The Dutch Mennonites of HendersonHow a Nebraska ethnic community has endured for generations. Story by Kristen Friesen Photography by Bobbi and Steve Olson |
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FAMILIES ARE BORN, and families are grown. The latter takes hard work (the trial-and-error kind) and grace. My husband’s family hales from Henderson, a town that gets into your blood. For me to appreciate the rose that is my Friesen name, tracing the community’s Dutch Mennonite roots is a must.
Fifteen miles west of York, along I-80, the town of just under a thousand residents
continues much as it began more than a century ago. Lush farmland frames the
town’s borders. Older homes have settled upon tidy lots, and a main street
provides a place for business and society to mingle.
We meet my husband’s parents
on a Tuesday morning in June. It’s 9 a.m. when we roll onto Main Street.
A sign listing the town’s churches welcomes us, followed by a house bearing
a sign that reads: “Everything that happens has spiritual significance.”
The two blocks on each side of Main
Street comprise Henderson’s downtown: a law office established in 1910,
an art gallery where a local man bearing my married name sculpts and paints,
Henderson Food Mart, two banks, city hall, a pharmacy, printing company, post
office, barber shop, hair salon and floral shop.
Alcohol is neither served nor sold
– nowhere and not ever. The hymn “This is My Father’s World”
swells from the Senior Center.
A handful of financial, insurance
and real estate companies serve yet another generation of local business owners
and farmers. Mat’nae Massage, an Internet company, two car repair shops
and Total Comfort Technologies seem to be the only reminders that it is, in
fact, the 21st century.
We find a parking spot in front of
The Dutch Kitchen, Henderson’s local hub.
“Don’t lock the doors,”
my husband says. “Nobody locks their car doors.”
Inside, a group of 15 men sit in their
usual spot eating their usual breakfast. A smaller group of women do likewise.
Before we even have a chance to sit, my father-in-law, Dwight, is shaking hands
with George Hiebner whose wife babysat him as a child. She passed away just
prior to Dwight’s mother.
“She was like a second mother
to me,” Dwight says. “She tried to teach me to eat carrots and boiled
eggs.”
According to Sheila Huebert, who runs
The Dutch Kitchen along with her husband, Kevin, Hiebner is a regular. He comes
in every morning for a cup of coffee then goes home to read his paper, get the
mail and take a nap. But he’s back for the lunch special.
Such loyal customers keep Sheila and
Kevin busy.
“Kevin is here by 5:30 a.m. each
morning,” she says. “And, as people are walking in, he’s already
making their breakfast. They eat the same thing every day and then, on Saturday,
they change.”
Sheila’s cookbook is the city’s
own Henderson Cookbook, compiled and printed in 1971. Staples such as zwiebach
(literally “two bakes” – dinner rolls made by stacking two
balls of dough before baking), apple shnetya (apple-filled pastries), and verenike
(dough filled with cottage cheese and then boiled) keep locals coming in for
a taste of their Dutch-Mennonite heritage.