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Colonizing the Texas Prairies
- Texas A&M University Press
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the Great Depression brought significant changes. Banks and businesses closed, and local families had to rely on government subsidies to make ends meet. As a result, the area diversified into cattle ranching and truck farming—the practice of growing only a few crops on a large scale to be shipped to distant markets. In more recent years, its growth has plateaued partly because rail service was discontinued in .1 However,thisrural,sparselypopulatedsettingattracted the initial seven families who moved to Lott.Consistent with their long history of migration, the Mennonites left their larger, more established communities and created a smaller one in which to raise their children. With few Mennonite Colonizing the Texas Prairies Susan Gaetz ABOUT 450 MILES southeast of Seminole, the tiny town of Lott, population , hunkers down on a grassy, windswept area of Central Texas known as the Blackland Prairies. The area is a patchwork of cattle herds, pecan trees,and cotton and corn fields,and its pioneer heritage suits the Beachy Amish Mennonite families who moved there in . The town, located twenty-seven miles south of Waco in Falls County, was founded in , when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway was built through the region. Cotton and corn crops thrived in the fertile, alkaline clay soils, referred to as “black gumbo,” and the town grew steadily through the first part of the twentieth century. But communities in Texas at the time, they also wanted to offer a stopping point for Mennonites traveling to and from their missions in Central and South America.Their congregation is called Faith Mennonite Fellowship. Andy Mullet, minister of Faith Mennonite Fellowship, and his wife, Edith, were among the original seven families who moved to Texas. After serving as missionaries in Belize for ten years, they returned to their Ohio home in the s and began considering another move that would put them closer to the Mexican border and in an area where few people had had any experience with Mennonites. They also wanted affordable, nonirrigated farmland, which is the Mennonites’ preference. “It was so congested with Mennonites there in Ohio,” Edith said. “We wanted to spread out more, and we didn’t like the cold winters up there. There was a lot of opportunity here in Texas, and land was available.” So Andy and Edith loaded their belongings into a large Ryder truck and, along with their four children, headed to Texas. Since their arrival twenty-five years ago, the population of Mennonites in Lott has gradually risen from seven families to thirty-five. In contrast, U.S. census figures show that the population of Lott has gradually declined from residents in to around in .The Mennonites live in homes scattered in and around Lott and its neighboring communities of Chilton and Rosebud. The land is flat. Relief from summer temperatures,which hover near the hundred-degree mark, can be found in the shade of large oak trees. Mesquite and post oak trees are also abundant in the area, although their invasiveness makes them less desirable. Because a rural lifestyle tends to separate people physically, most of the families do not have Mennonite neighbors, but they usually live within eyesight of another Mennonite home. With their steady growth in the area,the Beachy Amish Mennonites,or Beachy Amish,as they are commonly called, have continued to spread into other areas of Texas. Typically , when a community reaches an ideal size of twenty- five to thirty families, four or five willing families will move, branching out to create a new community and church outreach . This is in keeping with the Beachy Amish preference to keep their communities small and intimate, which they feel fosters a better church life. Branching out also allows them to further their evangelistic efforts by creating a presence in new areas. In several families from Lott moved to Grandview, just south of Fort Worth,and began another community that has a different and more independent status than the Beachy Amish. Their congregation is part of a cluster of congregations who consider themselves unaffiliated Amish Mennonites , which means their various groups interact with each other but do not have a centralized, formal organization. Their beliefs and practices, however, are similar to those of the Beachy Amish. As Mennonites from other states moved to the Grandview area, the community grew. In July the Grandview group divided, and a new community with the same affiliation was started in Osceola, just fifteen miles [3.236.252.14] Project...