In 2017, Merry Lea reached its 50-year anniversary. Read our history review in the Merry Leaflet. Also watch for throwback photos and memories on Facebook over the next year.
by Laura (Yoder) Moshier
“Some say the world will end in fire, some say ice,” according to Robert Frost’s poem, but my world began with both.
As a young girl, I explored the magical wonderland of Merry Lea. During winter, the meadows were transformed into fields of snowflake diamonds under the moonlit skies. I remember hosting guests for evening and weekend cross -country skiing. There was always a warm buzz under the rustic wood beams of the Kesling barn as my family helped outfit visitors with skis and boots.
When the ice melted into warm summer nights, I remember standing on the marshy banks of Bear Lake near the Reith Cottage, where I watched apprehensively as my father, Larry, in his brown rubber boots, waded into the dark waters with my mom’s empty pickle jar. He’d fill the jar with water and turn it over. He stirred the mucky bottom as an eager Goshen College student directed the flashlight. As I peeked through the crowd of students, I could see bubbles of mysterious gas rising to the water’s surface. My father methodically gathered the gas in his jar. Rays from the flashlight spotlighted the jar that now looked empty again. The flashlight went off and my Dad would quickly open the jar and set it ablaze. Flaming methane illuminated our faces as we gasped in amazement. How could gas come from the water?
This enchanted world from my childhood was Merry Lea. What I learned from my family’s weekends at Merry Lea is that nature maintains a mysterious balance that must not be destroyed, but viewed with child-like wonder and amazement.
Laura (Yoder) Moshier spent many weekends at Merry Lea as a child because her father, Dr. Larry Yoder, was employed at Merry Lea from 1981 through 2007.
