Donald Milton Schwentker was a birthright Friend, the son of long-time members U. L. “Gus” and Annabelle Schwentker. Don was born in Cincinnati on October 9, 1934, and was received into membership at Cincinnati Friends Meeting just five days later. He passed away on November 10, 2023, at 89 years
Sabrina Darnowsky
CFM Roots: The Civil War
During periods of conflict in England, the Quaker leader George Fox affirmed that he was “sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and…to bring [people] from the occasion of war and fighting to the peaceable gospel.” This commitment to non-violence has been one of the most enduring
CFM Roots: Slavery and Abolition
During the nineteenth century, it was impossible for Cincinnati Friends to avoid being drawn into the most contentious debate in the history of our nation: the clash over slavery. Quakers were universally opposed to slavery by the mid-nineteenth century, but it had been a position arrived at gradually. When visiting
Examining the Life of Levi Coffin
While being interviewed recently for a documentary on Agents of the Underground Railroad, I was asked about the relationship between the abolitionist Levi Coffin and the other members of Cincinnati Friends Meeting. And the answer was . . . it’s complicated. By the nineteenth century, all yearly meetings in North
CFM Roots: Property Added and Divided
After sharing the same Fifth Street lot with the Hicksites since the late 1820s, the Orthodox members of Cincinnati Friends Meeting eventually decided that they needed more land. Nicholas Longworth, who originally owned the property purchased by the meeting in 1813, also owned two lots to the west of it—about