Snyder Community
Hale County, Texas

Mennonite Colony Families

Peter B. (1864-1948) and Ida (Grabill) (1865-1945) Snyder

    Peter and Ida Snyder were my great-grandparents. Married in 1886 at the Cullom Mennonite Church, Livingston County, Illinois, Peter and Ida had five children while they lived in Illinois. In about 1889, Peter was ordained in the Cullom church. The Snyders moved near Alpha, Jackson County, Minnesota, to start a new church in 1894. Ida's sister and brother-in-law, Samuel W. and Elizabeth Grabill Shearer went with them. While living there, Peter and Ida had three more sons. Peter's parents, John R. and Elizabeth Bally Snyder, had moved to Minnesota, too. Peter donated the land on which the Jackson County Mennonite Church No. 1 was built in 1898. The church was later called the Alpha Mennonite Church.

    1900 Federal Census - Wisconsin Township, Jackson County, Minnesota, ED No. 101, Sheet 6B (This page was very difficult for me to read, but I know Paul and Mark were born in Minnesota, not Illinois.)
    Peter - aged 35, born Dec. 1865 in Illinois
    Ida - aged 35, born Sep. 1865 in Illinois
    Maude - 13-year-old daughter, born Nov. 1866 in Illinois
    Orville - 12-year-old son, born Nov 1886 in Illinois
    John - 10-year-old son, born Sep. 1889 in Illinois [married Bertha Kreider, daughter of Jonas M. and Catherine Kreider]
    Susan - 8-year-old daughter, born Aug. 1891 in Illinois
    Joe - 6-year-old son, born July 1893 in Illinois
    Paul - 5-year-old son, born May 1895 in Illinois
    Mark - 2-year-old son, born 1897 in Illinois
    Baby - 11/12-year-old son [Vernon], born June 1899 in Minnesota

    In December 1906, when Peter was preparing to move to Texas, a correspondent from the Alpha church wrote to the Herald of Truth, "We feel sorry to say that our minister, Bro. P. B. Snyder, expects soon to leave us here for other fields. While this makes us sad, yet we know that God will bless his own wheresoever they are.  This will leave us without a minister at this place."¹

    Peter Snyder and his family (wife, Ida Grabill Snyder, their eight children, and Peter's parents, John R. and Elizabeth Bally Snyder) traveled from Alpha, Minnesota, to Plainview, Texas, by rail. Reaching Plainview on February 8, 1907, the Snyders waited a day for the arrival of their "car of emigrant goods."²  Gladys Rastetter Mason quotes Susie Snyder, Peter and Ida's daughter, as remembering that the family divided up, some temporarily housing with the Ben Martin family and some with John Hartzlers.³ 

    According to family stories, when Peter and Ida moved their family to Hale County, they erected two large, wooden-framed tents. One sheltered the animals they had brought with them from Minnesota; the other tent served as the family's home for more than a year while establishing the farm. The photo on the left is from the Grace Snyder Swartzendruber Collection. Grace was Peter and Ida's last child, born in this tent in August 1907, just six months after the family's arrival in Texas. Family tradition says the tent had two stories, although I can't figure out how that worked. Maybe there was a loft area for the children to sleep in. Peter and Ida are seated. The other five people are probably some of their children, but I can't identify them for sure.

     A barn was built before work began on the house, so it wasn't until 1909 that the family moved out of the tent.⁴ One family story says the house was a Sears kit house, but I haven't been able to research that yet. It was large enough to accommodate the extended family over the years, as well as to serve as temporary housing for other families who moved to the colony. In fact, reportedly the top floor was used as a gym and training room for Joe Snyder, the fifth child in the family, who was a competitive boxer. The house photo on the right is also from the Grace Snyder Swartzendruber Collection.

    Peter and Ida's granddaughter Betty, whose adoptive mother was Peter and Ida's daughter Susie, submitted this photo (left) of the Peter B. Snyder family, from the Susie Snyder Hoover Collection. We estimate it was taken about 1913, just before Peter and Ida's son Orville (my grandpa, who married Ellen Hartzler) left Texas in search of work in Ohio. That date would make Grace, the little girl in the front row, about 6 years old. Compare this family portrait with the one of the Joseph Hartzler family and notice the pillar on the right side of the photo. The families may have visited the same photographer! 

    Family members are: front row (left to right) Susie, Peter, Grace, Ida, Maude; second row (left to right) Paul, Orville, Mark, Vernon; back row (left to right) John, Joe.

    It seems to me I've always heard my great-grandpa referred to as Peter B. My grandpa, Orville, and the other eight children were called "the siblings" and their children were known as "the cousins." That seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? As far as I know, my generation (second cousins) has no nickname. 

1910 Federal Census - Justice Precinct 1, Hale County, Texas [same page as Ferdinand Rastetter and Emanuel Hartman]
    Peter - aged 44, born in Illinois, father born in Pennsylvania, mother born in Ohio
    Ida - aged 45, born in Illinois, both parents born in Virginia
    Maud - 23-year-old daughter, born in Illinois, teacher in district school [married Milo Kreider, son of Jonas M. and Kate Kreider]
    Orville - 22-year-old son, born in Illinois [married Lydia Ellen Hartzler, daughter of Joseph K. and Mary Hartzler]
    Susy - 18-year-old daughter, born in Illinois
    Joseph - 16-year-old son, born in Illinois
    Paul - 14-year-old son, born in Minnesota
    Mark -  12-year-old son, born in Minnesota
    Vernon - 10-year-old son, born in Minnesota
    Grace - 2-year-old daughter, born in Texas

    son John (20) and his wife Bertha Kreider (19), daughter of Jonas M. and Kate Kreider, are listed as a separate household in the same dwelling
    Peter's father John R. Snyder (79) and his wife Elizabeth Bally (68) are also listed as a separate household in the same dwelling

1920 Federal Census - Justice Precinct 1, Hale County, Texas
    Peter B. - aged 55, born in Illinois, father born in Pennsylvania, mother born in Ohio
    Ida - aged 54, born in Illinois, both parents born in Virginia
    [illegible] - 28-year-old daughter [Susie], born in Illinois
    Joe R - 26-year-old son, born in Illinois
    Mark G. - 22-year-old son, born in Minnesota
    Vernon S. - 20-year-old son, born in Minnesota
    Grace F. - 12-year-old daughter, born in Texas
    John R. - 88-year-old father, born in Pennsylvania, both parents born in Pennsylvania
    Elizabeth - 78-year-old mother, born in Ohio, father born in Germany, mother born in Germany
    Kreider, Maud M. - 33-year-old widowed daughter, born in Illinois [Maud had married Jonas Kreider's son Milo in 1910, and they had moved to Colorado where Milo worked on the railroad. Unfortunately, he contracted typhoid fever and died less than six months after their marriage, knowing Maud was pregnant. She returned to her father's house in the Snyder Community and Milo was buried in Plainview Cemetery.]
    Kreider, Ruth K. - 8-year-old granddaughter, born in Texas, father born in Ohio, mother born in Illinois [Ruth married Stanley Yoder, son of Jonas D. and Ida Yoder.]

    In 1921, Peter B. and Ida Snyder moved their family and Peter's mother, Elizabeth Bally Snyder, to Hesston, Kansas. Their widowed daughter Maude Kreider and her daughter Ruth went with them. Sons Orville, John, Mark, and Vernon were married and scattered from their natal family. Family stories say that Maude and her sister Susie Snyder bought a house on Hickory Street in Hesston and that is where Peter and Ida lived when their children came for a family reunion in 1925.

     The photo on the left shows Peter and Ida with their nine children at the 1925 Hesston reunion. I purposely left the picture uncropped so it could be compared with the photo of the house as it looked in October 2006 (right).

    To see a photo of Peter's mother Elizabeth Bally Snyder surrounded by her great-grandchildren at this same reunion, go to the John R. Snyder page.

1930 Federal Census - Hesston City, Emma Township, Harvey County, Kansas
    Kreider, Maude M. - 43-year-old widow, born in Illinois, laundress at the college
    Ruth K. - 19-year-old daughter, born in Texas

1930 Federal Census - Washington Township, Gratiot County, Michigan
    Swatzendruber, George - aged 30, born in Iowa
        --, Grace - aged 22, born in Texas [Grace was Peter B. and Ida's youngest child, born in the Snyder Community in 1907, while the family was living in a tent]
        --, Gene - 2-9/12-year-old son, born in Kansas
        --, Wayne - 1-3/12-year-old son, born in Kansas
    Snyder, Peter B. - 65-year-old father
        ---, Ida - 64-year-old mother

    By 1930, while Maude was still in Hesston, Peter and Ida had moved to Michigan and lived with their daughter Grace and her family. The portrait at right was probably taken on the occasion of the couple's fiftieth wedding anniversary.

    After Ida's death in 1945, at the age of 80, Peter lived with his son Vernon's family. In 1948, eighty-three-year-old Peter B. Snyder passed away. Peter and Ida are buried at the Washington Township Cemetery, near Ashley, Michigan.

Peter's obituary - Gospel Herald - Volume XLI, Number 28 - July 13, 1948, page 655

Ida's obituary - Gospel Herald - Vol. XXXVIII, No . 40 - January 4, 1946 ­ pages 766 or 767 

Footnotes

1. Cor(respondent), "Alpha, Minn., Dec. 4, 1906," Herald of Truth Vol. XLIII (Dec. 13, 1906): 476.

2. Peter B. Snyder, "Plainview, Texas, March 5, 1907," Herald of Truth Vol. XLIV (March 14, 1907): 104.

3. Gladys Rastetter Mason, "The Founding of the Snyder Mennonite Colony," Hale County History Volume VII (February 1977): 9

4. Maribeth Troyer, The Life of Grace Swartzendruber (Hesston College: By the Author, 1989), p. 4.

Site Map

 copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Bonnie Snyder Smith