Next Friday, March 19th, will be a big day for the Alvin and Wilma Borntrager family of Vestaburg, Michigan. That’s when their 80-acre farm – house, equipment, 105 cows – goes up for auction. Jim Halverson alerted me to this sale listing, which opens with a simple description: “Haveing [sic] decided to move Alvin and his family will be selling the Real Estate, Farm Equipment…
I mentioned this idea of Amish “supercounties” in a recent post. This is the term I came up with to describe counties containing a large number of individual Amish communities. For one reason or another, these are counties which have just drawn Amish to settle in them, repeatedly. An alternate term might be “Amish-friendly counties”. There is something about these counties that makes them attractive…
That’s one of the interesting things I learned from a recent article in Banking Dive on how banks work with Amish customers. The Bank of Bird-in-Hand has tried to make banking more convenient for its horse-and-buggy customers with an investment in four mobile banks: “Anytime you have to hitch the horse up and get in the buggy and drive it, it’s a production,” said Lori…
Sadly, I feel like I’m reading/writing the same story every week. Another Amish teen has died in a car-buggy accident, the third in the past several weeks: A 14-year-old Amish boy died three days after suffering serious injuries when he was thrown from the horse-and-buggy he was riding in along U.S. 11 in Shippensburg on March 3. Pennsylvania State Police spokeswoman Trooper Megan Ammerman confirmed…
Since yesterday, several people have reached out to let me know about this new video (including one Amish friend). This is by YouTube filmmaker Peter Santenello (new to me), who makes videos about different cultures in the US and around the world. In this two-part series, Peter walks around Pinecraft speaking with Amish people, as someone knowing relatively little about the Amish. He is given…
I notice that people are wondering lately if the Amish are going to vaccinate for COVID-19. A recent study showed that 75% of Amish in one large community would reject the COVID vaccine. So you see why it is a concern for the people paid to worry about these things. Image: David Arment Here’s one report from CBS21 on how that is playing out in…
Justo Smoker’s preliminary hearing was held Friday, to determine if the homicide case against him would go to trial. After an hour-and-twenty minute hearing, District Judge Denise Commins ruled that prosecutors had met the burden to proceed. They needed to provide sufficient evidence that a crime was committed in the case of Linda Stoltzfoos’ disappearance last summer, and that the defendant is likely responsible. These…
This property is located in Maine, in the Whitefield community which started up several years ago. It’s the first Maine home we’ve looked at here. The home has a pretty unique look for an Amish home. First of all, it is clearly not an Amish-built home. The barn style is one clue to that. Even bigger clues are the satellite dish and neutered electrical meter…
While it’s more often the other way around, in this case an Amish teen made the bad decision to drive his buggy after drinking, leading to an accident. And in fact, this is his community’s second buggy DUI in the past several years. A 17-year-old in the New Wilmington community was involved in an incident which left a buggy with “major damage” in late January….
From WGAL: SOUTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Two children were injured in a crash in Cumberland County involving a horse and buggy, according to Pennsylvania State Police. The crash happened around 8:45 a.m. Wednesday along Ritner Highway between 533 and Cramer Road in Southampton Township. State police said three people were thrown from the buggy in a collision with a sedan. Two of them were children…