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 in mind, there is the good news that buggy lanes…
Which states have the most Amish communities? I should first note that this post is about individual communities, also known as settlements, not total Amish population. The two have some correlation, but are not the same thing. Scroll down or jump to list Amish Settlement Facts An Amish settlement is a distinct geographic location where Amish live. The roughly 400,000-strong Amish population is found in…
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 average probably wake up earlier than 99% of Americans. That’s…
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 on one floor. A nice broad front porch must make…
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 week’s column, Gloria gives more details on the shooting, Jonathan’s…
A quick look at a couple of communities in the more distant corners of Amish America. First, Bonnet Strings author Saloma Furlong gives an update on the Amish community near Brownington, Vermont via her blog. Vermont photos: Mike Dougherty/VTDigger Amish moved there in 2015, making Vermont the second New England state with a community. In 2018 there was talk of a second settlement possibly starting, but…
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 Amish participation seemed to be minimal. That said, he also…
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, who you might recall last month shared a history of…
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 Andrew Yutzy Here’s what happened, via the Indianapolis Star: Sam…
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 of such periodicals. Some of these are pretty well-known, while…