Imagine your parents being savagely murdered in the doorway of your home while other family members are brutally gunned down or hacked to death. Although this sounds like a recent news report from Syria, Iraq, or even France, this took place right here in the Shenandoah Valley 250 years ago this month. Thankfully, a young teenager escaped or I wouldn’t be writing this column today. In fact, I wouldn’t be anywhere today for she became my great, great, great, great grandmother.
John Rhodes (or Roads) immigrated to the US from Switzerland in 1728 and settled in what is now Page County about 1730. He was a peaceful non-resistant Mennonite minister who built a home and established quite a farm on the west bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. He and his wife, Eve Albright Rhodes, had thirteen children who were vitally needed to maintain the crops and livestock.
One unknown August day in 1766 (some say 1764) eight native Americans purportedly led by a white man, Simon Girty, suddenly appeared and immediately began wreaking havoc. John was shot standing in the doorway of his home and Eve was killed in the yard. One son had been working in the cornfield about 150 yards away and, hearing the commotion, climbed a pear tree to see what was going on, only to be spotted and shot dead. His brother, who had been working beside him, ran for the river in attempt to swim to safety, but he was gunned down in the water giving the location the name it still bears today, Bloody Ford.
Altogether, John and Eve and six of their children entered eternity that day at the hands of their merciless attackers. In addition to the murders, the intruders burned the house and kidnapped four of the young children killing three of them as they fled up the Massanutten toward Kennedy’s Peak. One son, Michael, survived among the Indians and later became a revolutionary soldier. Other children were thankfully away from home and seven survived the harrowing ordeal. 
In the midst of the mayhem, John and Eve’s teenage daughter, Elizabeth, grabbed her seventeen month old sister, Esther, and ran to the barn, having the wherewithal to slide the latch behind her. She was spotted and pursued, but when her assailant was unable to gain entry, he returned to the now-burning house to get fire. As he did so, Elizabeth, with Esther in her arms, escaped out the back of the barn through some loose boards and carried her twelve miles through a hemp field to their neighbors as their temporary refuge went up in flames behind them. Both girls grew to adulthood and raised families of their own. Elizabeth married Jacob Gochenour, Jr and became an ancestor of several thousand people living today throughout the valley and across the nation.
As I’ve reflected on what had to be an unbelievably traumatic event in her life, I am more than a little moved by Elizabeth’s courage and heroism. Instead of freezing up and being slaughtered with the others, she thought quickly in order to save herself. Most compelling was her risk in rescuing her baby sister without whom she could have traveled more quickly and quietly. Although I carry some of her genes, I pray I possess equal fortitude to act in the same manner if it is ever demanded of me.
Two hundred and fifty years later, we again face terror. Though the perpetrators are different, the origin is the same, for all murder comes from the evil one. As we face our challenges, we can learn from the courage, resolve, and quick thinking of this youngster. We must not be paralyzed with either fear or hatred but act quickly and wisely to secure our own safety as well as that of those who cannot save themselves.
Eventually, Elizabeth and Esther joined their parents and siblings in death as we all one day will. I pray that we’ll be prepared for that moment by depending on the sacrificial rescue of Jesus who died providing salvation for all who will accept it. It would have been much easier and more comfortable for Him to let us perish in the flames, but thankfully, He picked us up and carried us out of the tomb with Him. Oh God, help us all to emulate the courage, resolve, and quick thinking of this brave young lady and let us accept Jesus’ rescue of us.
Thankful for Elizabeth’s courage and Jesus’ sacrifice, George