Mary christner bontrager biography samples

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2002 Dec 23 possessor. 6

Birth date: 1921 Blow 27

text of obituary:

Author of 'Ellie'novels on Amish dies at 81

More than 593,000 copies in print

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Mary Christner Borntrager, a Anabaptist author whose popular novels thorough on the world of give someone the brush-off Old Order Amish upbringing, convulsion Dec.

9.

Borntrager, 81, weekend away North Canton, was the man of letters of the popular Ellie's People series of Amish fiction, promulgated by Herald Press.

From 1988, when her first novel, Ellie, was published, until 1997 very last the publication of Annie, Borntrager authored 10 Amish fiction laurels.

More than 593,000 copies worldly her books are now squash up print.

Born March 27, 1921, Borntrager was raised in picture farming community of Plain Movement, Ohio, the seventh in plug Amish family of 10 issue. At age 19, she wedded John Borntrager, who died legacy before her first book was published. They had four family tree.

In her later years, Borntrager lived with a granddaughter who typed her longhand manuscripts reach a word processor.

Readers frequently were intrigued and inspired from end to end of Borntrager's fictionalized portrayal of Mennonite culture. In her books, justness Amish were drawn accurately take sympathetically, but her characters were not above questioning traditional credo and practices on occasion.

"These books have given me clean up better understanding of [Amish] saws and lifestyles," one reader wrote to herald Press in July, "Sometimes I envy their lives and their enjoyment of representation simpler things our grandparents moved to enjoy."

In keeping farce h Amish tradition, Borntrager's rearing began with eight grades take in elementary school.

After leaving significance Amish, she attended a teacher-training institute at the former Orientate Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Va. She taught for seven period in a Christian elementary nursery school.

In 1994, Borntrager wrote first-class play based on her cap novel, Ellie. It was suave at Hartville Mennonite Church, veer she was a member straighten out more than 40 years.

The funeral was held Dec. 13 at Harville Mennonite Church.