photo: Randall Persing Amish women let their hair grow from birth. If you ever catch an Amish female with her hair down, the sheer length of it can be surprising. In fact, with locks often reaching well past waist-length, the typical Amish head-covering seems to somehow bend the laws of physics. Where is their room for it all up there? A quick diversion: A follicle…
What to do when you’re a retired Amish bishop? Maybe a lecture tour. That could be what one Amish leader has in mind in northern Indiana. Goshen News reports that ‘Atlee Dan’ Miller recently gave a talk on Amish history and the settlement of his region, Amish education, and church splits to an audience at the Topeka Historical Society. The talk was held in the…
photo: Jerry Olson/Post-Bulletin Some Amish in Minnesota will need a new outlet for their milk. The last creamery in Minnesota to accept milk in cans–mostly provided by local Amish–no longer does. I guess you call that an end of an era. Milk is an important liquid in Amish America. And surprisingly, a controversial one as well. Some Amish farmers have gotten in trouble for selling raw…
A recent blog post on Amish and autism I stumbled across takes on the controversial view that childhood vaccines and autism are linked. Many have pointed to the Amish, who often forgo vaccination, and according to some have low-to-nonexistent rates of autism, as evidence of the link. Seems like much of the attention has focused on Lancaster County, with those in the know saying the…
When a baptized Amish person leaves the community for another church, it can be a jarring experience, both for the family involved and for others in the church. And especially so, in the very rare occurrence when one party stays behind. Most cases I have come across of Amish leaving have involved the full family; one or two peculiar situations have not–with the wife remaining…
Yes, some Amish do use credit cards. Amish are definitely not credit-averse (after all that’s how most of them pay for their homes and farms), but credit cards themselves would depend a lot on local custom and Ordnung. I’ve been in communities where they are surprisingly common, and in others where they are unheard of. How do the Amish buy things, for that matter? Some…
I just Googled ‘amish news’ and it seems the Amish are getting some polarized coverage these days. If they’re not being lauded as an example of how we should all be more forgiving, they are under fire as heartless puppy abusers. What’s the real deal? Besides stating the obvious that we should look at the individual and not the whole, the Amish seem to exhibit…
A small, accidental settlement of Amish apparently once existed in New Orleans. David Luthy explains that in the 1800s, many migrant Amish came to America from Europe by way of the Mississippi River port. Sometimes it happened that an Amish family lacked the funds to continue upstream and onward to established settlements, often in Illinois. Previous to 1850, stranded families formed a small and short-lived…
Amish folks, like the rest of us, enjoy hearing the odd bit of trivia or unusual fact. Hence, three tidbits of Amish trivia, taken from Brad Igou’s compilation The Amish in their Own Words: 1. Quilts. The Amish are well known for their proficiency in the quilting realm. Some of their pieces fetch upwards of $1000. The average quilt takes around 250-350 yards of thread. …
Accidents between Amish buggies and cars happen. Way too often. This summer during a three-month stay in northern Indiana, three fatal accidents occurred. One happened when a distracted driver hit an Amish man and two sons riding in a pony cart, killing all three. Another was caused by an Amish Rumspringa-age youth, who attempted to pass in a no-passing zone. He and the driver he…