Mennonites of Southern Illinois Author Presentation

June 7th – 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Registration Required. This program is in person.

Local author Jane Flynn will be at the library discussing her photographic journal Mennonites of Southern Illinois.

Offering a glimpse into a world largely misunderstood by mainstream society, this book documents the period of eight years that Jane Flynn practiced with Mennonites in two different Southern Illinois communities: Stonefort, and Mount Pleasant in Anna. Despite her status as an outsider, Flynn was welcomed and allowed to photograph the Mennonites in their homes, making applesauce, farming, and beekeeping.

Escaping persecution from the Catholic Church in Europe, the Mennonites arrived in America in 1683, settling in what is now Pennsylvania. Today, they live in almost all 50 states, Canada, and South America. To reflect the Mennonites’ manual-labor lifestyle, Flynn processed her black-and-white photographs by hand and hand-printed them in a dark room. The imagery explores the Mennonites’ labors, leisure, and faith by documenting their homes, places of work and worship, and the Illinois Ozark landscape they inhabit.