With help from Prairie Street Mennonite Church archivist and historian John Bender, on August 6, Junia Epp Stutzman, age 6, cut the cord to unveil the new John and Salome Funk historical marker in front of the church in Elkhart, Indiana. She then stood back to admire the results.

The full text of the new marker reads,

“JOHN F. FUNK (1835–1930)  Elkhart became a major center for the Mennonite church after John and Salome Funk moved here from Chicago in 1867. He was founding pastor of Prairie Street Mennonite Church at this location in 1871. His Mennonite Publishing Company connected Mennonites in North America and exercised wide influence through its books, periodicals and Sunday school materials. In the 1870s he gave crucial assistance to 18,000 Russian Mennonite immigrants who settled on the Great Plains. Funk and people he recruited established key Mennonite institutions, including forerunners of Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Mission Network, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Goshen College (originally the Elkhart Institute on Prairie Street).”

Prairie Street Mennonite Church, Michiana Anabaptist Historians, Mennonite Historical Society, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, and Goshen (Indiana) College partnered to fund the marker. The unveiling on Sunday, August 6, was part of the annual Prairie Street Mennonite Church celebration of the contribution of the Funks, who founded the congregation at its present location in 1871.

Also pictured: Members of the Michiana Anabaptist Historians group, Ruby Bontrager and Ellis Bontrager. Photos by J. Nelson Kraybill.