The Pantagraph Article 2025

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BLOOMINGTON — Wayne Hochstetler of Bloomington received the gift of a lifetime when a family Bible was recently returned to him. 

Hochstetler is originally from New Holland, Pennsylvania, and the Bible belonged to his grandfather, Menno Beachy, who was from Pennsylvania and in 1925 died of what would be known today as heart disease at age 36. Beachy had kept a German language Bible, but the family never knew what happened to it after his death — until last year, nearly 100 years later, when the Bible showed up at Books to Benefit in Normal. 

Mary Ryder, who is a volunteer at Books to Benefit as well as a distinguished professor emeritus of English at South Dakota State University, said she believes the undated Bible showed up at the store around April 2024 when they were taking donations. The Books to Benefit store at 360 Wylie Drive in Normal is only open for sales in June and November, but it accepts donations throughout the year. Other Books to Benefit volunteers often refer to Ryder as the "vintage lady," as she is known for returning rare books to their rightful owners.

"Generally, we get rare books, which we sell, but you don't sell something like that," Ryder said of discovering the Bible. "We've done this for lots of people, not just Bibles, but probably about 15 or 20 times we have rehomed books like that. ... (It's) part of our mission. ... If we find something like that that does not belong in our sale, we try to send it back home."  

Ryder conducted the initial research on the Bible. She noticed a genealogy section was bound into the Bible and saw several family names, including Beachy, Christner, Schrock, Yoder and Miller.

These names are common in the Arthur area, especially in the Amish and Mennonite communities, Ryder said. 

Ryder also determined the Bible was likely printed between 1906 and 1917.

Ryder has cousins who farm in Arthur, so she knew when she received the Bible that it was a Mennonite book — specifically Luther's Bible. She said, although it was Mennonite, she believes it was used by the Amish as well.

Ryder learned from Hochstetler later that his grandfather had traveled to the state of Oregon as a young man to serve in the Amish community during the summer. He married a young woman there and lived in the area until 1924. The family then returned to Pennsylvania, making a stop in Arthur on the way home. 

The Bible also mentioned the names of Beachy's four children, including Hochstetler's mother, Edna.

Ryder turned the Bible over to Sheldon Raber of the ABC Shop, 2294 N. County Road 1800 East in Arthur, as he frequents Books to Benefits' fall and summer sales and is familiar with the Arthur community. She said she hoped he would be able to find possible descendants of Menno Beachy.

Raber operated a used book shop from 2007 to 2018. He still sells books by mail order, but the business is now primarily a produce market.

Raber said he started his research by looking in cemetery records, where he found Menno Beachy and his children. He then found an obituary for Hochstetler's mother online, which mentioned her son, Wayne Holchstetler: a living grandson of Menno Beachy, believed to be living in Illinois.

Raber also noted he believed Hochstetler was also a pastor at Arthur Mennonite Church from 1979 to 1983. 

He then sent out an email to 615 people from all over the country who, like him, sell used books. 

"I got a call back almost instantly from a friend from a church here in Arthur and Mt. Vernon, Richard Strite. ... He said, 'Hey, I know him. I graduated from Lancaster Mennonite School. He's in northern Illinois somewhere. (I) just had a 50th class reunion book; it's got contact information in it,'" Raber said. 

In November, Raber discovered Hochstetler lived in Bloomington and decided to reach out. 

Hochstetler wrote back, saying he knew right away it was his grandparents' Bible because of the names Raber said were written inside. Ryder, the Books to Benefit volunteer, drove to Arthur to pick up the book and returned it to Hochstetler just in time for Christmas.

Hochstetler said he knew about the Bible as a young kid because he grew up in the home of his grandmother, Fannie, and recalled hearing stories about his grandfather and his mother traveling when she was a young girl. His grandfather, Menno Beachy, died when his mother was only 8, so the Bible was in his grandmother's possession for a long time, he said. Hochstetler said his mother believed Fannie may have given the Bible to Beachy's relatives or that it could have been buried with him or another relative when they died. How the family Bible ended up at Books to Benefit is still a mystery.

"Most of the entries regarding our family tree and dates and so forth are in my mother's handwriting, so my mother was directly involved with it at some point," Hochstetler said. 

Hochstetler previously worked as a consultant, like a "pastor to the pastor," with approximately 52 congregations in various states through Mennonite Church USA. He and his wife, Lois, were also frequent volunteers at the Normal Theater and the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. The two have resided in Bloomington since 1999, when their ministry brought them to the area. They left for a few years for other ministries, but they came back in 2014 to retire. 

As a former pastor, Hochstetler said, he has seen and used many different kinds of Bibles, but he is unable to read this German Bible that belonged to his grandparents. Still, he said it's fascinating because families often used Bibles to keep track of their genealogy, listing births, deaths, marriages and other significant events. He said he thinks this was common practice because it was a different era when people didn't have as many books. 

"I think the best word (to describe the experience) is joyful. It was a delight to be able to handle (the Bible)," Hochstetler said. "Those stories were with me for all this time, so I was just very, very grateful. Mary Ryder had gone through the trouble of trying to track us down." 

Ryder said the Bible was particularly interesting to her because it's a teaching Bible, containing a lot of text a regular Bible may not have. 

Ryder and Raber also were interested in the different spellings of "Beachy" as it was spelled differently in Illinois than how it is spelled in Pennsylvania as they put an "e" before the "y," but the spellings were found to be used interchangeably across the Amish and Mennonite communities.

"Putting it back in the hands of the family, that's no question," Ryder said of her favorite part of the experience. "It's just heartwarming to see families appreciate a lost piece of family history. It's like bringing the generations back together, because they look at the handwriting, they look at the names ... (it's) family history all rolled up in the text. ... That's what pleases me the most." 

Of meeting Hochstetler, she said, "(It was) absolutely a delight. He knew the provenance of that book. It became a living entity when I spoke with him, otherwise it was just a book on the shelf."

Raber said it was an awesome experience to return the Bible, especially since the owner was local, and he hopes someone would have done similar had it been him. 

Ryder said, in 2018, she had a similar experience when a 132-year-old marriage certificate from 1886 was found in an old German Bible, and she was able to return it to the descendants of the family. In the past, Books to Benefit also has returned a historic Bible to a family in East Central Iowa.

Ryder encourages people to donate their used books to Books to Benefit and attend their sales to help raise money for literacy projects in the community. "I'm sure we miss a lot of stuff, but when the old stuff comes in, we evaluate and make sure it isn't valuable to someone. It becomes my life," Ryder said. "It's a remarkable thing when you can find the family."