Four teenagers were arrested over the weekend for a spree of robberies and baseball bat attacks against Amish of Geauga County, Ohio. The youth targeted Amish businesses and Amish in buggies and “brutally beat” several Amish men, in incidents over the past week and perhaps earlier. The first reported attack occurred June 22 or 23, with numerous reports of break-ins over the following days. In one…
We have a winner of the latest Name that Amish Community quiz, who got the right answers in yesterday evening just before the bell. Well done to Linda, who wins a year’s subscription to Family Life magazine. For those curious, I wanted to explain the thinking behind the quiz and how you could have solved it (with a bit of work! 🙂 ). Since I suggested…
It’s been awhile since the last “Name that Amish community” quiz, so I thought it’d be a good time to bring it back. This time to add to the fun, we have a prize. Below you’ll find three photos from three different Amish settlements. Your task is to guess where each was taken (in which community, not just the state). In addition to the clues you’ll…
Anna J. Weaver is an Amish artist living in New York state. If “artist” doesn’t strike you as a typical Amish occupation, that’s because it’s not–at least not in the classic sense of someone who creates painting, sculpture and the like. By the sound of things, however, Anna has made a pretty decent go of it as a painter. From a recent profile in the Erie Times-News:…
Do “classes” exist in Amish society? How is wealth distributed? Do Amish use food stamps? A new study in the latest JAPAS addresses these questions in the Holmes County Amish community (“Amish Economic Transformations: New Forms of Income and Wealth Distribution in a Traditionally “Flat” Community“, by Amyaz Moledina, David McConnell, Stephanie Sugars, and Bailey Connor). By tapping public data including Census info and real estate records, the authors develop a picture of Amish income and…
File this one under “Not A Spoof”. Chad Adams, a police sergeant for Pulaski Township in Western PA, recently spent time walking local roads dressed as an Amish woman. Why would he do such a thing, you’re surely wondering? The department was trying to catch a man who had been exposing himself to Amish children walking home from school. Adams was accompanied by a female officer…
My friend Katie Troyer was featured in a pair of bonus videos for the recent PBS film The Amish: Shunned. You may already know Katie from her excellent photos and blog focusing on life in the Pinecraft community in Florida. On the PBS website, The Amish: Shunned creator Callie Wiser comments on the people whom she met “whose stories I did not get to tell”. Callie…
A reader shares some photos taken over the weekend in the Shipshewana area. As you can see in these photos, there’s a good bit of snow on the ground. Apparently it is piling up. Another friend in Indiana suggests that could mean serious spring flood danger, at least in his neck of the woods. Update: Here’s a bonus photo that was taken northeast of Shipshewana…
I am working on a large Holmes County Amish post for later this week. In the meantime a few preview photos and some recent news stories featuring Amish. Holmes & Geauga Holmes County as you probably know is the largest Amish community in Ohio, and along with Lancaster one of the two largest in America. It’s interesting but not surprising that the Geauga County community…
Belated Christmas wishes to everyone here, I trust you spent the time well. Anyone who has yet to travel I hope you’ll complete it safely. Depending on where you are in the world your holiday observances may be continuing today. I know our readers in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are on Boxing Day today. Others know December 26th as St. Stephen’s Day,…