I wanted to point out a book written by Suzanne Woods Fisher called Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World, just released last month. I liked a couple of things about this book in particular. Suzanne has a real gift for writing, and my blurb on the back cover, that she “plants the reader inside Amish living rooms, barns, kitchens, and schoolhouses” I wouldn’t…
The last installment, of three, from the recent Lancaster County trip: When I’m at Abe’s, on Saturdays we sometimes do a big breakfast down by the river out back. This involves Chef Abe grilling up a variety of meats–sausage, bacon, spicy sausage, etc, on an open riverside fire (though this time he used the grill up by the house). Eggs, toast, jelly, sliced peaches, pancakes,…
Just back from Lancaster County. Has been a whirlwind of finishing the final manuscript (submitted), looking ahead to finish the Polish-language Amish book (nearly done), and another top-secret project or two. But in between running around the County a few interesting happenings happened. I dragged my father up this time, for an intense week in Amish Boot Camp. When you are accustomed to the accoutrements…
Back in June I posted on Japanese interest in the Amish and included some comments and photos from Donald Kraybill, fresh from a lecture tour of the island nation. Since that time, Stephen Scott, also of the Young Center, has visited Japan to share knowledge on America’s best-known Plain People. In this article from today’s Lancaster Sunday News (no longer online) Kraybill and Scott share…
An Amish acquaintance in Lebanon County, PA has kindly passed on a link to a Lancaster Sunday News story I’d missed from a couple of weeks back. Demonstrating that unceasing Amish innovative drive, it seems the folks at Stoltzfus Coach Supply have hitched up a new buggy alternator (no longer online) device to keep running lights juiced. The alternator solves two issues–the danger of a…
Outsiders sometimes express a desire to join the Amish. As an Amish authority explains in Richard Stevick's Growing up Amish: The Teenage Years, seekers often come with misguided notions: "When seekers from the outside come to us wanting to be Amish," explained a bishop, "they are often attracted for the wrong reasons. They could have fallen in love with one of our Youngie. Or they…
People often wonder about the Amish and photography. Documentarian and film & media professor Dirk Eitzen has an interesting chapter on filming the Amish in the exceptional Amish and the Media. Eitzen describes three methods used by those wishing to visually document the Amish: pushiness, poaching, and focusing on children and young adults. I suppose if I had to confess, I would qualify as a…
Photo man and in-the-field auction expert Rick Harrison shares his latest batch of pictures from the New Wilmington Amish auction, which took place June 6th. This was the 20th annual benefit auction and turnout was sizable. Rick estimated over 125 buggies on the lot. Auctions are popular among Amish. Lancaster County holds a medical benefit auction each year to support the work of Holmes Morton…
Pastry samples at a Flavor retail store Donald Kraybill shares some photos and comments from a recent lecture trip to Japan. Professor Kraybill recently spent a week at universities in Tokyo and Gifu and at the Shibunkaku Art Museum in Kyoto, speaking on the Amish. The Amish are quite well-known in Japan, with perhaps more books on the Amish having been translated into Japanese than…
A recent re-read of a piece by Steven Nolt in Mennonite Quarterly Review–‘Who are the Real Amish? Rethinking Diversity and Identity among a Separate People’— made me recall a common dilemma when discussing our Plain neighbors. ‘The Amish’ is a moniker that tries to do more than it really can, which is blanket a group of people having quite diverse practices. Saying “‘the Amish’ this”…