This narrative history is organized around the heritage, experiences, and legacy of a Mennonite couple—Mart and Mattie (Martin) Zimmerman—whose lives spanned the tumultuous era of Lancaster County history played out between the Civil War and the Great Depression. The Zimmermans' married life and the lives of their six children were shaped by dramatic events. Looming particularly large over Mart and Mattie's marriage was "the pulpit affair," an episode launched by a clandestine act in a new Mennonite meetinghouse in the fall of 1889 for which Mart was mistakenly blamed. The "pulpit affair" mushroomed into a principal factor in the far-reaching division between conservative and progressive members of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference in 1893. For Mart and Mattie Zimmerman's family, the fallout included Mart's expulsion from the Mennonite fellowship, nearly two decades of undeserved suspicion, an unsettled home life, and the Zimmerman children's adult affiliations with five different religious denominations. (208pp. color illus. David Hollinger, 2009.)