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Vogt’s legacy of history and words


Mennonite Brethren author Esther Loewen Vogt made good use of her gift for storytelling right up until her death in December 1999 at age 84.

“A fire burned inside Esther,” said Don Ratzlaff, former editor of The Christian Leader, “a fire for writing and for telling stories.”

From 1956 to 1980, each issue of the Leader carried one of Vogt’s children’s stories. In 36 years of writing “The Junior Leader” column, Vogt never once repeated a story.

Vogt’s first book was accepted for publication when she was 50. At the time of her death, two dozen more had reached print, making her the most prolific MB fiction writer.

“If you’ve written one book, it’s like salted peanuts”, she said in 1995. “You have to have another.”

The majority of her books are juvenile fiction. Most are set in historical Kansas, many contain romance and all feature Christian main characters.

Among her most popular works is a trilogy of children’s novels (published by Kindred Productions) about Mennonites settling in Marion County, Kan., during the 1870s: Turkey Red won the David C. Cook Juvenile Book Contest in 1975, and the sequels, Harvest Gold and Purple Prairie, are good sources of Kansas history.

Her book Splendid Vista (Herald Press), the story of the pacifist German Baptist Brethren during the American Civil War, won the 1990 Silver Angel Award for Religion in Media.

The Enchanted Prairie (Horizon House) won the J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award from the Kansas Authors’ Club in 1992.

“Writing is my call,” Vogt said, “Entertainment with a message. The Lord has given me this gift, and I want to use it for Him.”

 – The Christian Leader, Hillsboro Free Press

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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