During that trip our children had informed Amos that their father, Eric, could speak and read German. Amos, who was a historian and had many old letters needing translation from that language asked Eric for help, and thus the friendship and love between our two families was firmly cemented for all the years since then. One day the Hoovers took us to one of their old cemeteries on a hill. I looked on the right side on the fields below, at the barns and the cattle and the corn fields and the peace and beauty that the Mennonite community had created in this country, and I thought that this should be the promise of America. That the persecuted should flee here and make it a land of peace for them and others who had also been forced out of the countries of their birth through prejudice.That is what this painting represents, and my family and I are proud to give it to the family of Nora and Amos Hoover