Month: February 2010

Packing celluloid: Amishman uses camera tech to (hopefully) catch a thief

An Amish businessman in Lancaster County has turned the camera in the other direction in an attempt to catch a thief. Apparently the culprit in question, likely assuming the Amish-owned businesses would be lightly protected, was brazen enough to break into the same four shops multiple times over a period of a few months. One unlucky store was robbed on six separate occasions. Knowing that…

Richard Stevick on the Pinecraft Pauper, a Florida Amish newspaper

Richard Stevick, Messiah college professor and author of Growing Up Amish: The Teenage Years, has kindly shared an interesting report on an unusual new Amish publication (excerpts to come) based in the Sunshine State: Sunny Pinecraft, Florida, may not be replacing frozen Alymer, Ontario, as the creative and intellectual center of Amish thought and writing, but at the least, Pinecraft seems to be experiencing a…

Springford, Ontario Amish settlement

A reader in Canada has shared some photos and background on the small settlement located near the village of Springford in Ontario. The community consists of 4 church districts and was founded in 1954.  It is apparently quite conservative, using outhouses and open-front buggies and oil lamps for lighting, and blankets used to keep warm in winter. One particular point of interest in this community,…

Amish buggy hazards

If you keep an eye on the news feeds, every couple weeks or so, a story about a road accident involving Amish pops up.  Reader Sherry recently wrote a moving post about such an accident in a Michigan Amish community.  Driving a buggy is a hazardous activity, more hazardous in some Amish settlements than in others. For example, the largely rural Amish communities of northern…

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia is a century-old institution in the heart of the city.  There has been an Amish presence in the market for nearly three decades. I write about Reading Terminal in my book, as well as in a post last year on Amish markets.  In a recent article, Summer Beckley of The Temple News gives a brief but interesting history of the market,…

Pinecraft, Florida – ‘Amish Country South’

Bruce Stambaugh describes peak season at the vacation/retirement community at Amish Pinecraft, in Sarasota, Florida: The atmosphere was part family reunion, part auction crowd. Some came to meet and greet. Most were there to watch. Men with white beards and denim pants with suspenders and women in pastel dresses and lacy white coverings predominated the scene. A few children in straw hats and long, plain…

The Bloomfield, Iowa Amish settlement

The Bloomfield, Iowa Amish settlement

The Bloomfield Amish community is one of the largest in Iowa The Amish community lying north and west of Bloomfield, Iowa is one of the three largest in the state.  Like the nearby settlement at Kalona, and the more conservative group found in Buchanan County in the northeast part of the state, Bloomfield is home to roughly 8 church districts, comprising about 175 households. Yet…

An Amishman speaks on the Plain investment controversy

An Amishman has come forward anonymously (no longer online) to discuss the Sensenig investment controversy, which we discussed a couple weeks back in “Blog changes, phone booths, and an Old Order Bernie Madoff?” Plain investors may be out most or all of $65 million.  The close ties and inherent trust found in the Old Order circles Sensenig operated within were key to his dubious success….

Punch-buggy, working with Mennonites, and my book gets a jacket

A few quick notes: Any football watchers catch the two Amishmen in the Volkswagen ad during the Super Bowl last night?  About midway through the spot, they came trundling by in an open carriage, playing that classic game of youth, “punch-buggy” where you give your partner a playful slug when you spot a VW bug.  No doubt the buggy-buggy connection was intentional by the producers,…

Amish on rollerblades

It’s nearly 15 years old, but this New York Times article (http://www.cora.org/amish-skate-art.html) remains an interesting look at a “modern” form of transportation used by Amish (and which some may find surprising). In-line skates, aka “rollerblades”, are popular in the Lancaster County settlement.  Amish historian Sam Stoltzfus estimates that (at the time of writing) they may be “tacitly” accepted in one third of settlements.  In the article,…