Mary Was Baptized

May 25, 1931  It is Pentecost.  Had baptism.  Our Maria was also baptized by Jacob F. Isaac.  We were at Jacob F. Isaacs for dinner and faspa.

Mennonite baptism was usually done at Pentecost because that celebrated when the first followers of Jesus had received the Holy Spirit.  In this case they were baptized on Pentecost Monday because it was a two-day holiday for the KG.  You can sense Cornelius’ joy as he reports that “our Maria” was baptized.  It was the first time for the Siemens that one of their children was baptized.  The young people were baptized in a pond, so the water was not exactly clean – it was only in 1948, the year that Anna was baptized, that they switched to baptizing in a stock tank that had been filled with clean water.  Elder Jacob F. Isaac invited the Siemens over for dinner in honor of the event.

CORRECTION:  Mary would have been baptized by sprinkling or pouring, not by immersion in a pond.  The Kleine Gemeinde baptized by sprinkling or pouring, as virtually all Mennonites had done historically.  It was only after 1943, when most of the KG members left the congregation and formed the independent Emmanuel Mennonite Church that they started to baptize by immersion in a pond and then later in a tank under the influence of their first pastor,  Henry R. Harms, the retired Evangelical Mennonite Brethren pastor in Meade.

Record of Mary's baptism in the Meade KG church book kept by Elder Jacob F. Isaac.