Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

It was in a sermon that I first heard that children 'put their feet under their parent's table'. In essence, I guess that means the carefree, innocent time of eating at a table in which you did not provide the food or cook it.

I remember the years I put my feet under the table at home to share three meals a day with my parents and nine siblings. Although we weren't a perfect family and siblings spats may have erupted among us, mealtime was much more than sharing food that our mother had cooked. It was like a foundation to our home.

Since I was the oldest, I was the first helper at my mother's...