Amish America

Montcalm County, Michigan Amish reader photos

Shannon shares some nice photos from the Amish settlement at Montcalm County, Michigan.

Shannon says that the family she knows here belongs to the 'Troyer Amish' group.

There are currently 24 Amish settlements in Michigan, according to the latest Calender, the almanac-and-guide to Amish church districts.

The oldest Michigan settlement, that in the vicinity of Centreville in St. Joseph County, dates to 1910.  It is also the largest of the Michigan settlements, with 11 church districts as of this year.

St. Joseph County may contain the oldest Michigan settlement, but it wasn't the first to be founded.

 

According to David Luthy's The Amish in America:  Settlements that failed, six settlements had already been founded in Michigan by 1910, five of which were still in existence at the time of the founding of the St. Joseph settlement.

All of these communities 'went extinct' at some point, though most were fairly long-lived, lasting 20, 30, 40 and one over 50 years.

The longest-lasting of these early settlements that went extinct was that of Mio in Oscoda County, way up in the northern part of the Michigan 'hand'.

 Mio is unusual because after its 'extinction' in 1954, no Amish lived in the area until 1970, when families from Geauga County, Ohio began to settle in the area of the former community, creating a new settlement that numbers three churches today.

Shannon says that the family she is acquainted with in Montcalm County is quite friendly with outsiders, even running a dinner service for visitors, as Amish families sometimes do.

At the same time, the group leans to the more technologically-conservative side of the spectrum, with open-front buggies and oil lamps in use.   

Thanks again to Shannon for the nice photos--see more of them at her blog Speaking in Plain Shamish.

Leaving the Amish behind

In 2003 Melvin Mullet chose to leave his Amish upbringing behind, and in this interview he explains some basics of Amish life as well as offering a little insight on how he sees the group, now that he is 'on the outside'.

One of the pluses of Amish life, according to Melvin, who grew up in Michigan:  'I miss the closeness of the community. If something happens to one Amish family, everybody is there to help. I miss that interaction of community.'

On the other hand, now that Melvin is no longer Amish, he feels his upbringing 'has worked to my disadvantage because I did not receive formal schooling.'

It's not immediately clear but it sounds like Melvin chose to leave before being baptized.  In this case he would not be shunned by his community. 

In reality, do Amish parents treat the children who choose not to be baptized differently from those that do?  Perhaps some do.  Having a lot of children stay in the faith is generally admired in the community. 

Peach pie and the latest from the Amish Cook

Busy Amish mom Lovina Eicher writes a weekly column from her Michigan home.  It's carried in over 130 papers across the country.

This week she shares some thoughts on spring cleaning and how Amish and non-Amish kids get along.  To read about that, or to get the recipe for Lovina's 'Amish Peach Pie', click here.

Kevin Williams, Lovina's editor, runs an interesting blog-and-news site on the Amish.  Visit it here.

An Amish killer's attempt to return

The crime was horrendous.

But the point now is not the crime--it's the hard issues at hand for the Amish community of Ed Gingerich--allegedly the only Amishman ever tried and convicted for the death of another human being. 

Gingerich killed his wife in a fit of insanity in 1993. 

A paranoid schizophrenic, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served a few years in a prison psychiatric ward.  He was released in 1998 and moved to Harmony Haven, an Amish-run retreat and mental home in Michigan.

photo:  Tom Boyle, Titusville Herald
While the practice of shunning gets a lot of attention from outsiders, Amish belief also includes an important provision for forgiveness.

The process for getting back in shape looks like this, in a nutshell:  errant members confess and can be reinstated after showing repentance and a change of heart.

But as Dr. Steven Nolt of Goshen College says that the process 'more supposes someone who buys a car' than someone who commits such a heinously violent act. 

Amish in Gingerich's small northwestern PA community are terrified of him.  Sympathetic others, including outsiders, support what they see as his attempt at reconciliation.

His community's bishop has excommunicated members who have contact with him, including two of his brothers.  Members of Gingerich's family have been accused of harassing others in the church, causing some to move away. 

Gingerich has received particular sympathy from some members of the New Order Amish, who preach a more personal form of spirituality.  After his wife's killing, Gingerich was quartered in Harmony Haven, a Michigan mental home for Amish and Mennonites.  It was there that he came into contact with the New Order.

"I love Ed immensely. I've prayed with the man. I've cried with the man" said one New Order supporter.

Should Gingerich have a shot at redemption, as many say he should?  Do the wishes of his community, some of whom asked that he be 'locked up forever' count for more than the state's judgment? 

Are outsiders, including more progressive New Order Amish, overstepping their bounds by advocating so strongly for Gingerich?

I won't go further, but this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where I've taken a lot of the facts on the case from, is a thought-provoking look at a thankfully rare situation in the Amish world.

Barefoot with the Amish Cook

Ever wonder why many Amish moms seem to prefer going barefoot while shucking corn or canning beans?  A lot of them did so as kids.

The Amish Cook, Lovina Eicher, shares a bit in this excerpt from her column:

The children just can’t wait until they can run outside barefooted. I caught a few of them trying to do it already. I don’t think the ground is warm enough yet, maybe once the last frost of the season is done. I remember Mom always thought we should wait until April. Some say they wait until they see their first bee. I like being barefooted myself and am looking forward to the warmer weather. We used to run up and down our stone driveway barefooted while growing up. Our feet would always be so tender in the spring but after a few weeks our feet were tough again.  I remember always going out to milk the cows bare-footed.  One time a cow stepped on my foot really hard and bruised me badly.  After that I always made sure I had shoes or boots on when in the barn. It was more protection if you’d happen to get stepped on.

Lovina writes weekly from her Michigan home.  She has taken over the task from her mother, who wrote this column for 10 years.  Find more of Lovina's writings here and here.

Thinking Ahead

'We didn't get out soon enough.'

In an article from the Toledo Blade, an Amish patriarch talks about moving from a liberal settlement to a more conservative one. 

This grandfather of 82 laments losing his two oldest boys to the world.  Had the family moved sooner, they may have avoided the influences that caused his sons to leave the faith. 

The Amish think one or two or more generations ahead. 

An Ohio minister once explained to Amish America:  'I have nothing against Catholics, Mennonites, other religions.  I could even be Mennonite for example, it wouldn't be a big deal.  But then what happens later on down the line?  Maybe for my kids or grandkids, divorce will be okay.'

This is why television and cars are off limits.  Not because they're evil--they're not--but because of what possessing them might lead to. 

The Amish parent takes on a mighty responsibility--not only for his or her own soul, or for the childrens', but for all the others' yet to come. 

Debunking some Speech Myths

The Amish don't use 'thee', 'thine', or 'thou', as you might think after watching Weird Al's video.

Neither do they speak like Alexander Godunov or Jan Rubes did in Witness.  Check that, at least one Amishman that Amish America knows of does--but he was born in Germany and converted to the faith in his 20's.    

They mostly speak English like any rural Americans would.  Though you could say there is such a thing as an Amish accent, including some peculiar turns of phrase and pronunciation...

It often varies by region.  Illinois Amish have a funny way of saying 'Iowa.'  It comes out 'Io-way.'

Amish i's often go long when they're not supposed to.  Some kind-hearted Michigan Amish once told the author about their 'favo-right' music.

Amish i's also become long e's.  'Six' sounds like 'seex'.  'Mischief' is spoken 'mis-cheef'.

The word 'anymore' gets used in puzzling ways.  It seems to substitute for 'nowadays', or 'lately', as in, "anymore, it's hard to find a good vet around here."

Sara E. Fisher and Rachel K. Stahl, authors of The Amish School, excerpt a letter from The Blackboard Bulletin, a periodical for Amish teachers. The writer speaks of being frustrated at finding out that she has been pronouncing a word incorrectly for many years, asking 'if we go to a school where an Amish teacher...doesn't pronounce the words correctly either, how are we supposed to learn better?'    

In reality it's actually very charming, probably in the same way that an American that is 99% fluent in a foreign language might amuse a native listener with a slightly odd turn of speech.  It reflects nothing on the general Amish level of education, which, while only going through the 8th grade, is sufficient for the typical Amish way of life.

Amish schools do their job well.  Brad Igou includes a Family Life editor's letter in The Amish in their Own Words which describes a University of Michigan study of Amish parochial schools.  In it, the parochial schools get the best marks out of the five categories tested. 

English is a second language for the Amish.  Amongst themselves, they speak an oral dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German.  The Amish can communicate perfectly in English, or very close to it.  Occasionally an Amishman will stop in the middle of speaking and search for a word, often apologizing that he could say it better in German.   

Most Amish children learn English when they first go to school, though some pick it up while still at home. This also varies by settlement and how often the kids are around English speakers.  Business owners' 'pre-scholars' are often among the best at English, especially if their father has a lot of English clients.

And finally, Pennsylvania Dutch has little to do with what they speak in the Netherlands.  Here, 'Dutch' is most likely an Anglicized version of 'Deutsch'.