Like most family stories, the one told to explain why my Mennonite grandparents chose to switch churches in the 1950s has a few variations. As one version goes, the pastor of Byerland Church, where many of our relatives were active members (and where several generations are buried), asked that my grandmother reconsider the length of the strings on her covering. They were a little too short for the pastor's modesty. She declined; my grandparents found a new congregation, Willow Street Mennonite Church.
The second version of the story involves my grandfather who, they say, was inclined to purchase health insurance for his young family, a violation of Byerland's ordinances. While health insurance was popularized in the 1950s (see here for more on the history of health insurance in the US) Mennonites traditionally did not participate in the growing program. Many Anabaptists—a category of Christians that includes both the Amish and Mennonites—have, because of their history of persecution in Switzerland and subsequent countries after the Reformation, refrained from participating in corporate, legal, and government practices or institutions such as: health insurance, lawsuits, military conscription, or public schools. Even today, very few Amish vote.
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