ALUMNI HONOREES
Centennial Award CHESTER AND SARA JANE WENGER When Chester Wenger '36 became acquainted with Sara Jane Weaver '42, he found her “so beautiful and loveable I couldn’t resist,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. Something else beguiled Chester. “It impressed me to see a young woman stand up there teaching the Bible to a whole roomful of children,” holding their rapt attention. A shared interest in spreading God’s story became the bedrock of a love still luminous as the couple, now 99 and 94 SERVICE and goingEMU on 73 ALUMNI years of marriage, banter AWARD: DONNA AND about their past.WAYNE BURKHART "What better way to celebrate our BY EMILY WADE WILL centennial than to create a special Centennial Alumni Award to recognize persons who have defined the ethos of EMU in a ’67 AND sustainedWAYNE way for a lifetime," saidDONNA President BEACHY ’69 BURSusan Schultz Huxman. "Chester and JUST Sara DAYS OUT OF KHART WERE BOTH Jane Wenger were unanimously selected WHEN by GRADUATE SCHOOL THE COUPLE our committee as alumni have lived SPOTTED Awho MENNONITE WEEKLY REVIEW rich lives AD of service, and faith AND GROUNDS FORleadership A “GARDENS and defined our mission with integrity and WORK LEADER.” WAYNE’S ADVISOR AT grace for many decades." MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY TOLD HIM Each had firm foundations in Menyear associate’s degrees. He earned a bachIT LOOKED LIKE A “DEAD-END JOB.” nonite communities. Sara Jane grew up in elor's degree in biology at nearby BridgewaLancasterWAYNE City, Pennsylvania, where her pa- THIRTY-TWO ter College. After a year of driving a milk STILL APPLIED. ternal grandfather and parents ran a grocery delivery route, Chester YEARS LATER, BOTH HE AND DONNA CON-returned to Eastern store and several Central Market stands. Mennonite School to take advantage of its TINUE TO FIND THEIR WORK AT GOULD Chester’s father, A.D. Wenger, was named new offering, an additional year of Bible FARM AMAZINGLY LIFE-AFFIRMING. president of Eastern Mennonite School studies. From childhood, Chester yearned when theNESTLED boy was 4. TheIN family lived to knowSCENIC the Bible, even in an era when MASSACHUSETTS’ on the Harrisonburg campus during the pastors, including BERKSHIRE HILLS, THE 650-ACRE FARMhis two older brothers, academicOFFERED year and returned to their farm in were called lot or vote and didn’t need THE COUPLE NOT ONLY by JOBS— Chesapeake, Virginia, to tend the grapetheological training. In that 1940-41 school DONNA ALSO JOINED THE STAFF— BUT vines when school was out. Both of their year, he met Sara Jane, a first-year student. A VIBRANT COMMUNITY AND CALLINGS mothers were influential Bible teachers. Sara Jane had taught in summer Bible AS WELL. GOULD FARM’S MISSION IS age TOof 13, traveling as far as In 1936, Chester graduated from EMS, school from the OFFER OPEN HEARTS DOORS TOeast of Lancaster City, to do which then offered high school and two- ANDPaoli, 60 miles
PHOTO BY GRETA BUCHER
so. “I loved to teach,” she said. “I told stories to get their attention and I didn’t want a single child to drop out. I knew each one by name.” Chester returned to Chesapeake in 1941 and converted an old store into a primary school, part of a Mennonite movement “because the country was getting ready for war and we didn’t want our children to learn war,” he said. When Sara Jane graduated in 1942 with an associate’s in elementary education, she joined Chester’s sister Ruth in the two-room schoolhouse and taught the lower grades. “The local Mennonite community fell in love with her just like I