George Washington.  Quite interesting given the lifestyles of both men, and important later in this story.

https://www.lancasterlyrics.com/b_peter_miller_the_ephrata_cloister/

https://www.lancasterhistory.org/images/stories/JournalArticles/vol6nos3&4pp46_49_118632.pdf

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37093553/peter-miller

Now, the time frame.

The Revolutionary War was raging.  By all indications, the colonial army had no chance.  The largest battle of the war was fought along the Brandywine Creek on September 11, 1777.  According to the 1996 Encylopedia Britannica, the Americans suffered 900 killed or wounded, and 400 taken prisoner.

Because of his personal friendship with Peter Miller, General Washington sent his wounded by the wagon load to the Ephrata Cloister for care, an excruciating 40 mile journey.  Reportedly, up to 500 soldiers were bought to the Cloister, most with inadequate clothing and no care or supplies of any kind.  Makeshift hospitals were set up in the barns.  Specifically mentioned were the building names Zion and Kedar.  Did they also give up their personal rooms?  The tiny airless cells with wooden slabs for a bed and blocks for pillows, would not have been conducive to healing.

https://edwardhandmedicalmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Good-Samaritan

The need.

Obviously, the brothers and sisters at the Cloister, highly skilled in their work and in living independently, were unprepared.  Immediately the small and somewhat aging population of thirty-six  Cloister residents was overwhelmed  But they served without reservation with what they had.  After all, having devoted their lives wholly to God, why would they step away from this desperate need?

Enter the Baers.

On the outskirts of Ephrata, toward what is now Denver, Pennsylvania, lived the Preacher John and Anna (Eshelman) Baer family.  Sturdy German Mennonites, they had a prosperous farm and a mill.  They worked hard, and wished only to live out their traditions and beliefs in peace.

Surely they heard of the Battle of Brandywine, and the suffering and death that followed.  They were no strangers to death themselves, having already buried three of their eleven children. In 1777, they had a five year old daughter, two teenagers, and the rest of their children were adults.  How many were still living at home and supporting the family farm is not known.

We do know that one son, Abraham, was charged as a Tory along with other Mennonite men of the area, for feeding starving British soldiers.  Although his accuser was later hanged as a spy, Abraham lived many years with a price on his head.  When his father's estate was settled in 1780, the state confiscated Abraham's share, because of the charges against him.

Word spread across the countryside; wounded and dying men at the Cloister needed care.  Food, supplies, and medicine (such as was available) were needed.  Preacher John and his wife Anna heard and answered the need.

How did they arrive at this decision?  Surely they had more than enough to do at home.  Their family needed them.  Could they not send a wagon load of supplies and consider their duty done?

Did they answer immediately, or wait and pray?  This was the fall of the year, harvest time.  Life was relatively peaceful for them; the fighting was a distance away and wouldn't have a direct effect on their lives and property, would it?

According to the 1996 Encylopedia Britannica, in 1775 a group of Mennonites had sent a statement to the Pennsylvania Assembly that read in part:

It is our principle to feed the hungry and give the thirsty drink;

we have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that

can be helpful to the preservation of men's lives, but we find no

freedom in giving, or doing, or assisting in anything by which men's 

lives are destroyed or hurt."

Did Preacher John Baer add his name to this document?  Surely he would have been aware of it.  In any case, he and his family lived out that commitment.

The sacrifice.

John and Anna left their home, family, and livelihood to nurse the wounded, ill, and dying at the Cloister.  Not a pleasant task.  One can only imagine the sights, sounds, and smells that agonizing wounds, infection, and overcrowding would produce, all in an area completely lacking in sanitation.  This was before anesthesia, before antibiotics, before indoor plumbing.

Almost immediately the dreaded camp fever, spread person to person by a bacteria carried by lice, attacked without mercy.  Typhus and scarlet fever thrived as well.  How long did John and Anna serve?  What were their responsibilities?  Most of the soldiers here heartrendingly young, helpless, and alone.  Did they move among the rows of agony with prayer and scripture as well as food and medical assistance?

Preacher Ira D. Landis writes:

"It is estimated that one hundred fifty soldiers died at the Cloister.  They were given military burials at first, but as the death rate increased they were simply interred in trenches and ceremony was forgotten.  There was no time or energy to do otherwise.  Ten of the aging Cloister residents lost their lives in the epidemic.  Others who came to help, like the neighboring Mennonite John Baer and his wife, Anna, succumbed also."

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117709615/john-baer

Did John and Anna return home at all that awful winter?  The British were comfortably ensconced in Philadelphia.  General Washington's army was starving at Valley Forge.  Disease and death were raging in Ephrata.  And records show that Anna Baer died March 20, 1778 of illness contracted at the Cloister.  Their five year old daughter, Elizabeth, died four days later, which makes one wonder if they returned home to die.  John followed his wife and daughter to heaven on April 15, followed shortly thereafter by their thirty year old son Heinrich.

The lessons learned.

When they left to serve the wounded, John and Anna had to know their lives were at risk, theirs and those of their family.  But they went.  How many young soldiers will be in heaven as a result of their love, borne out in word and deed?  

 How does the godly example of John and Anna Baer and their children apply to us today?  Once again an epidemic rages.  How much is political and how much medical?  Certainly there were politics in 1777, too.

Surely there was a climate of fear then, as there is now.  For those of us who have our future settled in heaven, how much fear in the here and now is warranted?  The prevailing attitude today is protect one's self, and supposedly by extension those around us, loading guilt on the ones who resist the status quo.  

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love."  I John 4:18

How do we balance, in today's culture,  God's call to love and to serve, regardless of one's own safety?

"He that loves his life shall lose it; he that hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal."  John 12:25