Remember When April 2011

EPLEY, HARTZLER, SCHWEITZER

Posted By: Mistina Christner (email)
Date: 8/1/2018 at 12:05:36

Source: From Lloyd Epley

The year must have been the Fall of 1958. Herb Hartzler announced at church that he had been hunting in Colorado and had succeeded in getting an elk and that at the next family night he would furnish the meat. In addition, his brother who had been to Africa would show pictures of his trip. The next Sunday there was a good group of people crowded into that little basement. The curtains for the children's Sunday School classes were shoved back to the walls to set up tables for all of us to eat.
The food, especially the roast elk, was delicious. When we finished eating, the dishes were hurriedly put back in the baskets and we seated ourselves and looked at the tall, white-haired gentleman standing at the north end of the basement. Herb introduced his brother, J.D. with very few other words to describe him. Herb's brother turned on the projector and there appeared on the screen a picture of an invitation that J.D. had received from a friend of his. It was signed by Albert Schweitzer and was an invitation to Albert Schweitzer's 80th birthday party to be held in Lambarene, French Equatorial Africa. The rest of the evening was occupied with various scenes from Africa, the hospital there, the natives from the surrounding area and pictures of Schweitzer, the Nobel prize winner, famous author and world renowned Bach organist. The last scene on the scree that night was of a hard maple tree in full Autumn color that stood in from of Dr. Hartzler's home in Goshen, Indiana where he served as head of Goshen College for a time and was head of its philosophy department.
As I recall this Sharon Center event of more than fifty years ago, I am still overwhelmed at what took place in a tiny basement of a small county church.