Did your summer include a bicycle trip? In 1891, 19-year-old Fred Coffman, far left, his brother William, and their friends Abram and Aaron Kolb biked more than 700 kilometres from Elkhart, Ind., to Niagara Falls, Ont. Fred would become Bishop S.F. Coffman, an influential Ontario Mennonite leader. Abram would become a publisher of Mennonite periodicals, choir director and hymnwriter. Aaron helped found the Elkhart Institute (later Goshen College) and, like his brother, was a choir director and hymnwriter. This photograph captures these future venerable churchmen in their youth, ready for adventure.
For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database (MAID), see https://archives.mhsc.ca/
Photo: Almeda Kolb / Mennonite Archives of Ontario
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