#hutterite

One of my best friends in college (and now) was a Bruderhof/Hutterish girl in my department. We went to a Catholic university, and we bonded over being outsiders-- Christians, but a kind of Christian others find weird; Christians, but not the majority. We met-met and became instant friends on the last day of our Junior year after being in a lot of the same classes, but never really talking. Our senior year, we connected again and were in a ton of the same classes, for one of which we spent a lot of time studying/reading together.

Anabaptist life and intentional community reminded me of Orthodox monasticism, and because the Hutterites are Slavic, we had a lot in common, culturally. I admire her so much. I stay with her at her community sometimes, and sometimes she'll go to a monastery with me.

2020: Students from the Danthonia academy attend an outdoor class on regenerative agriculture, NSW, Australia.

Kinda? Both are anabaptist offshoots that came about during the Reformation and as anabaptists, they try to distinguish themselves from the general population. Mennonites are probably the most mainstream of those kinds of groups, with Amish being the most conservative, and then Hutterites falling somewhere in between.

South Dakota has an extensive military history with at least a dozen forts being established in the territory throughout the 1800’s. The fortifications were built mainly along the Missouri River where riverboat traffic was used extensively to move cavalry troops into the region known as Dakota Territory. The first fort, Fort Pierre, evolved from a fur trading post and last just two years. Most other fortifications we also short-lived, their necessity disappearing as settlement spread westward across the Plains. 

Fort Meade, named for Civil War General George Meade, was the last military outpost with an active horse cavalry. Today Fort Meade is the location of one of South Dakota’s Veterans Administration Hospitals, and boasts one of the finest military museums in the country. Read more about forts in South Dakota here.