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Amish Cook Gloria Yoder‘s editor Kevin Williams has filled in on her column this week for an unfortunate reason: Gloria was involved in a serious accident on the road. But this wasn’t a buggy accident, as you might be thinking. Kevin describes what happened: I wanted to reach out to readers this week in place […]
Continue Reading Amish Cook Gloria Yoder In Car Accident
The Amish are in the news again, this time as a backdrop to a speech given by President Trump in Lititz, Pennsylvania yesterday. You can see several young Amish-looking fellows in this clip below. This has gotten some strong reaction online, with multiple people claiming they are “fake Amish” or even “paid actors”. Jump to […]
Continue Reading Are These “Fake Amish”? (Updated: Not Fake)
In some Amish communities, such as Lancaster County, the traditional wedding season is the autumn months following harvest, spanning from late October, through November, and into December. In other communities (and for that matter, in Lancaster County as well), that tradition has given way to weddings happening at other times of the year, such as […]
Continue Reading Four Amish Wedding Songs
Where do the Amish live? A new resource has been published listing the locations of nearly 600 Amish settlements across North America. You can access the list at the Young Center’s Amish Studies website. This list actually includes two nations – the US, and Canada with its much smaller Amish population. Organized by state and […]
Continue Reading 2020 Nationwide Amish Settlement List
I just happened to be looking at reviews for Mishler’s Country Store, in Dalton, Wisconsin. People seem to really love that place – both readers here, and at review sites like Yelp and Google. It got me wondering – what makes a good Amish store? Here are some of my own criteria, yours might differ: […]
Continue Reading What Makes A Good Amish Store?
Lancaster Online marks four months since Linda Stoltzfoos’ June 21 disappearance with an article today: “Amish teen Linda Stoltzfoos still missing, 4 months since police say she was abducted.” While Linda remains missing, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams called the case “a top priority.” The story quotes her: “Our office and the investigators remain […]
Continue Reading Four Months Have Passed Since Linda Stoltzfoos Disappeared (Update)
Via WHAM: (WHAM) – New York State Police are asking for help to find a man suspected of trying to lure children off of an Amish buggy in Seneca County. Investigators said they were contacted after a man driving down Dublin Road in Junius approached a buggy that was carrying several children. The man reportedly […]
Continue Reading Police Seek Man Who Attempted To Lure Amish Children Into Car (New York)
How much can you make driving the Amish? The answer is going to vary based on a number of factors including location, whether or not you’re providing the vehicle, and so on. This ad posted to Craigslist gives us an idea of what you can expect in one sort of arrangement working as a driver […]
Continue Reading Amish Driver Help Wanted Ad – Is It Worth It?
A little Amish girl is safe thanks to the quick response of a Pennsylvania state trooper. Via WTAE: MARIENVILLE, Pa. — A state police officer jumped into action to save a toddler in a runaway buggy. A 3-year-old Amish girl was alone in a buggy in Marienville, Forest County when the horse was spooked. The […]
Continue Reading State Trooper Saves Amish Toddler In Runaway Buggy
An interesting letter just appeared at Lancaster Online. An excerpt: I have an idea for the state to make a chunk of change. Why not make the Amish register each of their buggies and have a yearly inspection and safety check, just like those of us with motor vehicles are required to do? I believe […]
Continue Reading Should Amish Buggies Have A Yearly Safety Inspection?
I like this video not so much for the song itself, but for the feel of sitting around in an Amish home in the evening. You’ve got the soft glow of the propane light, the water pitcher at the ready, the utilitarian folding chairs. Dinner’s been eaten, and everyone’s circled around in the kitchen. The […]
Continue Reading Lancaster Amish Family Evening Singing At Home (Video)
Meet “Amish Woman“. She’s a mom of 12 and a recent settler in a young Missouri community. A reporter with a local paper spoke with her and managed to learn a good bit about her life and church. She actually shares a lot more detail than I’d expect from this sort of “our new neighbors […]
Continue Reading A Visit With “Amish Woman”
Mark Louden gave a talk last month entitled “A Historical Look At The Amish” which you might enjoy. This hourlong talk was given online for the Allen Public Library of Allen, Texas. Mark is the author of Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language and professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin […]
Continue Reading Mark Louden: A Historical Look At The Amish (Audio Lecture)
This obituary tells of an Amishman named Jonas A. Nisley who passed away late last month in Ohio. Jonas had 310 living descendants. If you add his step-descendants, you get an additional 70 individuals, for a total of 380 souls. Here’s the tally of his family, in addition to his twelve children: 96 grandchildren; 11 […]
Continue Reading Three Hundred And Ten Descendants
Two nice videos for you as we move into autumn, both by the 717 Drone Guys. First is this video from Kissel Hill Fruit Farm showing an Amishman picking apples to sell at the business. There is something about the crisp taste of a juicy apple on an autumn day and this video really makes […]
Continue Reading Autumn Amish Videos: Apple-Picking & Sunday Morning
After a buggy accident, people often ask “Why can’t there be buggy lanes for the Amish?” One big roadblock is cost. It’s generally judged too expensive to install buggy lanes in most of the hundreds of small communities where Amish live. So in reality it tends to happen primarily in the largest settlements. With that […]
Continue Reading Buggy Lanes Coming To Geauga County
Which states have the most Amish settlements? I should first note that this post is about individual settlements, not total Amish population. The two have some correlation, but are not the same thing. An Amish settlement is a distinct geographic location where Amish live. The roughly 350,000-strong Amish population is found in close to 600 […]
Continue Reading The 10 States With The Most Amish Settlements
I’d like to draw your attention to an online event happening tomorrow: A Conversation about Amish Women with Karen Johnson-Weiner. This is hosted by the Young Center at Elizabethtown College, and open to anyone with an internet connection. Karen will be speaking with Young Center Senior Scholar Steven Nolt on Karen’s new book, The Lives […]
Continue Reading A Conversation About Amish Women With Karen Johnson-Weiner
Lovina Eicher takes us through a typical day for her family in her latest Lovina’s Amish Kitchen column. It’s a nice look at some of the tasks and routines in an Amish household and family. A couple of things stand out to me. One is obviously the early start to the day. Amish families on […]
Continue Reading 4AM – 8PM: A Day In The Life Of An Amish Family
This Amish home stands out to me for several reasons. First is its simple but somewhat unusual design. It is one story, but pretty large in size – 3,200 square feet. Amish homes tend to be two stories, but maybe this family is not fond of climbing stairs. They decided to build their whole home […]
Continue Reading Inside A Tennessee Amish Home (13 Photos)
Last week we learned the tragic story of Jonathan and Wilma Hochstetler, a Mennonite couple shot in a late-night robbery in Indianapolis, with Wilma losing her life. Jonathan happens to be a cousin to Amish Cook columnist Gloria Yoder – the oldest cousin of 47 on her father’s side, as she describes him. In this […]
Continue Reading Amish Cook Gloria Yoder On The Hochstetler Shooting
An Amish friend who saw the title of the post last week had this to say: “Plain Parade – what an oxymoron”. I think that is an astute observation. The quotation marks were meant to suggest the term be taken with a grain of salt. Especially, as noted in the original post, since the actual […]
Continue Reading A Follow-Up On The “Plain Parade”
There was kind of a quirky “Amish” story that emerged last week in France. Not being a French speaker, I have mainly heard of it secondhand from French readers of this site, who have kindly kept me informed. I wanted to share a brief guest post from Romain Speisser on the topic with you today, […]
Continue Reading The Amish, Macron & 5G
This is a pretty awful and senseless story which hit me for several reasons. This couple is Mennonite, apparently grew up in an Amish community, and probably still have a good number of family who are Amish (two photos of family in the article linked below appear to be Amish). Hochstetler family photo provided by […]
Continue Reading Amish-Raised Couple Shot, One Killed In Indianapolis Robbery
Earlier this week I let you know about the Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities (JPAC), a new open-source scholarly publication. But what about publications produced by the Amish? While scholarly journals provide a different and valuable perspective, it’s also nice to read writings direct from Amish writers. And there is a wide and growing range […]
Continue Reading 17 Amish Periodicals
Several readers shared this somewhat surprising story with me. Here’s a video showing a parade in support of President Trump, which took place Saturday in and outside of Fredericksburg, Ohio: This is in the Holmes/Wayne County settlement. There were a reported 500 people who gathered in this small town lying just over the county border. […]
Continue Reading “Plain Parade” Rallies Support For President In Amish Ohio
I’m happy to inform you that there is a new free online publication covering Amish and Plain Anabaptist topics which has just launched. One of the editors, Joseph Donnermeyer, has passed along the following to be shared with you: On September 18, the inaugural issue of the new online, free access journal – the Journal […]
Continue Reading Announcing A New Publication: The Journal Of Plain Anabaptist Communities (JPAC)
Following our first post on natural remedies which Amish use, here are five more. This time, they’re all sourced from Emma Byler’s book Plain & Happy Living: Amish Recipes & Remedies. I’m not promoting these as something you should use, though. I’m just sharing them as ones that caught my eye “for informational purposes”. Amish […]
Continue Reading 5 More Amish Natural Remedies
Some new info in the Linda Stoltzfoos disappearance case. Unsealed court documents have shown that kidnapping suspect Justo Smoker sent multiple messages to his brother Victor in a window of time beginning about 20 minutes after Linda was last seen. The detective who applied for the search warrant stated that the text messages “would be […]
Continue Reading Unsealed Documents: Justo Smoker Texted Brother 15 Times “Directly After” Stoltzfoos Disappearance
The word “Amish” is getting attached to the events in Lancaster city following an incident in which a man was shot and killed by police. Specifically, some media sources have been framing this as something like “trouble in Amish Country” – but that is a mis-framing. Lancaster city is in the middle of Lancaster County, […]
Continue Reading Lancaster City Is Not “Amish Country”
In her latest, Lovina Eicher, an Amish mother of eight who writes the Lovina’s Amish Kitchen column, explains a challenge of everyday Amish life – making sure the water pump is working reliably enough for a shower. Lovina’s household’s water pump is run by a battery, in this case a solar powered-one. Lately in her […]
Continue Reading Lovina Eicher: Water Pump Challenges In An Amish Home
I enjoy looking at old postcards. I came across five interesting vintage Amish postcards on Flickr to share with you. Several of these are from the Lancaster County area. One or two have a touch of humor to them. Let’s have a look. 1. Greetings From The Pennsylvania Dutch Country This is a card with […]
Continue Reading 5 Vintage Amish Postcard Scenes
Swartzentruber Amish homes are among the very plainest. They tend to fetch lower prices when put on the market, in part due to their lack of basic amenities including not just electricity but bathrooms and plumbing. This Swartzentruber home was last listed at $130,000 in spring 2019, though the Zillow listing now has its “Zestimate” […]
Continue Reading An “English-Ready” Swartzentruber Amish Home (15 Photos)
Goot Essa is an Amish business in Centre County, PA that sells 19 types of cheeses. Though this is a traditional Amish dairy – and not in the Lancaster County area – they’ve built a nice reach into some upscale markets. Prior to the lockdown, they were selling their offerings to hundreds of East Coast […]
Continue Reading Goot Essa: Buy Amish Cheese Direct Online
I promised I would follow up if I got more information on the Go Fund Me for Millie, described as a 27-year-old woman who left her Amish community, in what looks to be Delaware. A number of you were skeptical that this was real, which I can understand. While I reached out via two different […]
Continue Reading Is “Millie” Real? Ex-Amish Fundraiser Follow-Up (Updated)
This caught my eye yesterday. I’ve not often seen an online fundraiser for a person who left his or her Amish community. But that’s what this is, for a 27-year-old woman named Millie: Hi everyone, Millie may the decision to leave the Amish very recently. She had been shunned by her family and they would […]
Continue Reading A Go Fund Me For An “Amish Escapee”?
There is an interesting discussion on the Ag Talk forum about Amish pies. The original post is basically a complaint that pies made by the Amish in the poster’s area of central New York are not very good. An excerpt: I’ve tried 3 different Amish sources 2 on farms and one at a Amish store. Yesterday […]
Continue Reading Beware of Amish-Made Pies?
Reader Romain Speisser has shared a guest post today on the history of the Amish in his region of Alsace in France. Romain writes about the “Heftler” people and some of the significant figures of the area – as well as one important oak tree over two centuries old. I share with you Romain’s post […]
Continue Reading Amish History: Anabaptists in Salm (Alsace)
This is the second Colorado Amish home we’ve seen here. In June we looked at a home in Westcliffe in Custer County, set against some stunning mountain views. This home is located in a different community in the state – Manassa in Conejos County, over a two-hour drive away. Both are within in the vicinity […]
Continue Reading Inside A Rustic Colorado Amish Home (14 Photos)
Reader “The other Erik” recently asked concerning the Linda Stoltzfoos case: How focused on this are Amish people? I’ve noticed a lot of recent articles on this website about this topic. That made me wonder: Are the local Amish, and those in more distant settlements, paying a lot of attention to this crime? What are […]
Continue Reading Amish Thoughts On The Linda Stoltzfoos Disappearance
A while back a reader asked if Amish obituaries are made public. I responded with a post on the topic. I see them appear in news feeds nearly daily. They are published in newspapers and find their way online. With that in mind this recent obituary caught my eye for two reasons. One is that […]
Continue Reading An Amish Obituary: Amos S. Zook, Age 93
This is an absorbing 42-minute documentary on the Little Belize Mennonite colony. Little Belize is the home of approximately 3,000 Old Colony Mennonites, living on about 100 square kilometers of land. The Old Colony Mennonites are Plain Anabaptist cousins of the Amish, with numerous similarities to them. The producers of the documentary, made for the […]
Continue Reading Life In A Belize Mennonite Colony (Documentary)
Here’s a simple video showing an Amish family harvesting corn row-by-row using a horse-drawn corn binder. Nice aerial scenes on a beautiful day. Rather than using a modern industrial-sized corn harvester, Amish family farmers harvest corn by this more laborious method. More than one pair of hands is needed which ensures it is a family […]
Continue Reading Amish Corn Harvest From Above (Video)
There are two Amish auctions I’d like to bring to your attention, both scheduled for September 5th. The first, in Seymour, Missouri, Iowa, is the 11th annual school benefit auction. We can see from the sale bill (partially pictured below; full version here) that this sale has a pretty extensive list of items as well […]
Continue Reading Two Upcoming Amish Auctions (Iowa & Indiana)
As it does around this time each year, the Young Center at Elizabethtown College has just published its Amish population estimates for 2020. The total estimated Amish population is 350,665, found in 31 states, four Canadian provinces, and two South American countries. Some interesting takeaways from the figures: 1. Four Large Settlements. The largest settlement, […]
Continue Reading The Amish Population Has Doubled Since 2000 – Now Exceeds 350,000 (2020 Amish Population Figures)
As we approach two months since Linda was last seen, Fox 43 has published an article containing a summary of details from testimony given at Justo Smoker’s preliminary hearing August 5, along with a new video report. There were three new points to me in the bullet summary below, which actually appeared following the hearing. […]
Continue Reading Additional Testimony Details On The Linda Stoltzfoos Case
A northern Indiana Amish farmer lost 241 of 270 calves in a devastating fire on August 5th. But he is already on the way to getting back on his feet, thanks to help from the community. From WNDU: While the sadness of the event still lingers, there’s also a sign of a hope. The rubble […]
Continue Reading Calf Barn Already Rebuilt Following Devastating Fire
Another hit-and-run on an Amish buggy. This one happened yesterday in Clare County, Michigan, a place we recently covered here. From 9and10news.com: The Clare County Sheriff’s Department is asking for help to find whoever was behind the wheel during a hit-and-run with an Amish buggy. Deputies says it happened Sunday on Beaverton Road. They believe […]
Continue Reading Authorities Seek Hit & Run Driver (Clare County, MI)
How about another drone video to finish out the week. This one is quite different from the last one by the 717 Drone Guys, which gave us soaring views over Lancaster County Amish farms. In this video they are back at Kissel Hill Fruit Farm – showing some human-level views of the Amish business’ Saturday […]
Continue Reading An Up-Close Look At An Amish Food Business (Drone Video)
“I grew up Amish…and for somebody that never was Amish, and goes Amish, I have no way of telling you what that guy would have to go through,” he laughs. “I imagine it would be pretty tough.” That’s Swartzentruber Amishman Dennis Hershberger discussing Amish life, from a very nicely done 8-minute video showing us the […]
Continue Reading An Interview With Swartzentruber Amishman Dennis Hershberger (Video)
Well, not exactly like the Amish, if you’re ordering online. But I still wanted to draw your attention to Shetler’s Wholesale, a business based in Indiana with a long history of selling household goods to Amish via traditional catalogs. “Wholesale” is in the name, but they sell retail to individuals. They have now launched an […]
Continue Reading Shop Like The Amish At Shetler’s Wholesale (Now Online)
The planned prayer ride for Linda Stoltzfoos took place Saturday, and had quite a turnout. The riders traveled 30 miles, from Ephrata to Bird-in-Hand, the area where Linda was last seen. From WFMZ: Thousands of bikers from across the country traveled to Lancaster County this weekend. They were all wearing yellow, which is 18-year-old Linda […]
Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos Prayer Ride Draws Thousands In Yellow, From As Far Away As California (Video)
I found an Amish home listing in The First State, aka Delaware. This state of just three counties has just one Amish community, but it is a long-lived one. It’s located next to the city of Dover, which is one reason we might be finding this particular home advertisement online. That it, the settlement’s proximity […]
Continue Reading Inside A Delaware Amish Home (14 Photos)
Over 200 calves died following an explosion and fire which ravaged an Amish farmer’s barn yesterday. From WNDU: ELKHART COUNTY, Ind. (WNDU) – An Amish calf barn caught on fire this afternoon, killing the majority of the family’s calves. The call came in around 4:30 p.m. Crews responded to the 59000 block of State Road […]
Continue Reading Over 200 Calves Lost In Amish Barn Fire
The judge at a preliminary hearing yesterday found that there was enough evidence to move forward with a trial in the case of Linda Stoltzfoos’ disappearance. Justo Smoker will be tried for felony kidnapping and misdemeanor imprisonment. Detective Christopher Jones testified. Via Penn Live: “She was nice, caring and always wanted to know about other […]
Continue Reading Justo Smoker Ordered To Stand Trial On Charges Of Kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos
The family of a 23-year-old Pennsylvania Amish man killed in an April hit-and-run may be closer to finding answers in a case described as having a “number of strange twists”. From WJAC: CENTRE COUNTY, Pa. (WJAC) — It’s been nearly three and half months since an Amish man was killed in a hit-and-run crash on […]
Continue Reading Investigators Closer To Answers In Deadly PA Hit & Run?
This was filmed in Pinecraft Park by Ernie Bontrager, who made many Amish-themed films before his recent passing. This group of older folks sing a hymn which Ed describes as a funeral song. The hymn has a joyful feel and theme: “God Be With You Til We Meet Again.” Ed filmed this sitting amongst the […]
Continue Reading Older Amish Folks Singing: “God Be With You Til We Meet Again” (Video)
Amish children in larger communities benefit from bookmobiles, which travel around their settlements delivering a mobile library to eager young readers. The bookmobile might seem like a relic of a bygone time – especially when we have more reading available to us in libraries, both online and off, than ever before. But for a community of […]
Continue Reading “Amish Bookmobile” Grounded Due To Coronavirus
This is a neat and tidy Pennsylvania Amish home of 2,282 square feet, found in the Smicksburg community. There was a second home on the same lane for sale as well, probably the neighboring place. I imagine those might have been related families who moved away to a new settlement together. Smicksburg (Indiana County) is […]
Continue Reading Look Inside A Pennsylvania Amish Home (13 Photos)
Linda Stoltzfoos‘ uncle Mervin Fisher is responsible for the search Facebook page and has been the public face of the family, despite not knowing Linda personally. Though of an Amish background, Merv is not a member of an Amish church. This means he can deal with the media in ways that many of his Amish […]
Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos Update: Uncle Mervin Says “Thank You” (Video); Search Continues; August 8 Prayer Ride
Yoder Brothers is an Amish auction company run by brothers Willis and Leroy Yoder. I recently came across some upcoming auction listings, and even some videos of the brothers on YouTube. The pair were also profiled in a 2017 Goshen News article, on the occasion of Willis being inducted into the Michigan Auction Hall of […]
Continue Reading Yoder Brothers Auctions
Riehl is not the most common of Amish names. You’re most likely to come across it in Lancaster County, and that community’s daughter settlements, but even then it is far outnumbered by all the Stoltzfuses, Fishers, and Zooks. The Riehl surname is noteworthy for having one of the more famous “Amish origin” stories of any […]
Continue Reading Amish History: The Ludwig Riehl Story
Following the peach harvest video, here’s another from the 717 Drone Guys. I have expressed mixed feelings about drones in the past, but I have to say this outfit makes some really nice clips. In this one they necessarily get the drone up a lot higher in the air. We follow a buggy down the […]
Continue Reading Lancaster Buggy At Sunset (Drone Video)
I’m not loving sharing all these bad happenings on the roads with you. But after posting the sad case of a drunk driver who killed a young Amish father in Wisconsin last week, I surely can’t overlook this latest story. An 18-year-old Amish male was charged for “recklessly operating a buggy while drunk.” I don’t […]
Continue Reading Amish 18-Year-Old Runs Stop Sign While Drunk, Buggy Tips Over, Ejects Passengers
I was shocked to see this obituary today. I immediately recognized the photo from the back of her book. Lillian Fern Stoltzfus wrote a very nice guide to learning Pennsylvania Dutch called Speaking Amish. I don’t believe I ever met Lillian or anyone in her family, but have known of her for years. I would […]
Continue Reading Lillian Fern Stoltzfus 1974 – 2020
An Amish store in Perry County, Pennsylvania happens to be up for sale right now. This is Stoney Ridge Foods, which advertises itself as selling both discount and bulk foods. There are some nice photos showing both the exterior and interior at a site called Land and Farm. Amish stores for sale online are even […]
Continue Reading Inside An Amish Food Store (21 Photos)
The large organized searches for Linda Stoltzfoos have been stopped at this time according to the Facebook page dedicated to Linda’s search (“postponed until farther [sic] notice from authorities to resume directed searches in specific areas”). The latest significant news came from last Thursday’s press conference, in which new photos of Smoker’s car were released, […]
Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos’ Family Asks For Prayers & Letters
In today’s Slice of Amish Life, an Amishman approaches the End Of The Commons General Store in the Geauga County, Ohio community, with what looks like his daughter in tow. This is not an Amish business, and has more of a touristic feel. But I would suppose it’s one that Amish living nearby would visit […]
Continue Reading Slice Of Amish Life: End Of The Commons
A disturbing story reported yesterday out of upstate New York: TOWN OF DEKALB, N.Y. (WWNY) – State Police are investigating suspicious incidents just outside the St. Lawrence County village of Richville last Wednesday. Troopers said a man and woman reportedly pulled into the driveway of an Amish household on Welch Road, where a sign was […]
Continue Reading Suspicious Couple Visit NY Amish Home, Attempt To Lure 13-Year-Old Girl Into Car
Pennsylvania peach season is just getting into full swing. This is a nice simple video of an Amish family bringing in a haul of peaches, to be sold at their farm market. In the video we see two children and presumably their father gathering peaches and moving them around in a horse-drawn wagon. The […]
Continue Reading Amish Peach Harvest (Video)
In February we posted about Philip E. Riehl, a now-excommunicated Mennonite man who defrauded Mennonite and Amish investors to the tune of $60 million, in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in state history. Riehl was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison. From the Allentown Morning Call: BERKS COUNTY — An accountant who […]
Continue Reading Man Who Defrauded Mennonites & Amish In $60 Million Scheme Sentenced To 10 Years
Amish Cook columnist Gloria Yoder just had a baby boy and is off for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, editor Kevin Williams chose a nice old column of Gloria’s to run while she’s on break – on how she and her husband Daniel began dating. First, Gloria describes the dating norms in her […]
Continue Reading An Amish First Date
Update 2: Scratch the below update, I should not have stated it so confidently. I have no idea how large this home is, but now on third look I would say it is larger than 1,840 square feet and maybe the first number was in fact correct. I’ll add something further I learned on basements […]
Continue Reading Inside A 5,500 1,840 ??-Square-Foot Amish Home (23 Photos)
I just watched a press conference on the Linda Stoltzfoos disappearance, which concluded less than an hour ago. Four people spoke – the Lancaster County DA, East Lampeter PD Chief, a PA State Trooper, and an FBI agent on the case. Lancaster County DA Karen Adams repeated that they still have reason to believe Linda […]
Continue Reading New Images Of Smoker’s Car; Police Ask 5 Lancaster Townships For Home Surveillance Footage (Updated)
The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has completed an extensive study – the Statewide Amish Travel Study – examining road safety in the Buckeye State. The study is presumably the precursor to safety improvement projects for the state’s 70,000+ residents who travel by horse-and-buggy. The study found that over 700 accidents occurred on Ohio’s state […]
Continue Reading The 3 Biggest Road Safety Dangers – According To Ohio Amish
This video is titled “Amish Singing On Amtrak”. The quality is passable though not great. But I couldn’t pass up sharing it. This video combines two themes seen here in recent months – Amish singing and Amish on trains. The men singing do appear to be Amish. I count at least three of them. The […]
Continue Reading Amish Singing On Amtrak (Video)
The York Daily Record has published more details on Linda Stoltzfoos’ disappearance. Here are some excerpts. About the day she disappeared: Lloyd Stoltzfoos told the officer that his daughter was supposed to go to youth group after church the previous day but never made it. She did not come home to change her clothes […]
Continue Reading More Details On Linda Stoltzfoos’ Disappearance
Following our look at the Buchanan County, Iowa Amish business map, reader Denise Joyal shares her own visit to the community, including photos and more info on some of the stores there. On the map are listed nearly 50 businesses. Denise informs us below that the map doesn’t quite have all the shops there. I […]
Continue Reading Visiting Amish Stores In Buchanan County, Iowa (17 Photos)
News just broke this afternoon: 34-year-old Lancaster County resident Justo Smoker was arrested last night and charged with kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos. A vehicle resembling Smoker’s was seen by multiple witnesses in the area of Gap with an Amish female in the passenger seat on the afternoon Linda went missing. Linda remains missing, and “investigators have […]
Continue Reading Man Arrested & Charged With Kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos; Linda Still Missing
It’s been nearly three weeks since Linda Stoltzfoos disappeared on June 21. The FBI is now offering a monetary reward for information. From crimewatchpa.com: The East Lampeter Township Police Department and the FBI continue to ask for the public’s assistance in locating Linda Stoltzfoos. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for […]
Continue Reading FBI Offers $10,000 Reward For Linda Stoltzfoos Info
This week’s Amish home comes from Wisconsin. It is a 3-bedroom and 1-bathroom home of about 1600 square feet, sitting on almost 3 acres of land. It last sold for just $45,000 in 2018. This is in Waushara County, in central WI. This place is pleasant-ish inside, but I will not pretend that this is […]
Continue Reading Inside A $45,000 Amish Home (16 Photos)
You might have come across a “See Rock City” barn before. This was an advertising campaign created by a man named Garnet Carter and his wife Freida to promote their Rock City Gardens attraction, located just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. A number of these barns still exist, though the number is dwindling. These advertisements started appearing […]
Continue Reading Slice of Amish Life: See Rock City
Low milk prices have been an issue for Amish farmers for quite a while now, pushing some out of the dairy business. So I was happy to see this story about Amish in the Conewango Valley, NY settlement taking some control back by going in strong on a revamped cheese plant. The facility manager explains: […]
Continue Reading Amish Push Back Against Low Milk Prices With Cheese Factory
From the AP: SPARTA, Pa. (AP) — A hit-and-run crash involving an SUV and a horse-drawn Amish buggy left two adults and two young children in the buggy seriously injured. Pennsylvania state police say the accident in Sparta occurred shortly before 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The SUV struck the buggy from behind and then fled the […]
Continue Reading Hit-and-Run Seriously Injures Amish Adult & 2 Babies
Today a look inside a simple and plain Amish home in Springboro, Pennsylvania. This is in Crawford County in the northwest corner of the state. You’ll find Amish scattered across this county – there are six settlements, all or part of which lie within its borders. This looks like it is the settlement near Conneautville, […]
Continue Reading Inside A Plain Pennsylvania Amish Home (18 Photos)
The FBI got involved in the Linda Stoltzfoos search last week. It was not said exactly what they were doing in the case. One of their tasks has now been revealed – they’ve created a “composite photo” showing what Linda might look like with an “English” appearance: They’ve basically simulated an image of Linda with […]
Continue Reading FBI Releases Composite Photo Showing Linda Stoltzfoos In English Clothing
Another Amish business map to share – this one from the sizeable settlement in Buchanan County, Iowa (Hazleton). The area promotes the local “Amish Boulevard” – a stretch of county road running through the heart of the community (it’s W13 on the map below). On this map you’ll find nearly 50 Amish businesses. You can […]
Continue Reading Amish Business Map (Buchanan County, Iowa)
Following up on a story from May, a man who was attacked by a cow on an Amish farm has been recovering. There was little info in the initial report on injuries suffered by Harley “Chubby” Fry. It turns out he was hurt badly. Fry was essentially paralyzed after the attack in central PA: Firefighters […]
Continue Reading Man Paralyzed After Amish Farm Cow Attack Recovering
Of course, coronavirus cases are increasing in some places. There is zero surprise in that, despite the way some headlines might be written to suggest otherwise. And in Holmes County, which thrives on Amish-themed tourism, cases have increased since “reopening” as well. Local officials are not pinning this on the return of tourism, however. From […]
Continue Reading Holmes County Officials: Coronavirus Increase Not Due To Tourism
I put “Amish tourism” in quotes in the title because those two words usually mean non-Amish tourists visiting Amish areas. But this is the other, less-common meaning – Amish as tourists themselves. It turns out a good number of Amish people are rather fond of a Colorado hot springs resort town named Glenwood Springs, which […]
Continue Reading “Amish Tourism” To Colorado Town Hit By Amtrak Cuts
Authorities are asking travelers for help in the Linda Stoltzfoos search. If you were on any of these five Lancaster County roads on June 21 between 8 AM and 4 PM, please contact the East Lampeter Township Police Department at 717-291-4676: Mill Creek School Road Stumptown Road Gibbons Road Beechdale Road Millcreek Road Map via […]
Continue Reading Were you on any of these 5 roads on June 21? Please contact police (Linda Stoltzfoos search)
This video was shot in an Amish kitchen – on the farm where the movie Witness was filmed in the 1980s. In it, Martha Beiler takes us through making a large batch of chicken pot pie. We don’t see her face at any point, but we do see what she’s doing and hear her speak […]
Continue Reading Making Chicken Pot Pie For 70 In A Lancaster Amish Kitchen (Video)
The York Daily Record has published an article providing a bit more insight on the search for Linda Stoltzfoos. We get comments from two people – Donald Kraybill, author and expert on the Amish, and Merv Fisher, Linda’s uncle. This follows Saturday’s update on FBI and local police involvement, including processing 100s of incoming tips. First, […]
Continue Reading Merv Fisher & Donald Kraybill On The Linda Stoltzfoos Search
Day 6 since Linda Stoltzfoos was last seen. Readers have been asking for updates on the situation. So I’ll share the freshest reporting on it. These points are taken from an article yesterday at Lancaster Online: Authorities have gotten hundreds of tips. Many are vague, but they are processed to see if patterns develop East […]
Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos Update
In a post last week, I mentioned visiting Manhattan with my friend Ben Riehl in search of the dealers where his father David once sold antique Amish quilts. I also shared a bit from his related 2018 talk at Elizabethtown College. Ben has kindly passed along a written version of that talk which I’ve posted […]
Continue Reading Ben Riehl On His Father David
Something unusual today. I managed to find a listing for an Amish home in Colorado (not currently for sale). This won’t remind you much of other homes we’ve seen (at least not on the outside). This is the Westcliffe community in Custer County. Not a lot of Amish in the Centennial State – only five […]
Continue Reading Inside A Colorado Amish “Mini-Ranch” Home (22 Photos)
The FBI has now joined in on day 3 of the search for Linda Stoltzfoos. Via Lancaster Online: The FBI has joined East Lampeter Township police as the search for a missing 18-year-old woman enters day 3, according to East Lampeter Township police. Linda Stoltzfoos, of East Lampeter Township, was last seen in Bird-in-Hand wearing […]
Continue Reading FBI Joins Search For Linda Stoltzfoos
I just found this unusual photo while checking out Amish homes for sale online. I have often seen similar flags attached to pony carts and other smaller vehicles used by Amish. Those are pretty common in larger communities like Holmes County (and a good idea there, considering the area’s hilly terrain). But I’ve never seen […]
Continue Reading Orange Buggy Flags?
Reader Jerry, an avid Amish auction-goer, is back on the Amish auction trail. He recently attended a sale held by Nebraska Amish — aka “white-topper” Amish, which is what some call them on account of their buggies with white tops. This auction happened Saturday at a Zook farm on Back Mountain Road in Milroy, Pennsylvania […]
Continue Reading At A “White-Topper” Auction (28 Photos)
18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos went missing Sunday after failing to come home after church. Police believe she “may be at risk for harm or injury.” From WGAL: BIRD IN HAND, Pa. — Police in Lancaster County are looking for a missing 18-year-old woman, who was last seen on Sunday. East Lampeter Township Police issued the following […]
Continue Reading Search Ongoing For Missing Lancaster Amish Teen Girl (Updated)
From Cleveland 19 News: CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – The Ashland County Health Department says a recent outbreak affecting the area’s Amish community stems from a wedding. The outbreak, which is declared when at least two or more individuals test positive for an infectious disease like COVID-19, in the Loudonville area originated from an Ashland County […]
Continue Reading Ohio COVID-19 Outbreak Traced To Amish Wedding
A look at one of Kentucky‘s oldest Amish settlements – plus another Amish business map to add to the growing collection. This one is in Crittenden County, near the town of Marion. There are four church districts; Amish have been here for over 40 years. An article which ran in the Crittenden Press in 2018 […]
Continue Reading The Amish Of Crittenden County, Kentucky
On the whole, the Amish are avid hunters. In Nature & The Environment in Amish Life, one Amishman puts plainly how much hunting mattered in his community: “When I was growing up, if you didn’t hunt, it was almost as if you didn’t belong.” (p. 148). Why does hunting appeal to the Amish? For one, […]
Continue Reading 5 Facts On The Amish & Hunting
David Riehl is a person I’d heard a lot about – both reading his story, and directly from his family. David was a key figure in the development of the Amish quilt industry. His is one of the more unusual tales of an Amish person crafting a successful enterprise – by taking his goods right […]
Continue Reading David Riehl, Amish Quilt Dealer (1987)
This isn’t a map, but it is a nice directory giving addresses of 26 Amish businesses in Clare County, Michigan. There are three Amish communities with a presence in Clare County. I believe the businesses here are from the more progressive of the two larger ones. That settlement has families both in Clare County, and […]
Continue Reading 26 Amish Businesses (Clare County, Michigan)
Several years back Amish in Illinois made news when they moved the state’s oldest-known Amish home using horsepower (that is, at least part of the way): This was originally the home of an Amishman named Moses Yoder, and dates to 1865. The Moses Yoder house is joined by a second historic home, the Daniel […]
Continue Reading Two Historic Amish Homes
From the Wooster Daily Record: MILLERSBURG — Coronavirus cases in Holmes County have spiked in recent weeks after the county spent months in the single digits. The Ohio Department of Health reported on Friday that 84 cases had been detected in the county, up from 15 cases a month ago. The county has reported three […]
Continue Reading Coronavirus Increases Among Amish: Two Responses
This is the largest and most expensive of the properties we’ve seen from the batch of 7 Amish homes on the market in Fleming County, KY. While we’ve looked at a couple of small houses and even a 21-acre “baby farm“, today’s property could be considered more the real deal as far as Amish farms […]
Continue Reading A 91-Acre Amish “Cattle Farm” & Home (13 Photos)
A case that we’ve followed for some time now reached another point in its journey through the court system. On Monday a Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the original decision. The article in the Post Bulletin summarizes recent events in the matter: The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld a ruling Monday that would require four […]
Continue Reading Minnesota Amish Lose Appeal In “Gray Water” Case
This is another great photo by Cindy Cornett Seigle. I can’t say I’ve ever encountered this exact sight coming down the road – at least not at this size. These guys are riding atop piles of hay that have them literally two – or is it three – stories up in the air. I assume […]
Continue Reading Slice Of Amish Life: Moving Mountains Of Hay
Here’s a simple article from the Alberta Press giving us a look at the Amish approach to “retirement” and aging. This comes from the Prince Edward Island settlement at Dundas. It largely consists of an interview with James Kuepfer, 35, and his father Peter (as an aside, note Kuepfer is not a common name among […]
Continue Reading An Amish View On Aging & Elder Care
So Amish auctions returning is one sign that things are getting back to normal – at least in some places. Below I’ve posted the bill for a school sale this Saturday in Sheldon, Wisconsin (Rusk County). This is not the only Amish auction activity out there. The Kootenai Amish School Auction will also take place […]
Continue Reading Amish Auctions Happening In Some States; Mud Sales Remain Stuck In The Mud
While we’ve lately featured numerous videos of Amish singing, we haven’t had too many examples of church singing here. If you haven’t heard Amish church singing before, today’s clip of Amish singing Lebt Friedsam, by Ed Yoder, will give you a sense of what it is like. A song leader opens with the first notes […]
Continue Reading Amish Church Singing: Lebt Friedsam (Audio)
I’m seeing more and more examples of Amish business maps, both online and off. To give a few examples, there are the multiple maps in Ethridge, Tennessee, the map we saw last week from the small Whitefield, Maine community, and this online map of the Conewango Valley, New York settlement, with over 180 Amish businesses […]
Continue Reading Amish Business Map – Livingston County, New York
A very important person as regards Amish religious freedom passed away a month ago. I’m not sure how many Amish people know of William C. Lindholm today, but he was instrumental to the freedoms Amish now have in educating their children. Young Center Senior Scholar Steven Nolt shares the following on Lindholm and his relevance […]
Continue Reading William C. Lindholm 1932 – 2020
I’m a little puzzled by this home. It’s listed as having five bedrooms. But we don’t see any of them in the photos provided. We do see, however, other rooms, which are quite airy and spacious. This one is from the collection of 7 Kentucky homes for sale, which we’ve been looking at the past […]
Continue Reading Inside A Small-But-Spacious Amish Home (22 Photos)
We’ve got two winners today of Ira Wagler’s Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father. If you missed it, Ira discussed the book in our interview last week. This book follows up Ira’s first memoir Growing Up Amish. We also have the full prologue of Broken Roads to share with you today. Thanks to Ira […]
Continue Reading Broken Roads Book Winners & Excerpt
This happened Wednesday in the Smyrna, Maine community. Two young men were ejected from the buggy. One was killed; the second has critical injuries. “The crash is still under investigation, but it appears that speed was a factor,” said Aroostook County Sheriff Shawn Gillen. From the Bangor Daily News: NEW LIMERICK, Maine — A 25-year-old […]
Continue Reading Buggy Struck From Behind In Smyrna, Maine; One Killed
York College professor Charles A. Kauffman has a nice article just out in the York Daily Record on the Pennsylvania Dutch language. I pulled five excerpts answering questions on the language – including examples of Pennsylvania Dutch phrases, and what exactly is meant by “Dutchified” English. I’ve also included three videos, giving examples of Pennsylvania […]
Continue Reading What Is “Dutchified” English? 5 Questions Answered On Pennsylvania Dutch
Well, not wanted by me, but by someone who’s posted a job offer on freelancing site Upwork. This is just a quirky thing I came across in my Amish news feed today. I wondered some years ago if the appeal of Amish romance would continue. Going by anecdotal evidence at least, the genre appears to […]
Continue Reading Wanted: Amish Romance Plot Writer?
A news blurb about an accident in Lancaster County several days ago contained few details. An English friend of the family involved has just filled out the story. Three Amish sibling children were hit by a pickup truck while driving the buggy to church in Bart Township, at around 7:30 Sunday morning. Parents Dave and […]
Continue Reading Fundraiser & Card Shower For Amanda King & Family (Updated)
Back one more time with another edition of five Amish surname histories. If you missed previous posts, you can find them here: Part 1 (Beachy, Swartzentruber, Lapp, Hostetler, Stoltzfus) Part 2 (Zook, Gingerich, Troyer, King, Lehman) Part 3 (Yoder, Schrock, Fisher, Stutzman, Wagler) These are excerpted from Joseph Stoll’s series “Amish and Mennonite Family Names,” […]
Continue Reading The Stories Of 5 Common Amish Family Names (Part 4)
A video making the media rounds supposedly shows Amish singers in Minneapolis singing a hymn as they hold signs related to the death of George Floyd. The people in the clip were in several places described as “Amish” – possibly due to the label at least one YouTube uploader gave the video, and those writing […]
Continue Reading Not Amish Singers (Updated)
Marlene Miller joined the Amish at age 23, married and had ten children. She wrote about her life experience in Grace Called Me Home, later republished as Called to Be Amish: My Journey from Head Majorette to the Old Order. I just learned yesterday that Marlene passed away Saturday from cancer, at the age of […]
Continue Reading Marlene Miller 1944 – 2020
I hadn’t heard the term “baby farm” before coming across it in this listing, and I’m not sure if the Amish would use it themselves (I doubt it). But that’s how this home, one of the seven Hillsboro, KY Amish homes for sale, is described. It looks like “baby farm” might just refer to its […]
Continue Reading Inside An Amish “Baby Farm” Home (26 Photos)
Ira Wagler‘s best-selling 2011 memoir Growing Up Amish told the story of his life as a young man, and his eventual decision to leave the Amish behind. Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father is his just-released follow-up. It covers subsequent events in his life, and in particular, his relationship with his father, David L. […]
Continue Reading Ira Wagler on Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father (Interview & Giveaway)
This photo shows Amish people getting off an Amtrak train in Portland, Oregon. In states without Amish settlements (like Oregon), public transit stations are among the few places you’re likely to see Amish folks (here’s another example from Alabama). This shot, taken in 2011, captures a moment – perhaps we’re witnessing that happy relief at […]
Continue Reading Slice Of Amish Life: Disembarking In Portland
“Modem” and “Log on” are my favorites. I came across this old Facebook post by Sol’s in Berlin, a store in the heart of Holmes County, sharing the “Amishman’s Guide to Computer Lingo“. I’m not sure who the original author is, but this appeared in the Vendor, a Plain community newspaper. It was passed on […]
Continue Reading “An Amishman’s Guide To Computer Lingo”
As we learned in last year’s post on 5 interesting facts about Lehman’s, the customer makeup of this simple products retailer is more English than Amish (by a factor of 4 to 1). And the product line reflects this to some extent. The company has a wide array of products fitting the “old-fashioned/off-grid” concept. But […]
Continue Reading 6 Lehman’s Products Used By The Amish
Today a closer look at another of the seven Amish homes for sale in Fleming County, Kentucky. This little Amish starter is by far the smallest of the bunch, at just two bedrooms and 768 square feet. It actually looks more like a small shop from this angle which I shared in the original post. […]
Continue Reading Inside A Very Small (768 ft2) Amish Home (17 Photos)
Luckily, it was just the horse this time. This happened in Tuscola County, in Michigan’s “thumb”. From mlive.com: CARO, MI — A driver distracted by his cellphone caused a motor vehicle-buggy collision, leaving a horse dead and a woman hospitalized, police said. About 11 a.m. on Friday, May 15, Tuscola County Sheriff’s deputies responded to […]
Continue Reading Driver Hits Buggy While Sending Email On Phone, Kills Horse
Here’s another Amish musical performance. This one stands out for two reasons – instruments, and a big audience. The scene is the Mt. Hope Kidney Fund Auction in Mt. Hope, Ohio. You can see by the backs of heads that this crowd is filled with Amish people. On stage are three Amish girls. Recently we […]
Continue Reading Amish Girl Musical Group Plays For Plain Crowd (Video)
This is a photo I came across recently on Flickr. Two Amish men try out hats at Yoder Department Store in Shipshewana, Indiana. What do you notice here? First, briefly on the location. Yoder’s is a department store that sells men’s and women’s clothing as well as fabrics and sewing supplies. The clientele is both Amish […]
Continue Reading Slice Of Amish Life: Trying On Hats At Yoder’s
Two days ago, reader Mike Sparks visited the Amish settlement at Fredericktown/Bellville, in Knox County, Ohio. He shares his visit and photos with us today. You might remember Mike’s previous trips to Ashland County and Holmes County. This is far from the only Amish community in Knox County. In fact the county has proven quite […]
Continue Reading A Visit To The Amish Of Knox County, OH (28 Photos)
Last week we saw Amish men building a barn, this week they are moving one. Over the past week or so a video showing Amish men moving a pole barn has gone viral. I noticed today even the big UK media started covering it. However, the original viral clip is not great. The phone is […]
Continue Reading Amish Men Move A Barn – Video (Best Version)
In another sign of things heading in the direction of “normal”, the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio (Holmes County) re-opened this week. The center says in a Facebook post that they have made a few upgrades in the past months. This is the place where you’ll find the giant “cyclorama” painting of […]
Continue Reading Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center Re-Opens (Holmes County)
I came across something that got my attention while searching for Amish homes to share with you. Right now there are at least 7 Amish homes for sale in the community at Hillsboro, Kentucky (Fleming County). What’s going on here? It looks like a lot of people are moving out of the area for some […]
Continue Reading 7 Amish Homes For Sale In One Community (40 Photos)
We’ve got five more histories of common Amish surnames today. If you missed previous editions, here’s Part 1 (Beachy, Swartzentruber, Lapp, Hostetler, Stoltzfus) and Part 2 (Zook, Gingerich, Troyer, King, Lehman). The following histories are from the Family Life series “Amish and Mennonite Family Names” by Joseph Stoll, which ran from December 1968 to March […]
Continue Reading The Stories of 5 Common Amish Family Names (Part 3)
Have you heard of cows attacking humans before? Bulls, sure, but run-of-the-mill dairy cows? Well, this happened yesterday in central PA: ELIMSPORT — A man, believed to be in his 70s, was recovering from injuries he suffered Monday afternoon when a dairy cow — weighing at least 1,000 pounds — suddenly attacked him and momentarily […]
Continue Reading Cow Attacks Man At Amish Farm
Back in February I shared with you 57 Amish businesses you can visit in Ethridge, Tennessee. This was based on a visitor’s map given out at a local business. Reader Al in KY has gone one better, and passed along a much fuller guide to Amish businesses in the community for your enjoyment. Says Al: […]
Continue Reading Pot Holders, Crib Quilts, Pickled Okra & More: A Week’s Worth Of Amish Home Businesses
In another sign that business is on the way back in Amish and other areas, Amish Acres is reopening following re-branding as The Barns at Nappanee: They got a small taste of business by selling about 100 take home meals Saturday for Mother’s Day. And plan to open the restaurant at 50 percent capacity next […]
Continue Reading Amish Acres Reopens Friday As The Barns At Nappanee
Cool video. Amish in Vernon County, Wisconsin put up a barn over the course of twelve hours – condensed into a two-minute video. This time-lapse clip from 2016 shows the whole thing go up, interspersed with some still photos. Video at the bottom (credit Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). This barn is 32 x 48 feet in […]
Continue Reading An Amish Barn Raising: 12 Hours In 2 Minutes (Time-Lapse Video)
This is an interesting Amish home. The outside looks like the home of a family in a plain or plain-ish community — but the inside suggests otherwise. The place is Bonaparte, Iowa (Van Buren County), a settlement of two church districts. The exterior design of the home is a very simple boxy architectural look, which […]
Continue Reading Inside An Iowa Amish Home (19 Photos)
Last week we heard two Amish sisters singing Amazing Grace, accompanied by one sister’s guitar playing. There were actually several more songs from that same after-dinner session that I wanted to share with you. It sounds like these lucky diners got a nice little concert. These songs are all a bit peppier than the slower […]
Continue Reading 3 More Songs From The Singing Amish Sisters
With May upon us, new life is springing up everywhere we look — perhaps nowhere more apparent than in our gardens. And in Amish communities, it’s a rare home without a garden of some sort. But Amish homes are not all the same, and the typical garden you see in one community may be different […]
Continue Reading 4 Kinds Of Amish Gardens
For the past several days I have been checking news sources regularly hoping for a miracle. But after the child wasn’t found the first evening, it was harder and harder to see a happy outcome for that one unaccounted-for girl or boy. I was really hoping not to see this…but the sad news finally broke […]
Continue Reading Fifth Child Found Deceased Following Buggy Creek Accident (UPDATED)
This is a neat video. Two Amish sisters from Charm, Ohio sing perhaps the best-known of all Christian hymns, “Amazing Grace“. This was filmed after a meal in an Amish home – probably a home business which welcomes in English guests. Why is one of the girls playing guitar? You might have thought that Amish […]
Continue Reading Amish Sisters Sing “Amazing Grace” – With Guitar
With much of the country’s bricks-and-mortar economy shut down, e-commerce has been thriving. Ohio-based Lehman’s – specializing in off-the-grid and old-fashioned items – is one business that has seen its sales spike. The Wooster Daily Record looks at Lehman’s experience over the past couple months. Some products have been in especially high demand. So what […]
Continue Reading Lehman’s Sees Online Sales Surge
A tragic story out of Kentucky yesterday: BATH COUNTY, Ky. (AP) — Authorities in Kentucky say four children died, and one is missing, after a horse and buggy carrying an Amish family was swept away while trying to cross a low-water bridge over a flooded creek. Kentucky State Police say all six people were swept […]
Continue Reading 4 Children Dead, 1 Missing After Buggy Overturns In Creek
Trade publication Furniture Today gives an optimistic look at how the Amish furniture industry is positioned to rebound once states “reopen,” and business can start getting back to something like normal. They spoke with several sources, including Roy Miller who is CEO of a large-for-the-Amish manufacturer which, like many others, has been shut down for […]
Continue Reading Amish Furniture Makers Ready For Restart
Last week we looked at the histories of 5 common Amish family names – Beachy, Swartzentruber, Lapp, Hostetler, and Stoltzfus. Let’s pick back up this week with five more. I used your suggestions from last week’s post comments to put together this week’s list. If there are other names you’d like to see, let us […]
Continue Reading The Stories of 5 Common Amish Family Names (Part 2)
“Kettle will not stay, neither will the windmill.” That was the stipulation attached to this unusual listing for an Amish home in the Seymour, Missouri community. This Amish home caught my eye for several reasons. For one, the community. Seymour is a plain settlement where many homes have a distinctive shingle-siding plain look to them […]
Continue Reading Look Inside A (Very) Plain Amish Home (25 Photos)
A nice article appeared last week in the Maysville Ledger Independent, on the May’s Lick, Kentucky Amish settlement. In it we see a great example of a community helping out newcomers in a time of need. An Amish woman named SaraEtta Coblentz describes how several families from Indiana made the move to this corner of […]
Continue Reading English Neighbors Show Love To Amish In Difficult Time
What kinds of natural remedies do Amish use? The book Plain & Happy Living: Amish Recipes & Remedies by Emma “Jonas Em” Byler covers many of them. It includes chapters like “General Tonics”, “The Herbal Medicine Chest”, and “Poultices, Plasters and Salves”. The more recent book Nature & The Environment in Amish Life also contains […]
Continue Reading 5 Natural Remedies Used By Amish
Members of the Lancaster County Amish community contacted police – after first meeting with church leaders – about alleged cases of sexual abuse in their midst. From Lancaster Online: In what appears to be the first such case of its kind in Lancaster County, an Amish bishop has been charged with failing to report suspected […]
Continue Reading Lancaster Bishop Charged With Failing To Report Suspected Abuse
Some years back I wrote a post on why Amish don’t discuss pregnancy: I never know when Amish friends have one on the way. I show up and there is another baby or one clearly about to happen. And even when it’s obvious, it never comes up, even as a mention. … You’d think it […]
Continue Reading Gloria Yoder On Her Pregnancy & Baby
Over half a century ago, Amish writer Joseph Stoll penned a series of articles on Amish surnames, titled “Amish and Mennonite Family Names.” These were published in the then-fledgling Family Life monthly, in four parts spanning December 1968 to March 1969. I’ve chosen origin stories for five common names to share with you today. Where […]
Continue Reading The Stories Of 5 Common Amish Family Names
We have a look inside a less commonly-seen home today – an Amish log home. It’s not that often that you find Amish families living in log homes. I’ve only come across them on occasion, though they might be more popular in certain settlements. This one is found in the Bonduel, Wisconsin community. The settlement […]
Continue Reading Look Inside An Amish Log Home (22 Photos)
Back when I was tallying up the list of Amish communities I’ve already visited, I got to thinking about the ones I haven’t been to yet, but would like to visit. The list below is my current “top 7.” Maybe one of these is on your list? 1. Conewango Valley, New York This plainer-side Amish […]
Continue Reading 7 Amish Communities I’d Like To Visit
Penn Live reports that a Chester County, PA woman has been accused of stealing 12 puppies from two Amish couples while they were away from home at church service. Charges, filed Monday, come well over a year after the thefts were reported: MIFFLINBURG – A Chester County woman is accused of stealing 12 pug puppies […]
Continue Reading Puppies Stolen From Amish While Away At Church
While preparing today’s other post on stolen Amish puppies, I stumbled across an old article on a bizarre story I’d never heard mention of before. On November 5, 1995, the New York Times reported the following: When the reports of a bank robbery in Wall Township came into the F.B.I. office in Newark on Oct. […]
Continue Reading Serial Bandits Used Amish Disguises In Bank Robberies (1995)
I’ve got another singing video for you today – this one is titled “Amish Grandchildren singing for their Grandpa’s Funeral.” I share it for two reasons. One – it’s another nice example of singing I hope you’ll enjoy. Two – a comment attached to the video caught my eye (more below 🙂 ). First, the […]
Continue Reading Amish Grandpa Funeral Singing (Video…& 3 Myths Debunked)
Just a snippet of a story, but one I found amusing. Tourist carriage horses from around Manhattan’s Central Park have been sent to Amish Country. Frank Riccobono, owner of NYC Horse Carriage Rides, explains: In mid-March, the entire industry made a decision to put our horses on furlough, and I sent my eight horses to […]
Continue Reading Manhattan’s Tourist Carriage Horses Escape To Amish Country
Amish have lived in Pontotoc County, Mississippi for a quarter-century. I made an unplanned visit to this community in late January. It was slightly out of the way, but well worth it. I hope you enjoy these photos and my comments on this Swartzentruber Amish settlement of two church districts. Amish came here in the […]
Continue Reading A Visit To The Amish Of Pontotoc County, Mississippi (25 Photos)
Today’s look inside an Amish home comes from Mecosta County, Michigan. This is clearly a plainer Amish dwelling, especially compared to the Kentucky home we saw last week. This farmhouse (listed on Landflip) is set on a large-by-Amish-standards plot of land – 170 acres. There are numerous outbuildings, barns, and even a guest house on […]
Continue Reading Inside A Plain Michigan Amish Farm Home (18 Photos)
So it looks like a lot of children will be having a short school year this time around, both English and Amish (at least their time physically present in the classroom). But did you know that Amish children traditionally finish school earlier than their English counterparts? In the Lancaster County example, they finish about 3 […]
Continue Reading Amish Minister: Why We Prefer A Short School Year (1966)
Some photos in the latest Kentucky Amish home post caught at least one reader’s eye – showing a lamp in an upstairs bedroom which appeared to have a cord. Meanwhile, in the downstairs portion of the home, we saw more traditional examples of Amish lighting. So I thought it would be interesting to share with […]
Continue Reading 5 Types Of Lamps In Amish Homes (22 Photos)
Walking into the auction with the day growing long and things winding down, I knew exactly what I was looking for. When I spotted a stand with baked goods, I beelined over. The stand owner had set up under the porch of one of the farmhouses on the auction property, there in the Ethridge, Tennessee […]
Continue Reading Baked Goods by Mary Mast (Ethridge, Tennessee)
If you passed this home on the road, would you immediately know it was Amish? Some Amish homes don’t look traditionally “Amish,” but are built in styles more reminiscent of English (non-Amish) country homes. But if you stepped inside, you would definitely spot some Amish accents: You can pick up on some characteristic cues looking […]
Continue Reading Look Inside A Kentucky Amish Home (20 Photos)
This is a third Amish singing clip recorded by Phil Sarlo, following three Amish teens singing “The Whippoorwill Song” and Amish schoolchildren singing “The Ninety-Nine”. We have a much larger collection of singers this time – a New Order Amish youth group in the Walnut Creek area of Ohio. There are four songs in this […]
Continue Reading New Order Amish Youth Group Singing (4 Songs)
Brad Igou shared the story of his book Amish Voices: A Collection of Amish Writings with us last week. We also had an excerpt entitled “Free Rein.” Today we have several more excerpts, and the book giveaway winner. I focused on some of the shorter excerpts, but taken from different sections of the book, to […]
Continue Reading Amish Voices: Excerpts & Book Winner
With all the talk about isolation and distancing lately, I thought it would be a good time to look back at an Amish community that’s among the most isolated of all – the one at Burke’s Garden, Virginia. Some of you will remember I visited this place last Thanksgiving. I actually made two stops in […]
Continue Reading Images of Burke’s Garden, Virginia (40 Photos)
Following a motion filed last week by his attorney, beard-cutting clan leader Sam Mullet will be released early due to threat from the novel coronavirus. From the AP: Sam Mullet Sr. was moved to a halfway house in Youngstown on March 4 and was scheduled to be released in January. But his attorney argued in […]
Continue Reading Sam Mullet Will Be Released To Finish Sentence At Home
I came across the following list of Amish church rules in a book called Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore, edited by John A. Hostetler. These were the rules of a church in Mifflin County, PA in 1897, as recorded by a woman named Sadie Newman. Sadie was a convert to the […]
Continue Reading Rules Of A Pennsylvania Amish Church (1897)
Free Rein One day in late fall, snow fell and caught me unprepared for winter. Hoping to save a little time, I took a different way home, one with which I was not too familiar, yet I anticipated no problem. Old Dobbin obligingly trotted on, but I was not far until I began to have […]
Continue Reading Brad Igou on Amish Voices: A Collection of Amish Writings (Book Giveaway)
There is a certain type of driver who likes gunning his engine and waking up the residents of the local graveyard when passing through town. That driver is unlikely to heed the warning of this post. But others who drive vehicles louder than a typical car would do well to keep the lesson drawn here […]
Continue Reading Be Careful Around Buggies If Your Vehicle Is Loud
Following our NYC Amish singing post, I came across a few more nice videos of Amish singing. This one features three Amish teens from somewhere in Minnesota. The song is “The Whippoorwill Song” (aka “I Give You Freedom”), written by Alfred B. Smith in 1975 (lyrics below). You can hear quite a contrast when it’s […]
Continue Reading Three Amish Teens Sing “The Whippoorwill Song” (I Give You Freedom)
While putting together last week’s post on 5 old but small Amish communities, I came across another real estate listing for an Amish farm – this time in Indiana in the Kokomo settlement. While the exterior photos are not great (taken on an overcast day), there are good photos of the interior showing the different […]
Continue Reading Look Inside An Indiana Amish Farmhouse (18 Photos)
One thing that has always fascinated me are the Amish communities which have a long history – but for one reason or another, today are surprisingly small in size. With the high Amish birth rate, and today most Amish choosing to remain Amish, you would expect most communities to continue growing larger with the benefit […]
Continue Reading 5 Old – But Surprisingly Small – Amish Communities
We’ve lately seen photos of Amish on the beach on Staten Island, so how about Amish singing an uplifting Christian song in the NYC subway? Beautifully sung. There is some discussion in the Youtube comments over whether these are Amish, or a Mennonite or other Anabaptist church. Would you recognize this group as Amish? […]
Continue Reading Amish Sing “I Am Free” Underground In NYC (Video)
Sad news from northwestern PA: CLINTONVILLE, Pa. — One adult and one juvenile were killed after a logging truck and an Amish buggy crashed in Clintonville, Venango County, on Sunday afternoon, the Pennsylvania State Police confirmed. According to PSP, the logging truck struck the horse-drawn buggy from behind while both were traveling eastbound in the […]
Continue Reading PA Amish Woman, Child Killed In Logging Truck Accident
New York Upstate lists the 12 destinations, which I call “food outlets” because they are not all traditional shops and markets, though some are. Several are multi-vendor markets. Most of these are Mennonite-owned or “Amishy“, but there are at least two Amish-owned markets on the list – Troyer’s General Store, and Weaver’s Farm Market. Many […]
Continue Reading 12 Amish & Mennonite Food Outlets in Upstate NY
Gloria Yoder answers questions from time to time in her Amish Cook column. In her latest, she gets an interesting question from a reader: another friend and reader, Betsy, from Lebanon, Ohio…wondered if there are different levels of Amish and how we believe about our relationship with Jesus, which is so very sweet and important. […]
Continue Reading Are There “Different Levels” Of Amish?
Who teaches in Amish schools? Do Amish children attend public schools? What about homeschooling? Today we look at those and other questions on the Amish and education (full list here): Who teaches Amish children? Amish parochial school teachers are typically female and young, though some women make a lifelong career of teaching. Teaching is most […]
Continue Reading 10 Questions on the Amish & Education
I have mixed feelings about drones. I’m generally not a fan of these flying cameras, but admit that they can capture some amazing footage. One example would be this two-minute video flying over Amish farms in Lancaster County. Someone recently did a drone video in Amish Ohio and shared it to YouTube. The machine does […]
Continue Reading Two (Creepy?) Amish Drone Videos
Good news for those who wish to see this northern Indiana tourist institution continue: Amish Acres will live on, in somewhat different form, under new ownership. The people who purchased the key parcels of property will continue the venue as a food and entertainment destination. However they are re-branding the attraction under a different name: […]
Continue Reading Amish Acres Will Continue; Rebrands as “The Barns at Nappanee”
Following a reader question on the topic, several months ago I shared an example of an obituary of an Amish person. Many Amish do have their obituaries posted in general news sources, even appearing online. I came across another example today, of an Amish woman named Elizabeth Petersheim. Elizabeth passed away on Saturday. Her obituary […]
Continue Reading Another Amish Obituary (& Funeral Song)
A comment by Al in KY got me thinking about how many Amish settlements I’ve actually visited. I had tallied this up before, but it was years ago. So I thought it a good idea to put together a fresh list. I believe the very first settlement I went to was Lancaster County, but that […]
Continue Reading My Amish Settlement List (58 Communities)
Monroe Yoder is an Amish bishop in the Shipshewana area of northern Indiana. In 2018, he invited a tour group into his home and spent time answering their questions, along with his wife Susie. This was written up on a blog called Midwest Wanderer by someone who attended the occasion. The post was just brought […]
Continue Reading 5 Insights From Amish Bishop Monroe Yoder
Joseph Donnermeyer of Ohio State University today shares with us an article published two weeks ago in the Budget newspaper. In it, Joe looks back at all the Amish settlement attempts throughout their history in North America. He highlights some interesting figures, including a total of 342 settlement attempts since 2000. At first that seemed […]
Continue Reading Amish Settlement Attempts Since The 1700s
I always tell people that if you are new in an Amish community, and want to meet the locals, the best thing to do is to visit their businesses. Larger communities like Lancaster County and Holmes County have significantly more Amish businesses. But they’re not as densely located or convenient to visit as in Ethridge, […]
Continue Reading 57+ Amish Businesses You Can Visit (Ethridge, Tennessee)
Amish Cook Gloria Yoder is expecting, and she is thinking about a name for her boy or girl. How do Amish parents decide on a baby name? Gloria shares her family’s approach – and some common Amish naming conventions – in her latest column: While some Amish communities stick with using only one name, in […]
Continue Reading How Do Amish Choose Baby Names?
Ohio lawmakers want all 75,000+ Amish in the state to make some changes to their buggies. A proposed law would require a buggy-top flashing light, and a new kind of tape. From the Wooster Daily Record: Rep. Scott Wiggam (R-Wooster) and Rep. Darrell Kick (R-Loudonville) announced a bill Monday designed to make buggies more visible. […]
Continue Reading Ohio Bill: Flashing Roof Light Required On All Buggies
Lovina Eicher makes it in this week’s edition of Lovina’s Amish Kitchen. As she describes it, pon hoss is “a fried dish made from leftover hog meat.” It is also another name for scrapple. Photo: Lovina’s Amish Kitchen The dish was first created by German settlers in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here is […]
Continue Reading What Is Pon Hoss?
From time to time we see Amish properties up for sale online. Two such homes appeared in Ohio and New York. Comparing those two cases, you can see how different Amish homes can be. The Ohio home is from a New Order Amish church. The New York home is from a Swartzentruber community. They are […]
Continue Reading Look Inside A New York Amish Home (12 Photos)
Lancaster County is (I believe) the only place* where you’ll see both gray-topped and black-topped buggies in the same community. Black is easily the most common color for Amish buggies overall. But the Amish in this best-known of all Plain communities actually drive the gray version. Lancaster County Amish buggies So who is holding the […]
Continue Reading Lancaster County: Gray Buggy or Black Buggy?
On our recent post “Nearly 40 Amish Youth Partygoers Arrested,” reader Al in KY commented about an unusual billboard. It can now be seen on the edge of Shipshewana, the center of the northern Indiana Amish community where the arrests occurred: Near the intersection of Hwys 5 and 20 (the main, very busy intersection as […]
Continue Reading Who Put Up This “Anti-Rumspringa” Billboard?
Why do some Amish use scooters, but not bikes? It’s a common question. I’ve never really come across a definitive answer, though have hit upon a theory or two after looking into it. Today at Lancaster Online, Steve Nolt provides an answer. It includes a couple of elements I did not expect. First, some brief […]
Continue Reading Why Do Some Amish Ride Scooters (But Not Bicycles)?
A story published this week by Type Investigations and Cosmopolitan magazine has collected the accounts of victims of sexual abuse in Amish communities. Author Sarah McClure also tallied up cases of abuse by Amish offenders over a two-decade span. McClure reached a total of 52 documented cases of abuse across seven states in her investigation. […]
Continue Reading Report Highlights 50+ Sexual Abuse Cases In Amish Communities Over Two Decades
As we wrap up the 2010s, a look back at some favorite posts of the past 12 months. My thanks to all of you who took the time to read, share and comment on posts this year. Wishing you all good things in 2020 ~ Erik Church 6 Examples of Amish Ordnung Rules Colorado Amish […]
Continue Reading Favorite Posts Of 2019
We caught a glimpse of North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish settlement in an article back in May, when someone interviewed a man from this community as he waited at an Alabama Amtrak station. More recently I previewed the community auction which was to take place in late November. Amish began moving to the area near Ellenboro, […]
Continue Reading Visiting North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish Community (31 Photos)
Amish from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana visited the President and Vice President in the Oval Office Friday, as reported in the Washington Times. This was apparently the first time Amish people have visited the White House in this capacity (with one possible exception, see below). The Amish as a whole are not overtly political, so this […]
Continue Reading Amish Delegation Visits White House
Car drivers complain about the lack of visibility of Amish buggies, particularly those of the plainest (Swartzentruber) churches. This group of Amish is highly resistant to change. But do Swartzentruber Amish never bend when it comes to making changes to their buggies? We’ve now seen more than one example showing that, in fact, they do. […]
Continue Reading One Swartzentruber Community’s (Unique?) Buggy Visibility Improvement
Yesterday in Holmes County, my friend Myron shared the following poem with Rich Stevick and me. Later in the day we shared it with a few more Amish friends, who seemed to like it. I hope you do too. Happy Thanksgiving. I Am Thankful – Poem Of Thanksgiving I am thankful: For the wife Who […]
Continue Reading “I Am Thankful”
The Amish community in the Sarasota-area Pinecraft neighborhood is one of the most unique Amish settlements. I went into more on why in the Florida Amish state guide page, as well as in the 40+ photo post about my 2013 visit. So if you don’t know much about this unusual community, I’d suggest checking out […]
Continue Reading Another Visit To The Amish At Pinecraft (44 Photos)
Amish father Jonas Stoltzfus recently filed a lawsuit challenging a new New York state law requiring students to be fully immunized against contagious disease. Stoltzfus says he was informed that his three children will be blocked from attending their Cranberry Marsh School, a traditional Amish school in this Seneca County settlement of six church districts. […]
Continue Reading NY Judge: No Religious Vaccination Exemption For Amish
The Amish community at Ellenboro, North Carolina is having an auction next month – the first annual sale for the five-year-old Swartzentruber settlement. What’s neat here is that the auction company has taken extensive photos of the things up for sale, posting over 100 photos online (viewable here). The Amish are not “frozen in time”, […]
Continue Reading 10 Interesting Household Items From A North Carolina Swartzentruber Amish Auction
“I did not tell them I was leaving…I left them a note, and left.” Miriam Lambright says that “looking outside, I was like – there’s more there.” Leaving her community meant “freedom.” Miriam left the Amish seven years ago, at age 22. Her story is briefly told in a new video from Milwaukee station WTMJ. […]
Continue Reading Wisconsin Woman Leaves Amish Community, Starts Successful Bakery
Amish residents near Berlin, Ohio have been complaining about the odors emanating from a local rendering plant for some time. They’ve now been given an outlet to do so formally – and have taken advantage of it. An “odor hotline” has received around 450 complaint calls since being set up in July. The complaints are […]
Continue Reading Amish Plea For Help In Face Of Rendering Plant Stench (Updated)
“I feel like one thing they learned, is they could stay culturally Amish, and doctrinally be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” That is an LDS church member speaking about 3 Ohio Amish convert families – in a new video titled “Amish Latter-day Saints: Blending Two Worlds into One”. This […]
Continue Reading “Amish & Mormon”: 8 Things That Caught My Eye In The Latest Video
Heading to the Amish community in Holmes County, and want to have a memorable meal? How about one served by an Amish family? I picked up this business card last time I was in the community: I haven’t tried this so can’t personally vouch, but it seems like a nice option if you’d like some […]
Continue Reading Eat A Meal In An Amish Home (Holmes County, Ohio)
Half of them are in Indiana. Two apiece in Pennsylvania and Ohio. And one in Illinois. The list of the top 10 largest Amish settlements doesn’t change much from year-to-year. These places generally have similar steady growth, and relatively few people leaving. Photo by Don Burke Still, I like to do a fresh post from […]
Continue Reading The 10 Biggest Amish Communities (2019)
Reader Jim Halverson, who gave us a look at the Amish of Lagrange County, Indiana last summer, recently attended Yoder’s Consignment Auction in the same community. Jim spotted differences in the styles of clothing of those in attendance – particularly noticeable in the women’s dress. Clearly the Amish at the event were not all from […]
Continue Reading Amish Women’s Clothing – What Differences Do You Notice? (16 Photos)
It was just three months ago that three young Amish siblings were killed in a buggy crash in southern Michigan. Tragically, the story has repeated itself, in another part of the state. This time, it seems alcohol was not involved. The driver struck the children’s buggy as they returned home from school. From Lansing State […]
Continue Reading 3 More Amish Children Killed In Michigan Buggy Crash
You might have noticed that Amish settlements tend to cluster together on the map. Especially in high-Amish-population states, many communities lie within a short drive or even buggying distance. In fact, most individual Amish settlements are going to be within a half-hour to an hour’s car drive from at least one other settlement. Even when […]
Continue Reading 5 Remote Amish Settlements
I didn’t plan on this becoming a series, but we’ve had a nice run of articles lately with Amish people sharing their lives and beliefs (see posts on Indiana Amishman John Gingerich and Illinois Amishman Reuben Mast). I’ve enjoyed them, and hopefully you have too. It would be good to get a female Amish perspective […]
Continue Reading 5 Insights From Swartzentruber Amishman Sam Shetler
Amish in Lenawee County, Michigan were told they had until last Friday to leave their homes – due to “unsafe living conditions.” This comes after a years-long conflict between the county’s Amish and local authorities. Here’s a summary of the story til now, from WTOL: The first group arrived four years ago after branching off […]
Continue Reading Michigan County Deems Amish Homes “Unfit For Human Habitation”
Have you ever watched Amish “reality” TV? This type of programming made its first big splash in 2004 with “Amish in the City”. The series followed five Rumspringa-age Amish youth paired with a similar number of non-Amish young people living in a home in Los Angeles. “Amish in the City” was just a precursor of […]
Continue Reading The Ugly Reality Behind Amish “Reality” TV
So after I visited Charlotte County, Virginia in April, I wrote about a local Amish variety stand. In that post I mentioned the following, about a different place: As I finished up my purchase, the girl directed me to a dry goods store not too far away. After she gave me directions explaining that it was […]
Continue Reading A Visit To An “Off The Map” Amish Dry Goods Store
How about a feel-good story? Delta, Pennsylvania lies in extreme southern York County. Amish live in two places in the county – five or six church districts lying across the Susquehanna river (technically part of the Lancaster County settlement), and a separate stand-alone community. It turns out local Amish have been glad for the generosity […]
Continue Reading Pizzeria Owner Repays Amish Who Helped After 2013 Fire
Lycoming County, PA’s Washington Township wants local Amish buggies and their horses to change – in a pretty big way. From Pennlive.com: ELIMSPORT – “Blatant discrimination” is what an attorney for Old Order Amish says about proposed ordinances in a rural Lycoming County township that would require horses on public roads to wear a device […]
Continue Reading PA Township Seeks Horse Diapers, Rubber Horseshoes, & 4-Side-Numbering For Amish Buggies
The Young Center has just published their annual Amish population numbers. As of 2019, an estimated 342,100 Amish live in four different countries. That includes Amish in: 31 US States 4 Canadian Provinces One settlement each in Bolivia and Argentina There don’t seem to be any big surprises after looking over the figures. Unlike most […]
Continue Reading From Idaho to Argentina: The Amish Population in 2019
It seems the most contentious issue with Amish moving into Lancaster County towns and subdivisions has to do with housing horses. Amish have been seeking allowances to keep horses on smaller-than-normally-permitted properties. Who among the Amish wants to live in a suburban or “in-town” home? These may be young families, or older retired couples, who […]
Continue Reading Lancaster County Resident Objects To Amish Keeping 2 Horses On Half-Acre Lots
The Amish in Texas County, Missouri are few in number. Nonetheless, they’ve found themselves frequent victims on the roads lately. A woman and her two children are in serious condition after their buggy was hit Friday night by a pickup truck. This was the third buggy accident in two years for this sparsely-populated southern Missouri […]
Continue Reading “Disrespect For Amish” – Underreported Cause Of Buggy Accidents?
Do Amish people believe that when you take their photos, you also take their souls? I’ve heard this idea from time to time over the years. It has always seemed to me like an urban legend or romantic exaggeration – with perhaps just a loose basis in what Amish actually believe. The latest case comes […]
Continue Reading Do Amish Believe Taking A Photo Captures Their Souls?
On the heels of the “20 Unique Ways Amish Raise Their Kids” article, another click-magnet piece popped up on my news feed this morning. This one is called “15 Insane Rules All Amish Kids Must Follow.” I take “Insane” in this context to mean crazy, odd, or absurd (that is, according to the article writer/editor). […]
Continue Reading 15 “Insane” Rules All Amish Children Must Follow..?
Where can you stay on an Amish farm? We often get this question, and happily around this time last year were able to point to amishfarmstay.com. The site lists Lancaster County Amish-owned properties where you can pay to stay overnight. As of last summer the site featured 6 Amish hosts; this year the listings have doubled […]
Continue Reading 12 Amish Farms Where You Can Stay Overnight (Lancaster County – 2019)
What’s it like to attend Amish church as an outsider? In previous posts, we followed Don and Pam Burke as they made their first trips to the Amish in Ohio and in Pennsylvania. In this third post in the series, Don and Pam take us along to a Lancaster County Amish church service*. If you’ve […]
Continue Reading A First Visit To The Amish: Attending Amish Church (9 Photos)
Earlier this month, Don Burke gave us the story of how he first visited the Amish in Ohio, along with photos from that trip. We left off as he and his wife Pam were about to continue on — for a first visit to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. So let’s rejoin them now for the next […]
Continue Reading A First Visit To Amish Pennsylvania (23 Photos)
If you’ve read this site for some time, you’ll know Don Burke has been a long-time contributor here, sharing his visits and top-notch photos from Amish communities around the country. For a few examples, see Don’s trips to Ethridge, Tennessee, inside a Missouri Amish home, or at an “Amish-ish” wedding. Today Don tells us the […]
Continue Reading A First Visit To Amish Ohio (24 Photos)
This is my friend Daniel Weaver. Daniel belongs to a New Order Amish church: You might remember him from the Guardian article “Our faith will be lost if we adopt technology” (which is where this photo comes from). Daniel just opened a market in his community of Morris (Otsego County) in upstate New York. The Daily […]
Continue Reading My Friend Daniel Weaver Has Opened A New Market (Morris, NY)
How many eggs do Amish eat? How much do they can? How often do Amish order pizza or other food to the home? I’m currently reading the new book Nature & The Environment in Amish Life. Authors David McConnell and Marilyn Loveless include a survey revealing interesting points about the Amish diet. They compared the four […]
Continue Reading 5 Surprising Facts About The Amish & Food
I came across some remarkable historical photos on the PBS American Experience site. I believe these were connected with the release of the documentary film “The Amish” in 2012, but I missed them the first time around. There are a total of 13 shots in the gallery which you can view in full, and in […]
Continue Reading 6 Fascinating Historical Amish Photos
I have lately been seeing a lot of list posts on one or another aspect of Amish life. These typically have catchy titles and are designed to get you to click on them. Hard to resist a list! (I’ve been known to create a few myself 😉 ) One caught my eye this week – […]
Continue Reading 20 “Unique” Ways Amish Raise Their Children..?
You may have come across the term “Amish Mennonites” before. It popped up on the site here recently, in our post on the first Amish settlement in America. Both Jim Potter and Al in KY wondered, what does the term mean? You might see it in some accounts referring to a modernizing group which emerged […]
Continue Reading Who are the “Amish Mennonites”?
So another memorable stop from my recent Holmes County trip was at a farm I had first visited a decade earlier. This is a Swartzentruber Amish farm, technically located in Wayne County. They have a creaky signpost by the road displaying whatever it is they have for sale. At the time, the only items on […]
Continue Reading A Visit To A Swartzentruber Amish Rug Seller (12 Photos)
Where was the first Amish community in North America? Lancaster County is the oldest Amish settlement still around today. But it’s not the first place Amish settled on this side of the Atlantic. That distinction belongs to the Northkill settlement that existed in neighboring Berks County*. It was organized by 1740, predating today’s Lancaster settlement […]
Continue Reading The First Amish Settlement in North America
If you’re hungry in Holmes County, you could do a lot worse than Boyd & Wurthmann. This restaurant, located in “downtown” Berlin, is a local institution, serving up sandwiches and hearty meals for 70+ years. I visited in December, again with my friend Rich Stevick. It’s a circa-1940s restaurant and it kind of has that atmosphere […]
Continue Reading A Visit to Boyd & Wurthmann Restaurant – Berlin, Ohio (8 Photos)
Amish are well-known for living by guidelines and rules governing technology, dress, and other aspects of daily life. But Amish churches are not all the same. Some are more traditional, and others more progressive. Some do things one way, and others do things another way. So how do Amish know the dos and don’ts specific […]
Continue Reading 6 Examples of Amish Ordnung Rules
What do Amish wear to church? In addition to their many women’s head coverings, the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center also has several items of church clothing on display. The Woman’s Cape & Apron First of all, a woman’s cape and apron: The cape and apron are commonly worn on Sunday across communities (we had a […]
Continue Reading Amish Church Clothing (8 Photos)
Why don’t they just build buggy lanes wherever Amish live? People often ask just this, especially when there is a bad buggy accident in the news. Realistically, it’s an idea constrained both by budgets and practicality. But in some limited cases, areas with larger Amish populations have done just that. And some Amish-heavy areas will […]
Continue Reading Buggy Lanes In Action (11 Photos)
Ever noticed how Amish women in different places wear different head coverings? A good example is the heart-shaped Lancaster women’s covering, versus the straight-sided, pleated coverings worn by Amish women in the Midwest. Like other items of Amish clothing, there are quite a few different styles of women’s coverings, and some with rather subtle differences. […]
Continue Reading Comparing Amish Women’s Head Coverings (19 Photos)
You might recall this image from the 5 Mystery Photos post: I explained in the follow-up that this unusual buggy was from the settlement at Enon Valley, Pennsylvania. I had been wanting to visit this settlement for some time and had a chance to do so in early December, but due to time constraints, weather […]
Continue Reading The Amish of Enon Valley, PA (14 Photos)
When I stay at John and Rachel’s* home in Lancaster County, one of my morning tasks is to go on a milk run. This doesn’t mean running down to the store but rather to the closest source possible. And in this part of the world, that means another Amish farm. Here’s the jar I used […]
Continue Reading Morning Milk
This is a photo which we saw on a previous post. Notice anything unusual about this otherwise-standard Maytag wringer washer, common in Amish homes? I wonder if anyone caught it when we shared it before. If you’re still scratching your head, Don Burke explains what’s going on here below. Today Don gives us one last […]
Continue Reading 10 Unexpected Things I Saw In An Amish Home (20 Photos)
Gloria Yoder is an Amish mother from Illinois who writes the Amish Cook column (previously penned by Lovina Eicher). Gloria was recently asked by a reader “What five things do you enjoy the most about the Amish way of life?”, and in this week’s column, she answers. Gloria starts with a couple of important disclaimers: […]
Continue Reading 5 Things I Like About Being Amish, According To Amish Cook Gloria Yoder
Donald Kraybill is the author of over a dozen books on the Amish, and currently serves as Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. I asked Don if he’d answer some questions for us today on the Amish and his newest book, called Simply Amish: An Essential […]
Continue Reading Donald Kraybill on Simply Amish (Q-and-A & Giveaway)
What should people who want to join the Amish or Mennonites or other Plain Anabaptist church believe? What about their behavior? What kind of commitments should they be ready to make? Nicci Price – who herself is a convert to an Old German Baptist Brethren church – writes in Mennonite World Review about getting regular […]
Continue Reading 17 Questions For Anabaptist Seekers
Gallia County is way down in southeastern Ohio on the West Virginia border. I visited back in 2013 – it’s well off the beaten track, but a pleasant place by my impression, with some beautiful hilly country. There are two Amish settlements in this county, one of five church districts and the other of two. […]
Continue Reading Amish in Gallia County, Ohio: We Don’t Vote, But We Like Trump
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