Education and Ethnicity: The Relationship between Russian Mennonites and School District Formation in Buhler and Goessel, Kansas

TAMMY PARKER

IN 1874, 786 MEMBERS of the Russian Mennonite community of Alexanderwohl emigrated from the Molotschna colony of New Russia to the plains of central Kansas. Once in Kansas they created two communities less than thirty miles apart, within the arc of land between the Cottonwood and Little Arkansas Rivers that would, in the following decade, become home to most of the Mennonite immigrants to Kansas. These communities were based around the two sister churches that they established soon after their arrival, namely the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church and the Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church. Two towns were later formed by members of their respective communities: Goessel (near Alexanderwohl) and Buhler (near Hoffnungsau). In the one and a quarter centuries since their arrival in Kansas, Russian Mennonites in Goessel and Buhler have adapted and adopted elements of American culture in their efforts to create a community that enables them to sustain their ethnic heritage. This study examines that process of adaptation and adoption as it has involved formal education and Russian Mennonite ethnicity in Buhler and Goessel.