Mary Swander’s Coop – presented by KHOI Community Radio
KHOI Community Radio 622 Douglas Ave., Ames, IA, United StatesMary Swander’s new play Coop is historical fiction, an enactment of true stories of Amish, Mennonite, and other conscientious objectors during WWI and WWII. The core story is taken from the oral history of a young Amish farmer draftee who boarded a train with other C.O.s—Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren, and Seventh Day Adventists–during World War II. This group of C.O.s, told they were bound to fight forest fires in Colorado, were interned instead in a chicken coop. There, they remained under guard for the rest of the war.