Amish Toddler Perishes In Farm Accident

A Leacock Township toddler was killed in a farming accident over the weekend, according to an obituary published Monday.

Martha G. King, 16 months old, died Saturday afternoon after emergency crews were called to a location near 113 Horseshoe Road for a report of a cardiac arrest. Emergency calls provided no other details about what was happening at the scene.

The Lancaster County Coroner reported King died of multiple traumatic injuries and ruled the death accidental. The office did not share any details of what happened.

East Lampeter Township police did not respond to multiple requests for more information.

Martha is survived by her parents, Elam G. and Naomi M. (Glick) King, as well as two sets of grandparents and her maternal great-grandparents. She was interred Monday at Myers Cemetery, an Amish burial ground in Upper Leacock Township.

Martha apparently had no siblings and so sounds like she was the couple’s only child. Tragic and immensely sad for this family.

Child Deaths on Amish & Mennonite Farms

Amish parents involve their children, even small children, in work tasks. For the little ones, this just means having them along while the father is working.

Beyond that, small Amish children spend lots of time outside, where there’s often a lot going on around the farm – milk trucks arriving and leaving, older siblings and parents bringing teams of horses in and out of the fields, skid loaders being used for this or that job.

For older ones, they’ll take on jobs themselves, making significant contributions to the operations of the family farm. This is a deeply-ingrained part of the culture.

Related groups like plain Mennonites do the same.

Such was the case leading to another tragic death in the county in 2022, when a three-year-old Mennonite girl placed in the back of a tobacco wagon fell out and was run over by the wagon’s steel wheel. The father faced charges for his role in the accident. He ended up serving a day in jail and was given parole and probation.

Lancaster Online has been drawing attention to farm-related deaths in the county. They note that:

Lancaster County – Pennsylvania’s leading agricultural producer – typically registers more farm-related deaths each year than any other county in the state.

The county has seen from one to seven farm deaths a year since 2000, and children are the most common victims. Children 5 or younger account for 14 of the 26 farm deaths covered by LNP | LancasterOnline since 2016; teenagers and young children account for six other deaths.

Three people, all children, died in accidents on Lancaster County farms in 2024, the same number as the previous year, based on LNP reporting.

Now, as the state’s leading agricultural producer, you wouldn’t be surprised if Lancaster County also leads in farm accidents and fatalities.

That is compounded by the fact that many of the farms are not large mechanized corporate operations – but small family farms dependent on manual labor and close human engagement with horses and other animals.

Add into that Amish and Mennonite cultures which value teaching and including children in work activities – and that to various degrees depend on their children doing farm labor.

According to a safety expert, the Mennonite father, as the article summarizes it, “ignored safety guidelines to keep children under the age of 7 away from farm-related jobs and children under 14 away from wagons and farm machinery.”

For sure, he is not the only one failing to keep children “away from farm-related jobs” or “away from wagons and farm machinery”.

That would seem to be extremely hard to do (unrealistic, even) on the typical Amish or plain Mennonite farm – especially keeping those under 14 “away from wagons and farm machinery”. Amish children are actively helping with many farm tasks well below the age of 14.

There is simply a tension here between the realities and practicalities of Plain farm culture – and what the state would like to achieve in terms of child safety:

“While tragic, the hope is that this incident might bring about similar changes in practices on farms to ensure the safety of other children,” Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lapp said during the trial, according to the district attorney’s office.

I don’t know how easy or realistic it’s going to be to bring about those changes.