The third-largest Amish community in Indiana Nappanee is what I tend to think of as a ‘prototype’ Amish community, smallish to medium-sized, centered around a single small town. It’s the type of place where once you leave the main town of a few hundred or thousand souls you’ll find Amish homesteads radiating out in a number of miles in any direction. Little or no suburban…
photo: golancasterpa Christmas is one of many holidays observed by Amish, and with an expected emphasis on family rather than Santa. Amish-raised scholar John Hostetler shares in Amish Society that some Amish children may be “exposed to such customs [ie, Santa and the Christmas tree] if they attend public school, and some Amish parents come to the annual parochial school Christmas program. Some Amish have…
Ohio’s unemployment rate hit 10.6% last month.  According to a recent Tribune Chronicle article, within the state, the counties with the lowest unemployment rates (at 7.2 and 7.4% respectively) are Holmes and Geauga, which also happen to have the state’s largest Amish populations. Make of that what you will. On the other hand, Amish-heavy northern-Indiana, a region highly dependent on the RV industry, has seen unemployment…
Not “Amish”, but quite entertaining nonetheless. Kevin Roberts, “Friend” to some and “Quaker” to others, writes a nice blog at quakerthink. In his latest post, Kevin surveys the transportation options available to him on his isolated Ohio homestead, and had me chuckling as he described Dude, the twenty-five dollar donkey that may be worth even less, and the one-holer convenience outhouse that comes in handy…
North Carolina is my home state, and not one known for having a large Amish population. Amish have attempted to settle NC in the past, however, and today one settlement does exist, at Union Grove, a hamlet lying some miles west of Winston-Salem. Union Grove, which began in 1985 as a spinoff of the Guthrie, Kentucky community, is considered a New Order settlement. Like its…