Form and Function in the Lives of German-Americans in Shelby County
The colony of Bethel was a settlement of German-Americans in northeast Missouri in the mid-nineteenth century. It was a community of followers of one William Keil, a Prussian man with much charisma. The colony called themselves Christians and followed the model of the early Christian church from the book of Acts. More specifically, they followed the passage in Acts 2 which says that “All the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.” Keil and his followers interpreted this scripture as a call for a communist Christian society, and, surprisingly, the community was rather successful. This is the Bethel Colony.
When the colonists arrived from Pennsylvania and Ohio in the east, they bought up 2500 acres of land to be held in common. On this land, they built their new home, using resources they gathered from the land itself. They farmed the land and grew their own food, not relying on any imports. They made their own bricks with which to construct their houses.
Located five miles north of Shelbyville in Missouri, the settlement of Bethel was not very large. At its peak it only housed 650 people, and there were only seven roads. Three of these streets ran north-south, including main street, and the other four ran east-west. About a mile east of the rest of the town, Dr. Keil built his own three-story house and named it Elim.
The name ‘Bethel’ can be translated to mean ‘House of God’. It makes sense that their way of life was centered around the teachings of the Bible. Naturally, they built a church where they settled. While they did not ascribe to any specific denominational teachings, they did follow the Golden Rule [Luke 6:31] and the “Diamond Rule” [Romans 12:10]. Under these teachings and the leadership of Dr. Keil, there was very little quarrel in the community.
The Bethel Community is often described by the phrase, “They first built a church, then a place to do business.” And while they were a religious people, they also certainly were a place to do business. Production in Bethel was a community effort. They worked together in their factories to make products and on the farmland to grow staple food. This was kept in a common storehouse from which anybody could take anything they needed. Bethel was indeed so prosperous in its creating these goods that they took excess to nearby towns to sell at markets.
Not all of the activity in the colony was communal. While men worked together in the aforementioned activities, women’s jobs and the family life were practiced separately. It was each family’s job to grow their own gardens for more differentiated produce and to make their own meals. Wives were expected to keep the home and make clothes for themselves and their children, while men’s clothes were produced on a larger scale.
Of course, not everyone was married in the colony. Children lived with their parents, but what of the young adult men and women who were not yet married but were no longer children? These women often lived with other families like an au pair, aiding the mother with housework and with raising her multiple children. The men lived in a communal men’s house called the Grosse Haus which was located near the center of the community and functioned similar to a youth hostel or fraternity-type house.
In this community, the people of Bethel thrived for over thirty-five years, until they eventually fell apart following the death of Dr. Keil. One wouldn’t have thought on the surface that a society could survive so peacefully under such a structure, but the Bethel Community is a testament that we shouldn’t make such assumptions at face value.
