Preface to Begin by Loving Again: My Safari from Farm Girl to Missionary Doctor to Wife and Mother, by Dorcas L. Stoltzfus Morrow, M.D.

By Anna Mary Stoltzfus Groff

My sister Dorcas Stoltzfus started writing her autobiography in the fall of 1948 when she was a high school student at Lancaster Mennonite School. On the cover she wrote "The Story of My Life" and drew a cradle, a building marked with "L.M.S.," and a person walking on a path toward L.M.S. The booklet has twenty pages. Six of these are photos and the rest are typed text. This project was a school assignment, and she did a lot of digging to find information about our ancestors. After three pages of this information, she wrote about our parents, her childhood, her school days, her favorite things, and her ambitions (which were "somewhat akin to that of a new automobile just rolling off the assembly line, if it had the ability to think; it would probably be wondering who would be its owner and where it would [be] privileged to go to"). In conclusion she wrote, "I have been impressed for some time with the need for workers in God's harvest field and if God ever leads my life that way I want to follow Him all the way, wherever He may lead me."

Dorcas graduated from L.M.S. in 1951; from Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1956; and from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1960. She worked a variety of jobs in the summers and over Christmas holidays to help pay her tuition. During a year of internship at Chester County Hospital in West Chester, she was asked by the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities to serve at Shirati Hospital in Tanganyika. During her years overseas she wrote many interesting letters to her parents and siblings. I'm not sure if she had in mind that these might someday be helpful in writing her autobiography. I don't remember that she asked us to keep her letters, but we did. She typed and edited many of them and they are included in this book.

The story of the life of her husband, Ted Morrow, is woven into the book beginning in Part One, about Dorcas’s life prior to their marriage; continuing in Part Two, about Ted’s life prior to their marriage; and culminating in Part Three, about their marriage, Ted’s passing, and Dorcas’s life after Ted.

In an outline of her life written in 2000, Dorcas states, "I want to do some writing . . . about my childhood, my family and many things I have experienced. God has led me and provided so many good things that I did not expect would ever happen when I was younger. I want to leave a record that my family and friends can enjoy." After her retirement, Dorcas and Ted took some classes at a community college and did some writing, but there was always work to do both inside and outside the house. As the years rolled by, Ted developed more health issues, and Dorcas did not have much time or energy to write her stories.

After Ted's death on January 25, 2004, Dorcas moved to Landis Homes. She quickly joined several writing classes and began writing about her life and Ted's life. She continued this work for nearly a decade. But in a letter written on September 21, 2013, she shared that she was "getting less able to write because the proper words don't come to me and my ability to work on the computer does not work as well as it used to." In the fall of 2014 she decided it was time to proceed with publishing. Though she was not able to hold the printed book in her hands before her Lord and Savior took her home on Friday, August 7, 2015, she knew the book had been completed. A final chapter, "Saying Good-bye to Dorcas," was added after her funeral, and now the story of Dorcas’s life that she started writing as a child and wanted so much to share with you is in your hands.

From Begin by Loving Again: My Safari from Farm Girl to Missionary Doctor to Wife and Mother, by Dorcas L. Stoltzfus Morrow (Not Forgotten Publications, October 2015), pp. xi–xii.  Copyright © 2015 by Alice S. Morrow Rowan.