Inside A Plain Amish Home: How They Dry Gloves

Recently we had a look at how the plainest Amish heat water for washing. Today thanks to the same reader Maxwell Hodgkins, we look again inside the Michigan home of “Andy” and his family to check out another little aspect of Amish daily life.

This is something that might go overlooked, but which fulfills an important function. How to dry gloves after coming in from working or playing in the snow, for instance? Here’s how Andy’s family does it.

This drying rack is strategically placed in the home and used for drying gloves and other articles of clothing. Maxwell explains how it works here in this brief video:

You can see photos of the setup here below. First, here is a closer look at how it hangs on the hat hooks. In the video Maxwell mentions that it is removable for church. That would allow more access to places for visitors to hang their hats and I imagine make for a neater appearance.

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Looks like some shoes and maybe a vest are being dried out as well.

This is the kind of thing that, if I were to go into this home, I might overlook as I tend to miss details like this (at least until I look more closely at a photo, or it’s pointed out to me). But it’s another good example of how Amish solve daily life challenges without access to public electricity using a simple implement. This family is from a Swartzentruber Amish church, so essentially the most restrictive when it comes to technology.

I imagine an English family in the same situation would simply throw the gloves in their electric dryer for a quick cycle, or place them on a heater. No electric dryer in this home, and a wood stove would likely be too hot on which to directly place the gloves. In a large Amish family, such a rack with a lot of space for gloves makes a lot of sense.

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Stay tuned for more examples of “home tech” from this plain Amish home, including a look at a converted Singer sewing machine, and video of how the wringer washer setup works. And special thanks to Maxwell for sharing this.