Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (28 page)

Jonas’s spoon clinked against the insides of his coffee cup as he said, “Cars carry people too far away from their family. With a horse and buggy, you have to stay pretty close to home. And when there’s a telephone in the home, children don’t talk to their parents, or brothers and sisters. Instead they’re talking to someone who isn’t there. With TV, rather than being involved in their own lives, they sit and watch somebody else’s.”

Jonas paused and laid the spoon on the picnic table next to the cup. Then he said, “How can a family survive, when the people in it are not living in the present?”

I sat down on the bench across the table from Jonas. “Okay, but I see Amish riding in other people’s cars all the time. How do you explain that?”

Jonas chuckled. “I knew you were going to ask me that. Like I said, we aren’t against cars. We don’t see them as evil. They’re tools that sometimes we have to use. I ride back and forth to work in a van every day. But we hire someone who has one. It’s part of their family, not mine. When I’m done using it, it’s gone. It’s not sitting in my yard so we just can hop in it and buzz around. If my children want to visit their friends, they can walk or ride a bicycle. The older ones use the horse and buggy. My youngest has his own pony. So it’s not like they don’t have a way to get around.”

Bringing the cup to his lips, Jonas said, “Keeps them closer to home.”

“What about Ferman and his–”

“Cell phone,” Jonas finished my sentence. “That was a big event in our community. Everyone in the district, the Bishop, all of us talked that over for nearly a month.”

A district consists of twenty to forty Amish families who live in close proximity. They have services every-other Sunday at a different home, which is usually led by the Bishop, or a minister that he appoints. Bishops preside over several districts.

“Ferman had his heart set on being a fireman. Since he would be helping the community, we decided he should do it. When there’s a fire, they have to be able to get in touch with him. So he had to have a cell phone. It’s good for the community.”

That Saturday night we had visitors from one Mennonite and three Amish families in our camp. While it rained outside, the picnic shelter rang with stories and laughter until nearly midnight. Stories told by men with wide brimmed hats, suspenders and mustache-less beards. Ivan Moore was one of the Mennonites. He was in his early seventies, squatty and the first person in Holmes County to ask if I was a Christian. His house was one of those that bordered the park, and his son lived next door. They both visited us a couple of times while we were there. It was on the first visit that he popped the Christian question. I guess he was all right with my reply. Both he and his son came back and were part of the Saturday night crowd.

The funniest topic of the evening was tourists. After seeing how inconsiderate the motorists were, I would have thought the Amish would be as disgusted as I was. But this group was more amused by them than anything.

“My daughter had a real corker a couple of days ago,” Ivan said. His daughter worked at the Berlin Visitor Center. “A woman came in and asked where she could find the Amish. My daughter gave her a map and showed her which roads she most likely would see some.”

Ivan’s short, thick body began to heave with laughter as he said, “She threw a fit and said, ‘You mean they’re just out running loose? Isn’t that dangerous?’”

The picnic shelter reverberated with laughter as Jonas piped in, “Oh, that’s us. Dangerous Amish. They really should lock us all up.”

“And throw away the key,” Ivan added.

A little later Ivan stood up and announced it was time for him to go home. Then he turned to me and said, “You’re welcome to join us for church in the morning. I know none of these Amish invited you to their service.”

“You know good and well we don’t have service until next Sunday.” Jonas said.

Ivan laughed. “See, we Mennonites aren’t nearly as good as the Amish. They only have to go to church every other Sunday. Us poor Mennonites have to go every Sunday.”

The picnic shelter exploded with laughter again. The Amish and Mennonites seemed to laugh a lot. Every time I saw them greet each other, or us, it was always with good humor. It wasn’t just the adults. Several times Patricia and I remarked how happy Amish children seemed to be. And they were always polite.

Earlier that night, as rain pelted the roof of the picnic shelter, Ivan read a poem to the group. The gist was, “Always greet your neighbor with a glad face.”

Sunday, instead of going to the Mennonite Church, we had dinner with Jonas Miller and his family. It was a great honor to have Ohio’s governor invite us into his mansion, but it paled in comparison to being invited to an Amish home for Sunday dinner.

It was at one o’clock and fifteen people showed up, too many to sit around the table. So folks sat on chairs, sofas, stools and the floor with their plates in their laps. In the middle of the Miller’s kitchen table was a platter piled high with pork chops. Some were barbequed, others baked and a bunch were fried. Big bowls with two different pastas, steamed corn and a heaping pan of tossed salad were also on the table. Before
everyone helped themselves, we all went into the living room, held hands in a circle and said the traditional Amish grace–a few quiet moments for silent prayer.

I think “quiet grace” is a perfect way to describe the Amish. They go about their lives simply, without pretense or trying to impress the rest of the world. I have never known an Amish person to push their religion, or their way of life, on anyone. They just live their lives the way they think they should.

“Can someone who isn’t born Amish become Amish?”

I asked that question of Esther Mullet. She and her husband Bennie drove up to our camp Sunday morning in a two-wheel cart pulled by a pair of Haflinger horses. Esther said, “Yes. But as an adult, it would be a hard thing to do.”

“You mean giving up their worldly ways?”

“No. I think the language would be the hardest part.”

Esther went on to explain that the Amish in America speak three languages. Growing up they learn English, “Pennsylvania Dutch” and High German. Actually Pennsylvania Dutch is not Dutch at all. It’s a type of German. Originally it was known as Pennsylvania Deutch (Deutch meaning German). But Englishmen mistook the word Deutch for Dutch. So these days even the Amish call the language Pennsylvania Dutch. That’s what they speak in their homes and within their community. High German is used in their church services. It’s the type of German that was spoken in the fifteenth century. Esther said, “These days most Germans don’t understand High German.”

When we were at Jonas Miller’s house, I mentioned how happy all of the Amish children seemed to be. He said, “Most of them are. That doesn’t mean we don’t have problem kids. But they either straighten up or they move on.”

Excommunication and shunning wasn’t just reserved for those who choose the outside world. Habitually disrupting the family, or the community, could get you kicked out too. But that’s not to say the Amish were quick to give up on their own.

Bennie and Ester were members of the same district as Jonas. So they wouldn’t be going to services that Sunday either. Bennie said, “But I’ve got plenty of church business to take care of today.”

A member of their district committed suicide last October. He left a wife and seven children behind. A few years earlier, he had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and was institutionalized for a while. That was when the Bishop appointed Bennie as the family’s guardian, and he set up a committee to oversee their finances.

“They never really had anything,” Bennie said. “He and his boys worked at a dairy, so they had money coming in, but he was always complaining that his wife wasted it. She said he never brought it home and no one knows what he did with it. We had to take over so the family could pay their rent and have food to eat.”

Soon after his release from the mental hospital, the man hung himself in a calf barn at the dairy farm where he worked. He left a note that said he was dying so Jesus would take care of his family. Bennie shook his head. “That’s crazy talk.”

So the church used some of its money and solicited donations from area businesses to set up a trust fund for the family. Someone in the community donated five acres. So, on the weekends, the community got together and worked on building them a new house.

“It’s important to keep that family together. That’s all they have now. If they fail, we all lose. That’s how it is with Amish.”

Amish Brotherhood Publications puts out a newspaper that goes to Amish homes around the world. It doesn’t have news of war, politics or world affairs. It publishes stories about things that happen to Amish families–like the one Bennie was guardian of. That’s how the Amish find out where to funnel money and other resources to those in need.

Isn’t that crazy? Instead of tithing the church to build a better house of worship, they send it to those who are down on their luck. Instead of spending it on religious tracts, missionaries and other forms of evangelism, they invest in their brethren in need. Are the Amish wack-o or what?

Because all the shops and tourist traps were closed on Sunday, the highway had very little motorized traffic. Most it was horse drawn, and we met lots of Amish people that afternoon.

One was a lanky twenty-year-old man, named Eli. He was clean shaven, wore a straw hat and suspenders, and he was riding a twenty-one speed mountain bicycle with wire baskets on the back. Eli was on his way to hit a few balls at the batting cages west of Winesburg. After I answered his questions about us, Eli started talking about what it was like to be Amish at his age.

“There’s a lot of pressure to go out and run around. Nearly everyone I know, who’s my age, wants to go out and party. You know, get a car, drink and do drugs–the whole bit. But I’m just not into it. I was just a little kid when my brothers were in rumspringa, but I remember it. And it didn’t seem to me that they were very happy then.”

Rumspringa is a period of Amish adolescence, beginning at the age of sixteen, that worldly behavior is tolerated. They’re allowed to own cars, be a part of modern society and still live on the farm. But then comes a time, usually by the mid-twenties, when they have to decide between their family or the rest of the world. If they don’t choose the Amish faith, they are shunned by the family and the rest of the community.

“Both of my brothers had cars, but my father wouldn’t let them keep them at the farm. They rented a parking space behind a gas station that had hitching-rails. That way they could leave the horse and buggy there when they were out partying.”

Coasting beside me on his bike, Eli had a bit of a chuckle in his voice. “I remember when they’d come racing into the yard with the buggy in the middle of the night whooping and hollering, you’d thought they was having the best time. But the next morning they’d be hurting. I mean, in real pain. Sometimes, it’d be so bad they couldn’t get up and do chores. My father would say, ‘If you want to burn the candle at both ends, that’s your business. But don’t be burning my end up!’ Then he’d
pull them out of bed and make them go to work–whether they wanted to or not.”