Mennonite Family Turns Heads With Roadside Display Venture Features Dutch Country Woodworking

A family of church-planting Mennonites has given Chewelah a new landmark.

In addition to the blight of an abandoned magnesium-recycling plant, people who pass through town on U.S. Highway 395 now notice something that might pass for a turn-of-the-century theme park.

Dan and Ruth Hertzler and their 21-year-old son, David, have created a village of intricate wooden gazebos, playground toys, lawn furniture and storage buildings called Dutch Country Creations.

The Hertzlers are Mennonites who have an exclusive franchise for hand-done woodwork by Amish and Mennonite craftsmen in Ohio.

Their distributor is a man who spends a lot of time driving around Ohio to find products. He can’t call his suppliers because most of them don’t have telephones.

Displays such as the Hertzlers’ are common in what is known as Pennsylvania Dutch country in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

“Isn’t that something?”

Chewelah Mayor Gloria Davidson exclaimed. “It’s different from anything that we’ve had around here.”

In her other job, as a receptionist for the Chewelah Chamber of Commerce, Davidson said she’s had several calls from Canadians who saw the Hertzlers’ display on their way to Spokane.

So she investigated and found “the cutest little wheelbarrow.” Handmade quilts from Lancaster County, Pa., and other home-decorating crafts also appealed to Davidson.

From the highway, one of the most eye-catching items is a big wooden boat with a slippery slide. The playground climbing toy has reminded more than a few people of Noah’s Ark.

When downtown Chewelah flooded earlier this month, people joked about whether the new business operators “know something that the rest of us don’t know.”

One of those who noticed the boat was Tim Goble, pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Colville.

“We want our community and our congregation to realize in every possible way that children are important to us,” Goble said, and the boat was an inspiration.

Children who are inevitably bored while their parents socialize before and after church could amuse themselves on “Noah’s Ark.” Not trusting adult judgment, though, the church sent several families with children to Dutch Country Creations.

“We kind of gave it the kid test first,” Goble said. “Each family we sent, the kids gravitated right toward this first.”

So Dan and David Hertzler were busy Monday installing an ark next to the church. All of their products come in kits, but the Hertzlers provide free installation within 25 miles for the large items.

“It’s well built and it looks good - and they don’t leave it to you to botch,” Goble said appreciatively as the Hertzlers finished the ark and headed north to install a “Watchtower” playset for a family.

About the only thing that distinguished the Hertzler men from any other construction crew was the lack of profanity, or even a display of anger, when something went wrong. Unlike their Amish co-religionists, they use power tools, drive a pickup and even have a cellular telephone.

The Amish, Mennonite, Hutterite and Holderman faiths have common roots, but observe different practices. While the Amish shun modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones and automobiles, most Mennonites don’t.

But they dress plainly and live simply. Back at the store, Ruth Hertzler wore a long, solid-colored dress and a small white cap - called a headship veiling - as she explained how a gazebo gets its durability from double-pressure-treated, kiln-dried southern yellow pine.

The Hertzlers belong to the Western Fellowship of Mennonites, one of the more conservative strains. In many ways, Mennonite theology is similar to Baptist doctrine: salvation by faith, baptism limited to believers, the Bible the only authority. But Mennonites are pacifists and won’t participate even indirectly in wars.

Dan and Ruth Hertzler, who are in their late 40s, are missionaries of a sort. They and four of their six children moved here last July at the request of the Tangent Mennonite Church in Tangent, Ore. Tangent is a small farm town about halfway between Salem and Eugene in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

The Tangent church had grown to about 40 families, and asked several of them to move here to support the Colville Valley Mennonite Church, which was just a few families meeting in homes.

Thanks to the influx from Tangent, the Chewelah group now has seven families and meets in a Grange hall. They’ve renamed themselves the Pine Grove Mennonite Church, after a pine grove near Jump Off Joe Lake, nine miles south of Chewelah, where they plan to erect a church within a year.

Although the Hertzlers brought four of their six children, who range in age from 11 to 26, they left two married children and their grandchildren behind.

“I love children,” Ruth Hertzler said. “We have six, and I wish we’d had 10. It’s my one regret in life.”

So it was difficult to leave Tangent, she said.

“We just felt like, if the Lord wants us here, he’ll open the doors, and it seems like the doors swung wide open,” Hertzler said. “A farm came up here for the price we could afford, and we got a good operator for our chicken farm in Oregon. Plus, all of our children were supportive.”

Two other families came with the Hertzlers, and another is planning to come soon. As a group, they constitute an economic-development boom for Chewelah.

Jeff and Carolyn Schrock opened North Country Furniture, specializing in indoor furniture, while Tim and Joyce Eveleth started a garage-door service called All Season Door. The next family to come may open a bulk-food store, Ruth Hertzler said.

“They’re just the nicest people you’ve ever met,” Mayor Davidson said. “They’re a fine addition to any community.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo