Relief in an eggshell: Hatching eggs to Poland, Part I

Church of the Brethren poultryman Ray Petersime had observed successful Heifer Project shipments of cattle to Poland, France, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia after World War II. Seeing the need for poultry in these countries, as well, Petersime hatched a plan in early 1946 for sending hatching eggs to Poland through the Heifer Project and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

Gospel Messenger, June 8, 1946.

Petersime knew the poultry business inside and out. He headed the family incubator manufacturing business in Gettysburg, Ohio, started by his father Ira — who had invented the first electric incubator. With most farm animals in Poland killed or eaten during the war, Petersime knew there would be plenty of unused incubators available in Europe. And he believed chickens could more easily survive the unfavorable conditions in Poland than other small animals. “A chicken can scratch for the bigger part of its living,” he said, “and at the same time become a source of both meat and eggs.” He just needed to collect the eggs and get them there.

In mid-April 1946, Petersime sent out a call for hatching eggs from certified Rhode Island Reds and White Leghorn flocks to area Churches of the Brethren. The eggs came in from as far as 250 miles away in Ohio and Indiana–twice as many as the airplane to transport them could carry!

Gospel Messenger, June 8, 1946.

After sorting, the extras were sold with the proceeds going to the Brethren Service Committee. The Ladies’ Aid Society of the Oakland Church of the Brethren near Petersime’s Gettysburg poultry business packed the sorted eggs into sturdy wooden cases holding 30 dozen each.

Gospel Messenger, June 8, 1946.

Pastor Moyne Landis consecrated the eggs before they were trucked to a Gettysburg warehouse to be held at a temperature favorable to prolonging their fertility until flight time.

Dayton Herald, May 11, 1946.

The challenge Petersime’s plan faced would be getting the eggs to Poland safely within the proper timeframe for hatching. A previous attempt by UNRRA to send hatching eggs to Czechoslovakia ended in disaster when instructions for quick transport at correct temperatures once in Europe went unheeded by UNRRA’s European regional office. Transport in open trucks and unheated vintage Junker planes with egg cases stowed on end and upside down delivered the eggs frozen and broken. To remedy this, UNRRA secured an insulated and heated C-54 transport aircraft in time for the Brethren shipment.

On May 7, Petersime’s dream came to fruition when a Brethren Service Committee semi transported 155 cases, totaling 55,800 hatching eggs, to the Dayton airport in nearby Vandalia, Ohio, where they were carried onto UNRRA’s C-54.

Gospel Messenger, June 8, 1946.

More than 100 area Brethren gathered around the plane for a dedication service asking God speed for this shipment, one of the largest of its kind to date, and its safe arrival in Warsaw, Poland.

Next post: Petersime goes to Poland.

How UNRRA’s livestock program saved European lives – Part III

This concludes UNRRA’s 1947 report by E. R. Henson that highlights the role played by UNRRA, the Brethren Service Committee, its Heifer Project, and the seagoing cowboys in helping Europe recover from World War II.

The Church of the Brethren [through its Heifer Project] has also given several hundred head of dairy cattle to UNRRA for shipment to Greece, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and China. Its Service Committee now plans to continue receiving and dispatching donated livestock for at least two years after we have closed down.

A Heifer Project recipient in Ocheron, Greece, hugs her beloved cow, 1946. Photo by Charles Lord.

The Greek War Relief and the Rebuilders of Poland Association have made substantial contributions of livestock for their respective homelands. Other gifts have come to UNRRA through the Falls Cities Milk Producers Association of Louisville, Kentucky, the State of Mississippi, and from several individuals and church groups.

Mississippians gather alongside the SS Hattiesburg Victory in Gulfport for an elaborate celebration for the first of two shipments of cattle donated by the state’s counties for Greece, July 1946. UNRRA photo from United Nations.

The first six bulls given by the Brethren arrived in Piraeus in June 1945. They were joined by six other bulls supplied by UNRRA at the state farm of New Athens where, with the help of Cornell University and the Near East Foundation, a project for artificial insemination was started.

The six purebred bulls donated to Greece by the Heifer Project. Athens, June 1945. UNRRA photo from Heifer International archives.

This was a new idea to Greece There was some question at first as to how the Greek farmers would look upon it. Accordingly, on a sunny summer day, a year ago last August, all the nearby farmers were invited to come to the school so that the project might be explained to them first hand. The bulls, who by this time had learned to answer to new Greek names, were paraded around the courtyard. The purpose of the project was outlined in detail. The pedigrees of the bulls were lauded and their amazing fertility extolled. Following the talks, a demonstration was presented.

Dr. Irvine Elliott examines sperm taken from the first bull, after which farmers crowd around getting their first glimpse of microscopic life. UNRRA photo from United Nations.

Yet distrust was evident on a number of faces. A few gave voice to grave misgivings shared by nearly every farmer present. Into this atmosphere of tension there stepped a tall bearded figure – Bishop Padelmion of the Greek Orthodox Church. He stood facing the bulls, his long robes blown gently by the wind. He raised his hands, and using an age-old ceremony, he asked divine help to further the work of science. When he retired from the circle, all doubts and fears had disappeared and the farmers of Greece last fall began to bring their cows to the project’s regional centers. Last spring the arrival of several thousand fine young calves to the cows that had been “serviced” assured the success of the project.

The ceremony of consecration begins with centuries’ old prayers. UNRRA photo from United Nations.

The first calf to be born was the offspring of Orangeville Bellboy of Pennsylvania, a large-muscled Brown Swiss. The young animal’s owner is a sixty-two-year-old farmer who had lost two of his three cows and a horse during the occupation.

Marie Golemis and her family were the proud owners of the first calf born in Greece’s artificial insemination program. UNRRA photo from United Nations.

The farm stock already sent has meant adding thousands of tons to the food supply, but their young are the real hope. The birth of first calf or colt from “UNRRA parentage” is an event celebrated throughout the whole village. The names given these animals – “Hope”, “UNRRA”, “Recovery” and “World Peace” – are an expression of the devotion and gratitude the people have for this program which is doing much to restore their faith in the future.

So ends E. R. Henson’s report.

 

How UNRRA’s livestock program saved European lives – Part II

This continues UNRRA’s 1947 report by E. R. Henson that highlights the role played by UNRRA, the Brethren Service Committee, its Heifer Project, and the seagoing cowboys in helping Europe recover from World War II.

It is easy to understand the joy, and I might also say the reverence, with which the farm people receive their animals, when you realize how heavy have been the losses. Ten million head of work stock have been killed, carried off, or destroyed during the war, and most of the animals left were in a weakened condition. I would like to point out, too, that this tremendous lack of draft power is an underlying cause of the tragic food shortages that are still recurring in our years of peace.

Bosnian men and boys replace the draft animals killed or carried off by the Germans during the occupation. UNRRA photo, circa 1945 or 1946.

Shortly after the first winter of liberation, nearly all nations dependent on UNRRA aid began raising their sights on the number of draft animals they would require as a start toward agricultural recovery. Fortunately, at the end of the war, [the United States] had a surplus of horses or mules. At first shipping was tight, and it was only last summer and fall that real progress was made.

All of the dairy cattle came from the United States. About 200 of the heifers are purebred Brown Swiss, Holstein or Jerseys. A little over three hundred bulls of the same breeds have also been sent from this country. Horses have been forwarded from Canada, Denmark, the United States, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa; ponies from Iceland, and donkeys from Cypress and the Dominican Republic. The United Kingdom has furnished over 1,000 sheep. Southern Rhodesia supplied 372 pigs. A few stallions, mares, goats and cattle, primarily for breeding purposes for Albania and Ethiopia, are still to move forward.

Since UNRRA can replace only a small fraction of the animals lost in the receiving countries, the hope of all these nations lies in the future offspring of both imports and war survivors. In order to speed up the increase and provide for the maximum number of healthy young stock, UNRRA prefers to have all mares, heifers and young cows bred before shipment. Consequently, a number of calves and foals are born en route.

Don Anderson with one of the offspring born on the SS Robert W. Hart, July 1946. Photo courtesy of Anderson.

Last November was the heaviest month of shipments. At that time UNRRA had 72 vessels at her disposal with a carrying capacity of approximately 24,500 head. It took over 2,000 livestock handlers to man these boats, and the story of how these men signed up for a job where duties include watering and feeding animals, cleaning stalls, and assisting in midnight deliveries, is a fascinating one.

While the war was still on, members of the Church of the Brethren were planning a project to raise and send heifers to Europe to help replace the many thousands that were being destroyed. Early in 1945, representatives of their Church Service Committee approached UNRRA with an offer of six pureblooded bulls for Greece. While discussing the whole problem of livestock rehabilitation, the question of securing qualified attendants for the animals in transit came up. Men and boys were needed who were not afraid of hard work or dirt, and who had a conviction about the job they were doing. Attendants who wanted the animals to arrive sound and healthy would be able to keep down losses to a minimum. The Church of the Brethren suggested an answer. Most of their congregations are drawn from rural areas, and many a church member, not able to give a great deal of money, might welcome an opportunity of serving as a livestock attendant. So the offer of the Brethren Service Committee to recruit animal crews for UNRRA was enthusiastically accepted. The Brethren soon went outside their own membership to sign up interested applicants from all faiths.

The first UNRRA seagoing cowboy crew to be recruited gathers at the Baltimore Church of the Brethren for departure on the SS Virginian to Greece, June 1945. Photo from Earl Holderman.

Approximately 1,500 men and boys are serving at the present time. Several hundred have made three or more trips. Nearly every state in the Union has at some time been represented. The majority of the handlers had farm experience; some of them are mature farmers; many are young boys. A significant portion are ministers and rectors representing at least five prominent denominations. Last summer a number of high school and college students helped out, and in recent months a considerable number of returned GI’s have made the trip.

A crew of Mennonite high school and college students set out for their trip of a lifetime to Poland on the SS Stephen R. Mallory, June 1946. Photo courtesy of Robert Ramseyer.

~ to be continued

 

How UNRRA’s livestock program saved European lives – Part I

While filing a backlog of reference materials recently, I came across a gem – a report penned by the Director of the Agricultural Rehabilitation Division of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, E. R. Henson, in February 1947. It wonderfully recaps the role played by UNRRA, the Brethren Service Committee, its Heifer Project, and the seagoing cowboys in helping Europe recover from World War II. I’ll be posting the report (minimally edited) in installments, adding images from my files to illustrate it. Here we go!

HOW U.S. WORK HORSES AND DAIRY CATTLE ARE SAVING EUROPEAN LIVES

In Poland they say the sight of livestock coming into the country is the best morale builder UNRRA has. We have sent 130,000 work horses and 16,288 dairy cattle there. When the animals come off the docks, they represent aid in its most tangible form—milk and draft power for immediate use—help for the future in building up war-depleted herds. No time is lost, for even before the milk cows are unloaded, they are met by a special welcoming committee.

Nowy Port, Poland, 1946. UNRRA photo.

The livestock ships put in near Danzig [Gdansk]. . . [F]arm women from the nearby countryside in worn boots and with ragged scarves over their heads come aboard. Some have their children with them. All have pails or milk buckets, and they know how to milk a cow. . . . [T]he women go ashore, each carrying a bucket of milk, happy and excited because for this one day there will be enough milk to go around when the kids sit down to the table.

These animals are part of the most important water-born migration of four-footed creatures undertaken since the days of Noah. By the end of January, close to 270 thousand head of livestock had been brought in by UNRRA to the European countries that receive not only life saving food and clothing through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, but also numerous boat loads of supplies to help them regain their own food production ability.

UNRRA’s livestock program began in June 1945, when the first boat load of heifers left for Greece where we have landed 4,260 head of dairy cattle and 50,544 draft animals. It will close this July when the last of 8,000 head of water buffalo, heifers, sheep and mules are delivered to China.

First UNRRA heifer unloaded onto Greek soil, July 1945. Photo courtesy of Earl Holderman.

The first Holsteins that went to Czechoslovakia were greeted with garlands of flowers. Since then, 5,444 dairy cows, 115 bulls, 27,504 horses and 44 mules have been brought in by UNRRA. In Naples crowds of people thronged the streets to cheer 330 dairy heifers being transported in trucks from the wharf. These animals were given to Italy through the Brethren Service Committee, whose activities, and those of other cooperating organizations, have played an important part in our livestock rehabilitation project.

This Heifer Project animal was also welcomed with a garland of flowers in S. Pietro Infine, Italy, July 1946, by a specially selected hard hit family in this 100% destroyed village near Cassino. UNRRA photo #3190.

Most of the UNRRA imports go to individual farm families or for community use. About a third are retained for the use of hospitals, orphanages and schools, and the few purebreds we have been able to include are used for breeding.

Yugoslavia has received 28,143 draft and 4,222 dairy animals. About 7,000 were mules from United States army surplus in Italy—fine specimens of work animals in prime condition. Farmers marveled at their prowess, for never had they seen work stock that could plough in one day so many acres so well. In many villages the animals are used cooperatively, and caretakers for them are elected with great care. In gratitude one village held a ceremony for their mule to be christened “Success” by the village priest.

UNRRA mules in Prestranek, Yugoslavia, being led to their farms after being cataloged and checked at the remount depot, 1945 or 1946. UNRRA photo #1490.

I have found people everywhere touchingly grateful for the UNRRA animals. They know where they come from; most of them have the letters U-N-R-R-A hair branded on their flanks for all to see.

A woman brands an UNRRA horse being unloaded off the SS Mount Whitney, August 1946. Photo by James Brunk.

 

~ to be continued

Benjamin Bushong: Chief engineer of the seagoing cowboy program

Benjamin G. Bushong’s deep friendship with Dan West would have unforeseen consequences for this Pennsylvania dairy farmer and Guernsey breeder. When West came home in 1938 from relief work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War with the idea of sending cows to Spain to help provide starving children with the milk they needed, he shared his idea with Bushong around the Bushong’s kitchen table. From that point on, Bushong became a confidante and advisor for West on getting the program adopted and started.

Benjamin G. Bushong. Photo courtesy of Mark Bushong.

The Heifer Project, started in northern Indiana in 1942, came into being as a program of the Brethren Service Committee of the Church of the Brethren in January 1943. That same year, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration [UNRRA] was formed by 44 of the allied nations to be ready to assist devastated countries at war’s end.

Soon after VE-Day in Europe in May 1945, UNRRA made its first test-run in shipping live cargo – six purebred bulls to Greece, supplied by the Heifer Project. Bushong proved his organizational and red-tape cutting abilities engineering this shipment.

Of this experience, Bushong’s granddaughter Rebecca Bushong notes, “The work was tiring and frustrating, but in these early dealings with UNRRA and world governments, Ben Bushong was learning valuable lessons in diplomacy that would serve him and his denomination well in the coming years.”*

With this successful shipment, UNRRA decided to include live animals in their shipments to Europe. But they had a problem: where would they find the handlers for their livestock? Heifer Project also had a problem: where would they find ships for theirs? An agreement was made: UNRRA would ship Heifer Project animals free of charge, and the Brethren Service Committee [BSC] would recruit all the cattle tenders UNRRA needed.

Having proved his value to both organizations with the bull shipment, the Brethren Service Committee drafted Bushong to be their “man on the spot” on the east coast for working with UNRRA. Bushong’s and his family’s life would never be the same. Starting on a volunteer basis from home, he served double duty as recruiting agent for UNRRA’s livestock handlers and coordinator of Heifer Project shipments for BSC – and on top of that, also managing his farm in Pennsylvania. The first shipments of UNRRA cattle and BSC “seagoing cowboys” departed from US shores the end of June 1945.

News clipping from Lancaster, PA, newspaper, 1945.

UNRRA’s program soon mushroomed, with an estimated need of 8,000 cattle tenders to see the program through. The heavy responsibilities pulled Bushong off the farm, which his son Mark ran by then. Headquarters for the seagoing cowboy office were established at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland. By March 1946, BSC put Bushong on salary as the executive director of the Heifer Project and head of the seagoing cowboy program, a position he held until 1951. Throughout UNRRA’s two years of shipping livestock, they employed nearly 7,000 seagoing cowboys.

The busy seagoing cowboy office at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, MD, 1946. Photo courtesy of Brethren Historical Library and Archives.

Bushong’s office recruited and handled payroll for them all. It boggles the mind to think of all the juggling acts this one man and his small staff had to perform to see that the right number of cattle tenders, with proper papers in hand, were in place at the right time for the right ship – and in the case of UNRRA shipments which included Heifer Project cattle, the right number of animals with the proper papers. Not to mention Bushong’s numerous committee meetings, negotiations with US and foreign government officials, dealing with longshoremen strikes, and handling problem cases or injuries of seagoing cowboys.

The Heifer Project Committee meeting at Quaker Hill in Richmond, Indiana, July 20, 1949. Benjamin Bushong is seated at the table next to Dan West on the right. Photo credit: Palladium-Item.

Bushong was definitely a man on the go!

* Bushong, Rebecca, “Ben Bushong – Apostle of Mercy,” Brethren Life and Thought, Spring 1979, p. 73

Special Post: International Day of Peace

On this International Day of Peace, I honor the Seagoing Cowboys
who helped usher in peace after World War II.

A seagoing cowboy reflects on visiting the memorial being built where the first shots of World War II had been fired. Gdansk, Poland, July 1946. Photo by Charles Shenk.

Seagoing cowboy Guy Buch, fluent in German, is being interviewed by German media. Buch was part of a special crew of Church of the Brethren seminary and college students intent on having dialogue with German Christians. Bremen, West Germany, July 1946. Photo courtesy of Guy Buch.

Another special crew tested whether black and white seagoing cowboys could work together on the same ship. The cowboys pray together on their return from Poland to the United States. July 1946. Photo by Ben Kaneda.

On this International Day of Peace,
I also honor the Brethren Service Committee and the Heifer Project
whose mission it was to build peace in a war-torn world.

Seagoing cowboy Martin Strate shakes the hand of a Japanese official after a ceremony to celebrate Heifer Project’s shipment of 25 bulls to Japan, May 1947. Photo by Norman Hostetler.

A “Campaign for Peace Action” brochure of the Church of the Brethren Peace Education Department, circa late 1940s. Courtesy of Heifer International archives.

May peace prevail in these troubled times.

~ Peggy Reiff Miller

 

The Longest Ride – Part VI: Exploring Segregated Pre-Apartheid South Africa

The Brethren Service Committee accepted the job of recruiting UNRRA’s cattle tenders with the motivation of providing “an unusually broadening and educational experience” for the men who served. The S. S. Carroll Victory‘s stop in Durban, South Africa, to pick up horses for Greece in December 1946 most certainly provided that opportunity for Charlie Lord. His eight days in Durban gave him a window into the racial situation in South Africa that led to the creation of the “Apartheid” laws and system only months later in 1948.

Durban, South Africa, December 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

On his first full day in port, Lord looked up two fellow Quakers who helped arrange some visits for the Carroll Victory seagoing cowboys. The first tour took them to the McCord Hospital for Natives, located, not without objection, in the fashionable white Berea section of Durban. “Twenty-one cattlemen took the bus,” Lord said. “We rode thru miles of a beautiful city. . . .They have 325 beds, are forced to turn away people all the time. Short of money, help and equipment. Very, very interesting!”

Children at the McCord Hospital for Natives, Durban, South Africa, December 1946. © Charles Lord

That evening, Lord went with one of his Quaker contacts to a meeting of the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives to hear Mr. Barrett, the Chief Magistrate of Durban, speak. “His talk was interesting,” Lord said, “but the discussion afterwards was much much more fascinating. Intelligent natives really put Barrett on the spot. He was obviously on the defensive all the time. After the meeting ended, several cattlemen talked with 3 or 4 of the Negroes for about half an hour, and learned an awful lot.”

The next day, Lord and some other cowboys spent time with Lord’s other Quaker contact. “Maurice told us the origin and nature of the Indian problem in S. Africa,” Lord said, “the background of the present Passive Resistance movement. We all found it fascinating.

“When we first arrived I wondered why everything is marked European or non-European, why they divided it that way. I can understand now. That is the easiest way to separate the white from all the other groups when you have four distinct castes. They are:
–White European – about 25% of the Union of SA maybe
–Indian – 20% or less of Natal [the province where Durban is located] (not the Union)
–Native – 50 to 75% in both Natal and the whole Union
–Colored – small % of mulattos
The Indian men tend to be intelligent, good businessmen, but women uneducated. Many of the men own shops, make lots of money, which is probably one of the reasons for white hatred of them – economic.”

The next afternoon, cameras in tow, Lord set out on his own to explore the Indian quarter. He fortunately was taken under the wings of a couple of honest young Indian men who took him around. “Without them I would have been sunk,” Lord said, “might even have been in real danger.” The men took him through the Indian and native barracks, separated by a wire fence and built and owned by the city of Durban for city employees. “Some of them are very bad,” Lord said, “but many are quite nice. The native barracks were significantly better constructed and planned than the Indian ones.”

Native barracks, Durban, South Africa, December 1946. © Charles Lord

Barracks in the Indian quarter, Durban, South Africa, December 1946. © Charles Lord.

Lord’s “good-will ambassadors” took him into Indian homes, to a Hindu temple, and into an off-the-beaten-path basement pool hall, all the while explaining to Lord Indian customs and grievances. When back uptown, reminiscent of his experience in Virginia, Lord noted, “We couldn’t go in a restaurant to eat together. I bought a sack of candy and shared it with them.”

Another full day followed, with a regular bus tour for the cowboys into Zululand and the Valley of a Thousand Hills, a place where they could not have gone on their own. “You have to have a pass to enter the territory,” Lord said.

Cooke’s Tour Bus in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, South Africa, December 17, 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

“We saw lots of wonderful photographic material but breezed right past most of it. We did stop at one native village, fairly typical I guess, except for commercialization.”

Zula huts in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, South Africa, December 17, 1946. The white-walled hut is the Chief’s. © Charles Lord.

A tall Zulu lad, December 17, 1946, Valley of a Thousand Hills, South Africa. © Charles Lord.

Lord’s stop in Durban was rounded out by viewing movies taken by a friend of one of his Quaker contacts showing “extraordinary” footage of Indian yearly festival customs, native war dances, and native religious ceremonies, capped off with “quite a discussion on politics” with a young Afrikaner of Dutch descent who was there.

Lord’s eight days in Durban had indeed provided a truly “educational and broadening experience”.

~ to be continued

Once again, my deep appreciation to Charlie Lord for granting me permission to share his photos and accounts from his letters.

Oceans of Possibilities: Turning Swords into Plowshares

If you missed my program for the Indian Valley Public Library last week and would like to see it, you can tune in to the 56-minute recording here. I talk about the ways in which the seagoing cowboys and the Heifer Project contributed to building peace after World War II. Enjoy!

~Peggy

The Seagoing Cowboys and the Bruderhof

For some reason, the photos intended for this post were omitted this morning, so I am resending it with the images included.

At this time of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the wonderful people my husband and I met or reconnected with this month on my 12-day speaking tour out east. I also give thanks for the work of sharing the seagoing cowboy stories that has, by providence, been placed in my hands. My tour took us to the Hagerstown, MD, and Elizabethtown, PA, Churches of the Brethren; the Living Branches Mennonite retirement community in Souderton, PA; and four Bruderhof communities in New York and Pennsylvania. I was able to tell specific stories of their own related cowboys at each place – always a joy. And particularly this time at the Bruderhofs.

The Bruderhof is a 100-year-old intentional Christian community with over 25 settlements on five continents. The members practice radical discipleship in the spirit of the first church in Jerusalem. After they came to the United States in the 1950s, a number of young Church of the Brethren families joined the movement, and today there are more than 600 descendants of the Church of the Brethren throughout the Bruderhof. Having grown up and been active in the Church of the Brethren, it was great fun for me when I first visited the Maple Ridge community in New York in 2016 to discover the many connections I had with Bruderhof members.

Heifer Project started in the Church of the Brethren in 1942; and when World War II ended in Europe in May of 1945, the Brethren Service Committee became the recruiting agency for the livestock tenders, dubbed “seagoing cowboys,” which the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration would need for their shipments of animals to Europe. I learned in 2016 that some of the Brethren families who joined the Bruderhof had been active in raising animals for the Heifer Project in those early years, that some of their relatives had served as seagoing cowboys, and that some of their young adults had recently spent a year volunteering at the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas.

Bruderhof member Kathy Fike Mow & her sister Elsie in the right of this photo join other children in presenting money they had raised for a heifer to farmer Paul Rhodes in Astoria, IL, in 1944. Photo courtesy of Kathy Fike Mow.

So on this year’s trip, I went with stories in hand of Bruderhof relatives’ involvements in the Heifer Project and as seagoing cowboys to share with the four communities we visited. Being able to share a piece of their ancestral history at their high school and three of their elementary schools was the highlight of my trip.

Presenting the Heifer Project and seagoing cowboy story to 9th graders at Bruderhof’s The Mount Academy. The high school is located in an amazing former monastery. Photo credit: Rex Miller.

After basking for six days in the love and hospitality offered to us in the Bruderhof settlements we visited, and being inspired by their model of radical discipleship, my husband and I came away with hearts full of gratitude and refreshed for our journey home and the responsibilities that awaited us there.

With my husband Rex on the Hudson River at The Mount Academy, November 10, 2021.

May the Spirit of Thanksgiving embrace you as well.

The three Brethren mavericks behind the Heifer Project and the Seagoing Cowboys

In 1945, the Brethren Service Committee of the Church of the Brethren (BSC) and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) came together to create the seagoing cowboy program. Three Brethren mavericks made it happen.

Dan West (1893-1971) – The Visionary

Dan West. Photo credit: Kermon Thomasson

Drafted into the Army as a conscientious objector in May of 1918, Dan West came out of World War I with the lifelong goal of doing as much for peace as a soldier does for war. Two decades later, in his position as Peace Representative for the Church of the Brethren, he was sent to Spain at the invitation of the Quakers to provide relief to those suffering from the Spanish Civil War. Observing children dying from a shortage of powdered milk, he thought of his own little girl at home. “This idea struck me hard,” he said. “Suppose we were unable to provide plenty of food for her right now. I was suddenly determined to do something for these children.” That “something” was his idea of sending cows to Spain so the people would be able to feed themselves.

West promoted this idea relentlessly after coming home in early 1938. Finally, in 1942, the Church of the Brethren District Men’s Work of Northern Indiana took hold of the vision and set up a committee to make it happen. Shortly after that the Brethren Service Committee adopted it as a national program which they chartered in January 1943 as “The Heifer Project.” West served as secretary of HPC for many years, continuing to provide his vision for the evolving organization.

M. R. Zigler (1891-1985) – The Promoter

M. R. Zigler in his Geneva, Switzerland, office, circa 1951. From the Guest book of Gerry and Bernice Pence.

A contemporary of Dan West, M. R. Zigler shared West’s passion for peace. Brethren historian Donald Durnbaugh referred to Zigler as “the soul of the Brethren Service story.” Zigler started his service to the denomination in 1919 and in 1934 was named to head up the Board of Christian Education which was in charge of the church’s responsibilities for peace concerns. Both West and Zigler worked tirelessly together on peace issues as rumblings of war grew stronger and stronger in the 1930s. They pushed for the creation of a Brethren Service Committee to be ready for postwar relief. Started in 1939, BSC became a chartered board of the denomination in 1941 with Zigler as its Executive Secretary. His bold and loving personality inspired and influenced people to give of themselves and their resources, and he became a great promoter of the Heifer Project. As such, he convinced UNRRA, which had not been planning to include livestock in their relief shipments, to ship the Heifer Project cattle. A trial shipment of purebred bulls to Greece was set up, introducing Maverick #3 to the picture.

Benjamin G. Bushong (1898-1965) – The Tireless Administrator

Benjamin G. Bushong. Photo courtesy of Mark Bushong.

A longtime friend of West, Pennsylvania dairy farmer and Guernsey breeder Benjamin Bushong was called upon to find the bulls. With the success of that shipment, UNRRA decided to include live animals in their agricultural rehabilitation shipments. They called on Zigler for help in finding the men to tend their animals on board for a few shipments. Zigler, in turn, put out the word for livestock attendants and drafted Bushong at the June 3, 1945, HPC meeting to go to Washington to oversee the process. Before long, BSC had signed an agreement with UNRRA to provide the estimated 8,000 livestock attendants UNRRA would need for their planned shipments of 200,000 animals. The “seagoing cowboy” program was born, with Bushong, the tireless red-tape cutter and organizer, at the helm. After serving on a volunteer basis for a number of months, he became Heifer Project’s first full-time salaried Executive Secretary in January 1946.

In his biography of M. R. Zigler, Pragmatic Prophet, Don Durnbaugh states,

“No doubt it took the qualities of all three leaders to make the Heifer Project what it became—the visionary Dan West, the promoter M. R. Zigler, and the tireless administrator Ben Bushong. Added to their talents, of course, were the contributions of countless thousands of donors, seagoing attendants, fund raisers, and the rest.”