By ROWENA PLETT

Staff writer

Up in the northeast corner of Marion County in Logan Township is a cemetery that is the final resting place for members of Central Heights Mennonite Church.

It is known as Peace Valley Cemetery.

The church was organized 120 years ago as North Lehigh Mennonite Church. Its 33 charter members were farmers who moved from a settlement north of Moundridge.

In 1902, they changed the church’s name to Friedenstal, the community in Russia from which they emigrated. The name means “peace valley.”

Members met in schoolhouses until 1907, when they built a church on the northeast corner of present-day 340th and Chisholm Trail Rds. The building was remodeled in 1944.

Membership peaked at 117 in 1960.

In 1971, the congregation bought the former Grand Central brick school at 330th and Chisholm Rd. and made it their sanctuary. It was served by ministers or restired pastors from other churches. The final service was May 30, 2004.

The original building has been torn down, but the cemetery is one mile south and 1/2 mile west, on the north side of 330th Rd.