Abandoned Prayers (10 page)

With a new baby, it was time for a farm of the family’s own. Stutzman announced that he had struck a deal with Chris Swartzentruber’s brother Daniel. The Amishman owned a ninety-five-acre farm on Sand Hill near Dalton and wanted $72,500 for it. On a handshake, the Stutzmans moved in. It was spring and Danny was 6 months old.

At the same time, Ida learned she was pregnant. Again, she hoped a child would fill the gap in the marriage. She was due by Thanksgiving.

To Eli Stutzman, another baby would not have been seen as a joy, but another impediment to his freedom. Another nail in the coffin
.

As the air warmed with spring, problems at the Stutzman farm moved beyond silence and pretense. The trouble was no surprise to anyone. During late winter, word had gotten around the Amish that there were once again problems with Eli Stutzman. He continued trading race horses with Elam Bontrager—and others whom no one in the community knew. In addition, Stutzman’s running around continued to take its toll on Ida’s generally happy nature.

To see her daughter in such obvious pain was heartbreaking to Lizzie Gingerich. But she was only an observer
of their marriage. It was not her place to come between a daughter and her life’s companion. Her husband felt the same way. It was God who had joined Ida and Eli. Their marriage was in His hands.

Yet, while Ida was unhappy, Stutzman often put on a good front, acting the concerned and loving husband. He once asked Amos Gingerich if he would build some steps to the well, because Ida’s heart was giving her problems. It was the first time Gingerich had heard of the condition.

Buds had burst, leaving tree branches looking as though they had been dipped into a million shades of green, the day Lizzie and Dan Gingerich went out to Moser Road for a visit. Baby Daniel reminded all of the older Gingeriches of the children who had come before him. With no baby pictures, of course, there were no means of direct comparison.

When it was time to leave, Dan Gingerich, age 15, went to hitch the buggy. He was still working on the reins when Ida and Lizzie, who held the swaddled Danny close to her cloaked breast, stood on the front porch to say goodbye.

Something was wrong with his sister and Dan strained to hear. Ida’s voice cut through a choppy stream of tears.

“To cry like that was not like Ida. She was always the happy one,” he later said.

“Eli’s not doing very good,” Ida said. “I don’t know what to do about him. I try everything I can think of, yet nothing seems to work.”

Lizzie moved closer to comfort her daughter, but it brought only more sobs. “Time will make it better, and prayer will help,” she offered.

Ida shook her head helplessly. “But I can’t handle him,” she said.

Lizzie didn’t know how to help. Finally, Ida dropped the essence of the problem. Her words had an edge to them; it was obvious that it was excruciating for her to speak them. “
I don’t think Eli loves me
,” she said.

Lizzie did not press her daughter for details and none were offered. On the ride back to the Gingerich farm, mother and son agonized over what had transpired. Dan wondered if it could be true that Stutzman didn’t love his sister.

“If Eli didn’t love Ida, why did he marry her?” he later asked.

The first week of May 1977, Eli and Ida Stutzman met with loan officer Richard Armstrong in the offices of Federal Land Bank in Wooster. FLB had tendered hundreds of loans for the Amish. Not surprisingly, Amish were seen as excellent credit risks. They usually put a lot of money down and had flawless credit histories unencumbered by charge cards and time payment plans. Further, the Amish standard of living was low—$10,000 a year was enough for a family of ten. A high income wasn’t required to qualify for a loan.

To Armstrong, who had grown up in Wayne County farm country with Amish neighbors, the Stutzmans were a nondescript, simple Amish couple—a study in black, white, and blue.

Ida acquiesced to her husband’s authority, offering few comments while the loan amount of $55,000 was discussed. Stutzman said he needed the loan to pay the mortgage contract on his farm with the previous owner. A typed note signed by Daniel and Sarah Swartzentruber deeding the property to the Stutzmans was produced to verify the intention.

Such a document would likely raise the eyebrows of any lender unfamiliar with the ways of the Amish. Who but the Amish, ever trustworthy as they were, would deed property and transfer it to another party without a mortgage to back it up? In essence, Eli Stutzman already owned the farm. If Stutzman had wanted to ignore his obligation to pay the Swartzentrubers, he could have.

This was not unusual, given that the Amish insist on keeping their affairs to themselves as they maintain their
separation from the modern world. Why record business concerns with the court? Of course, there was a good reason, and trouble resulted when parties shunned modern legal procedures. If a borrower defaulted on a bank loan, the Amishman who sold the farm and was still receiving payments was left out in the cold. If their loan had not been recorded, they were the last in line when the proceeds from the sale of a property were dispersed.

If Armstrong noticed that Eli Stutzman was different from the other Amishmen he had met over the years, it was something about his manner. Eli Stutzman was a gentler, almost soft-spoken man. He was not as authoritarian as other Amishmen. He seemed less dominant, less than iron-handed. Perhaps Armstrong unconsciously picked up on the vocal nuances and accent of an Amishman who had spent time with
Englischers
after jumping the fence. Around town, some called those who left the Order “jerked-over” Amish.

Stutzman hauled out a shoebox and went over recent farm records. Ordinarily, FLB’s procedure called for the review of three years of records, but since Stutzman had lived only a few months on the farm, the practice was waived. Regardless of the productivity of Stutzman’s farm, the land would appreciate and the lender would have no difficulty getting its money out of it in the event of foreclosure.

If there was any trouble at home, Armstrong didn’t catch any hint of it. If the couple did not seem especially close or warm toward each other, there was an easy enough explanation: they were low Amish.

Since Ida’s name was on the deed prepared by Dan Swartzentruber’s attorney, her presence and signature were essential for the execution of the loan. If Eli Stutzman wanted money, he needed Ida.

“Somebody is lying low for Eli Stutzman.”

When Amos Gingerich first heard the vague rumor, he
didn’t know what to make of it. His son-in-law was in some kind of trouble. The second time he heard it, he acted. He went to see his son-in-law at the Cherry Ridge School to warn him of the rampant rumors that somebody was out to get him.

“I’m not worried,” Stutzman told his father-in-law.

Shortly after meeting with the Stutzmans, loan officer Armstrong made the trip to Dalton for the appraisal. It was an average property, especially suited to Amish horse farming—rolling hills, a creek, and some wooded acreage. The property contrasted with the type of land sought by
Englische
farmers, who prefer a treeless terrain and level land for cultivation. Amish prefer a mix, particularly wooded areas for hunting and lumber. They “buzz” some of their trees and mill lumber for outbuildings and houses.

The Stutzman property was fine. With escalating land values in Wayne County during the 1970s, it was apparent to Armstrong that FLB wouldn’t be at risk. Besides—and this never escaped the loan officer’s mind—this was a loan to an Amishman. Those were usually risk-free, although Armstrong had heard of cases in which Amish with perfect credit and payment history became delinquent with their final payment. This seemed out of character until he learned the reason. Amish families who acquire
Englische
farms keep the electrical power until the farm is paid off—a requirement of the loan. Some use the electricity, although it is forbidden by the
Ordnung
. For those who do, electricity can be as addictive as a drug. In those few such cases, the church intervenes and pays off the loan. Power lines are severed, and meters are smashed with hammers or rocks.

On July 7, the loan was approved. A check for $55,000 was cut for the Stutzmans, essentially the borrowers, when Daniel Swartzentruber was the seller. The procedure was a bit peculiar. Usually, money is dispersed to the seller. At that time, however, loan money did not have to be used for the reason stated on the loan application.

Dan Swartzentruber continued to receive regular payments. He was unaware that the Stutzmans had arranged the loan. If there was another purpose for the loan money, it was unknown to Ida Stutzman. She would never have signed her name to a document that was misrepresented.

The reason stated for the loan, however, was as clear as the sunny summer morning when they picked up the check: “Pay mortgage contract on the farm with the previous owner.”

Years later, Armstrong wondered if giving the money directly to the Stutzmans was such a good idea. “It was pretty much a standard practice then,” he said.

Swartzentruber Amish girl Anna Hershberger was only a teenager when she died of cancer the first week of July 1977. Ida and Danny Stutzman went alone to the funeral.

Her family talked about it that night: “Ida didn’t seem herself. Something was on her mind. It wasn’t right that Eli didn’t come with her and the baby.”

Anna’s funeral was to be the last time many saw Ida. Later, the Gingeriches were left to wonder if there was a reason why Stutzman hadn’t shown up. “Maybe it was that he couldn’t face us,” Dan Gingerich said.

July 11, 1977

The sky over Wayne County was dark and stormy as Abe Stutzman’s little brother—also named Eli—who had been hired that summer to work on Eli and Ida’s farm, hoisted himself up a ladder to pick apples for his cousin Ida. Eli Stutzman had business to take care of and had taken the buggy into town earlier in the day. Ida spent most of her time inside doing the woman’s chores she had been raised to do.

Jagged streaks of lightning and the echo of approaching thunder broke the stillness of the late afternoon, and livestock shifted nervously as they hunkered under trees and sought safety inside the barn. The boy picked a few more
apples, then retreated into the two-story farmhouse.

Farmers are used to such storms.
Englische
houses and barns are topped with the sharp spires of lightning rods. The Amish refuse to use rods, just as they refuse insurance. Such precautions interfere with God’s will.

Baby Daniel, now 10 months old, slept in the crib. As required by the
Ordnung
, he wore a loose, white dressing gown and a cap on his head. At age two he would wear pants, and the cap would become a hat—a miniature of his father’s.

Lightning continued to split the air like an ax crashing on an anvil, hard and with frightening fury. Sue Snavely, the Stutzmans’ neighbor across the road, had forgotten how much she hated electrical storms. Only a few months before, the Snavelys had returned to Ohio after years away with the military. She waited for her accountant husband, Howard, to come home from his job at Republic Steel in Massillon.

Eli Stutzman guided the buggy up the muddy dirt driveway. With no windshield or storm front—forbidden by the Swartzentrubers because they resemble cars—his chest and bearded face had been soaked by the downpour. A tarp wrapped around his waist, however, kept his legs dry from the spray of the trotting horse.
Englischers
and those who left the Amish ridiculed the inconsistencies of the religion that allowed a plastic tarp as protection but not a plastic storm front.

Stutzman dropped the reins and excitedly called the hired boy to come to the barn. “Lightning hit the barn. I saw it hit from up the hill,” he told the boy in Deutsch.

The boy hurried into the barn where Stutzman had motioned him. The barn, which abutted the road, was dark and cool. The boy watched as the man searched the roof line for the strike. Neither spoke. Finally Stutzman pointed to a timber high above them. “It hit there. See it?” he asked.

The boy focused his sharp eyes but saw nothing. He looked harder.

“It is there!” Stutzman commanded. A small chip on the peak of the inside of the barn caught the boy’s attention, but if it had been there days before or even years before, he would never be able to say.

He nodded to his boss as he watched Stutzman climb a ladder up the granary. Stutzman called down that he had found where the lightning had traveled. He needed water, and the hired boy retrieved some from the well. From the floor, fifteen feet below, the boy watched Stutzman pour the water high on the corn-laden wooden granary. He still couldn’t see what had alarmed Stutzman.

Amos and Lizzie Gingerich spent most of the day away from their Fredericksburg home visiting in Holmes County. The day had been uneventful, although there had been a good soaking and a thunder shower in the late afternoon.

Amos read from the newspaper and remarked on another member of the community who had passed away. Lizzie shook her head sadly and made a quick count of the number who had died in the recent months, more than a dozen. The last one from their district had been Anna Hershberger. Lizzie was saddened by all the deaths, yet thankful that her household had been spared.

“Where in the world is the next one going to be?” she asked.

There is no blackness like night in Wayne County. The lack of cities and the mist in the air create an impossible darkness that seizes everything. Ancient oak trees are shrouded in black. At night, there is nothing for anyone to see.

July 11 was a night some would later try to forget, and others would struggle with all they possessed to recall anything they could.

Tim Blosser, an attorney from Dalton who had met
Stutzman at the little sawmill across Moser Road in April, stopped by a little after 6:00
P.M
. to help the Amish family prepare a will. When Blosser arrived, Stutzman told him of the lightning and, along with Ida, showed him a spot on the floor of the upper level of the barn that had been doused. Blosser saw where a window had been blown out and Stutzman told him that the lightning had done it that afternoon. Oddly, Blosser didn’t see any shards of glass, but he did see some water-soaked embers among the hay on the floor—proof that a fire had smoldered there.