This is one of the few negative stories I’ve seen so far, concerning relations between English and Amish people during the ongoing coronavirus situation. Non-Amish neighbors have complained after an Amish household held a large wedding yesterday in a southern Michigan community. This happened in California Township in Branch County. As you’d expect for an […]

Continue Reading English Neighbors Object To Amish Wedding

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)

Wednesday doughnuts have been canceled for now. But the Community Market in the Amish community at Unity, Maine remains open. Bangor Daily News visited owner Lewis Brenneman’s store to give us a look at how the Amish market is operating during this time of coronavirus. Traffic to the store is down, Brenneman says, but sales […]

Continue Reading How One Amish Store Is Staying Open During COVID-19

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)

Amish in the Holmes County, Ohio community are contributing to the effort to mass-produce PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for the fight against coronavirus. John Miller, president of a Sugarcreek manufacturer, struck upon the idea of tapping Amish production power to make products for medical personnel. Hannah Troyer of Walnut Creek, Ohio is among the many […]

Continue Reading Holmes County Amish Making Mask Covers, Gowns & Other PPE

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)

There are enough positive stories out there right now if you look for them. How about this one: As health care providers grapple with a severe national shortage of masks and other gear to protect against COVID-19, some Amish residents in Lancaster County are among those firing up sewing machines to help. Sylvan Stoltzfus and […]

Continue Reading Amish Sewing 13,000 Masks For Donation

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

Amish in Holmes County and Lancaster County have closed their schools. Holmes County churches were suspended Sunday. That appears to be the case going forward with Lancaster-related settlements as well. Meanwhile in northern Indiana, children remained in school this week. And now following a meeting of bishops, church will continue as well. From The Goshen […]

Continue Reading Indiana Amish Leaders Meet, Will Continue Church; Bishop: “Don’t let fear rule you”

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)

A Roundup of News on the Amish & COVID-19 Some news from different states on how the coronavirus situation is affecting the Amish. Ohio Earlier in the week we learned how church was continuing while school had been called off by the Amish in Lancaster County. There had been speculation that church would be halted […]

Continue Reading Coronavirus Update (8 States): Ohio Church Canceled; Indiana McDonald’s Welcomes Amish

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)

I didn’t plan to post so much on the coronavirus situation. But then again no one expected it to be this disruptive. So here’s one more piece – but one which I hope presents a different and possibly helpful perspective. I’m not going to say that I agree with everything advocated here from the Amish […]

Continue Reading 5 Reasons The Amish Are “Not As Spooked” About Coronavirus

Amish schools in Lancaster County have been closed, but church continues on a regular schedule, as do weddings. That’s from a report in Lancaster Online concerning Amish response to the coronavirus.  Here’s their summary of the situation: One-room Amish schoolhouses across Lancaster County are closed for the week, yet scores of Amish wedding goers Tuesday […]

Continue Reading COVID-19: Amish Schools Close; Church & Weddings Continue [UPDATED]

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

Sam Mullet was the pseudo-Amish bishop of a breakaway church who orchestrated the beard and hair-cutting attacks which terrorized an Ohio Amish community in 2011. Mullett is currently serving out the end of his 10-year, 9-month sentence in a halfway house. He would like to be released to finish his sentence under house arrest due […]

Continue Reading Sam Mullet Seeks Release Due To Coronavirus Threat

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)

With COVID-19 and coronavirus heavy on people’s minds, I’ve been curious for more on how this relates to the Amish, especially following the piece on the Amish and coronavirus on Friday. I’ve wondered how the Amish will respond to this situation. Will they significantly change their social behavior? What about schools and church? Will mud sales […]

Continue Reading Amish & COVID-19: Impact On Tourism, Mud Sales, Businesses & More

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)

Questions on the Amish & coronavirus – awareness, risk, and  protection from disease With the coronavirus topic heavy in the media, I thought it might be worth addressing several questions regarding COVID-19 infection and the Amish. Do the Amish know about coronavirus? Reader Beverly posed this question yesterday. With all the recent hubbub over this […]

Continue Reading The Amish & Coronavirus

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”

A funeral director serving the Amish in Lancaster County says that Amish rarely donate organs. But the law still requires that the bodies of the deceased be held “until an organ procurement organization reviews the case and releases the body.” This hold-up frequently causes distress to Amish families who wish to proceed with traditional viewing […]

Continue Reading The Amish & Organ Donation

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 the 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

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)

Expectant Amish mothers generally have three choices on where to bring their children into the world – at home, at a hospital, or at a birthing center. In larger Amish communities, these centers cater to a Plain population. Photos: Kevin Lynch/the-daily-record-com A new article in the Wooster Daily Record gives us a look at the Mt. […]

Continue Reading Mt. Eaton Care Center: Over 12,000 Plain Babies Delivered In 36 Years