The Anna B. Yoder Scholarship for International Music Students

Anna Barbara Cross Yoder was born into an Amish family near Middlebury, Indiana and lived all but seven years of her life in Elkhart County.  As a young Amish girl she learned to sing German hymns, and later as a young woman she learned to sing the more modern hymns used in the Conservative Conference Mennonite Churches she and her family attended.

Music was the background to Anna’s life.  She loved special music in the church and on holidays, but also carried it with her wherever she went.  Whether cooking or working in the garden or tending to her grandchildren, she could always be heard humming or singing her favorite hymns.  Her husband who survives her, Irvin C. Yoder, shared her love of music and enjoyed organizing special music in the church.

Although Anna was never given the opportunity to go to high school or to receive formal music training, she loved and valued music and encouraged her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to sing as well as to play musical instruments.  Since moving to Goshen in 1974 she benefitted from the availability of concerts at Goshen College, where two of her seven children attended.

While serving with Irvin for seven years in a small mission church in Michigan, Anna led congregational hymn singing, although she preferred to sing from the church pews.  During that period they purchased a small upright piano for her children to learn to play, and her grandchildren practice on it to this day.  In her later years she enjoyed grandchildren playing the piano for her when they stopped by the house on their way home from school.

On Sunday mornings Anna would attend College Mennonite Church early to sing and listen to hymns.  This life of devotion expressed through music continued until her last days on earth and she would be overjoyed to know that students at Goshen College will be able to study and perform music through a scholarship in her name.