‘The typical English guy looks at one of us and just sees an Amish person. Actually there can be a lot of difference.’ So said a Holmes County Amishman, commenting on the diversity in his area. Compared to the Old Order Amish, the so-called New Order Amish are a curious mix–one which we might term technologically more liberal, but in some ways culturally more conservative….
Amish have been among the many helping clean up in southern Florida following last year’s devastating Hurricane Wilma. Amish Disaster Service out of Illinois has coordinated the Amish side of the effort. Volunteers from New York, Iowa, and Illinois Amish communities have been trekking back and forth to the area since early January. The Amish have just been one part of a much larger effort…
The stories are heartbreaking. You feel for the victims. It’s hard to imagine what they’ve been through. But at the same time, a 20/20 piece on Amish abuse from a few years back points to the generalizations that many journalists rely on to tell their story. The 20/20 folks lean heavily on cliches and misconceptions–from the ominous opening music, to the overplayed stories they trot…
Eli Stutzman, convicted murderer and father of ‘Little Boy Blue’, was an exile from the ultraconservative Swartzentruber Amish group. When you read words like ‘secretive’, ‘closed’, and ‘backward’ in the same sentence as ‘Amish’, the writer, rightly or wrongly, is often referring to this sect. Wayne County, Ohio, where Stutzman originated, has a high number of Swartzentruber members, with quite a few spilling over into…
Convicted murderer Eli Stutzman, formerly of the Amish of Wayne County, Ohio, has died. His death has been ruled a suicide. The father of “Little Boy Blue”, suspected in three other deaths in addition to that of his son, killed himself in a Fort Worth, Texas apartment last week. Gregg Olsen, who chronicled the case in Abandoned Prayers, says the story might not be over. “I…
About 45 minutes south of Cedar Rapids you come to the Iowa Amish settlement at Kalona, set among the lovely rolling hills of Johnson and Washington counties. There are 8 or 9 church districts here, making it one of the largest settlements west of the Mississippi. In addition to traditional dairying, raising and milking goats has become especially popular in this settlement in recent years. …
People sometimes pity the Amish, thinking that since they do not have a chance to go to university, they must live miserable lives. Not to mention: no car, no internet, no makeup, no golf. But maybe it depends a bit on what you value. If you value things like unrestricted choice, education, wealth, and consumption above all else, then yes, Amish life might not look…