Similar Posts
Caring Hands: Helping Parents of Special Needs Children
Amish church member Rebecca Miller gives us an inside look today at an important program in her Holmes County, Ohio community. One of the obvious strengths of the Amish is their strong web of community support. Parents of children with special needs are among those who need a little extra help at times. And that’s what led to the program which Rebecca shares with us today. CARING HANDS Several years…

“Plain Parade” Rallies Support For President In Amish Ohio
Several readers shared this somewhat surprising story with me. Here’s a video showing a parade in support of President Trump, which took place Saturday in and outside of Fredericksburg, Ohio: This is in the Holmes/Wayne County settlement. There were a reported 500 people who gathered in this small town lying just over the county border. If you watch the video, you’ll see it is a…

Amish Store & Home Burn In Kentucky (Video)
Here’s footage from a home fire which occurred Saturday evening in the Amish community at Oak Grove, Kentucky. Due to the intensity of the blaze, seven fire companies were called in to help, with one injury. The blaze was sparked by a gas motor in a freezer, which ignited a 300-gallon tank of gasoline creating a huge explosion, completely destroying the home and the business,…
Lovina Eicher On Losing Sister Susan
Since mid-January, Lovina Eicher’s sister Susan has been in the hospital battling serious health issues. In her most recent Lovina’s Amish Kitchen column, she shares about her sister’s passing. It’s frankly heartbreaking: Yes, the good Lord has knocked on our door again … Those words are from a song cousin Ernest wrote after losing his mother and brother in accidents years ago. Those words came…
Groundhog Day’s Pennsylvania German Connection
Happy Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney Phil apparently saw his shadow this morning, so batten down the hatches for another 6 weeks of chilly weather. This annual tradition has a couple of connections to the Penn. Dutch. First, there happens to be a sizable Amish settlement in Clearfield County in the vicinity of Punxsutawney, PA (1,000+ people). I don’t know of any groundhog-related customs associated with this…

When a son joins the Amish: We are wimps!
One of our readers, Anne, has a son named Ed (not his real name) who became Amish a few years ago. We hear from Anne from time to time in this ongoing series called “When a son joins the Amish”. Anne has previously written about the photo policy when she visits her son, a hard winter, her friends’ reaction to her son’s conversion, and dental problems. Anne recently…
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
26 Comments
bird in hand,lancaster county,pennsylvania
Just guessing
First photo: The only two Amish settlements that I know of that use tractors with custom-built cabs and altered gear ratios to transport families is Yoder/Hutchinson, KS, and Oakland, MD. I’m guessing Kansas. Photo two: It’s definitely Lancaster County related with its gray box and rounded top. I’m guessing a daughter settlement since it looks a bit bushy for Lancaster: How about Brush Valley, PA? Photo three: It looks like the Amish cemetery on Eby Road in Lancaster County, but maybe all Amish cemeteries look alike ?) P.S.to Erik: Please don’t do these quizzes any more. My honey-do list is already long, and I should be raking leaves rather than doing your quizzes 🙂
Rick,
I think Erik’s testing should be priority over yard work. Didn’t I see an Amish farmer with an ipad 2 strapped to his rake? :o)
Are these three all taken in the same community? It seems to me like the first one is in Guthrie KY, 2nd, well the weeds don’t look healthy around the shed like they do in Lancaster. so I rule out Lancaster. The 3rd looks like the flat land of Arthur IL.
where are the pictures?
Picture #1 might be the Amish community in Guthrie, Kentucky
Picture #2 is Lancaster County, PA (gray buggies)
Picture #3 could be the Swiss Amish who live in Adams County and Allen County, Indiana
NY Times Op Ed piece
Eric,
I thought you and your readers would enjoy this. An amazingly accurate portrayal to be found, in all places, in the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/opinion/our-amish-ourselves.html?src=recg
Thank you Greg, I actually just posted that on the AA Facebook page as well. I think the quality of the piece is due to its author Joe Mackall, who wrote Plain Secrets based on his long firsthand experience among Amish neighbors.
Thats funny about the weeds in the second picture. I was thinking that exactly… Lancaster but yet maybe not because of the weeds.
LaGrange, Indiana
I don’t know the answer to any of the pictures, but the tractor is quite a sight to see!
I declare, to me, it almost looks like a woman driver as well.
Clues
A couple clues:
None of these photos is from PA.
Each photo is from a different community.
Each community is smaller than 20 church districts.
I’ll let you know when someone gets all 3 correct 🙂
Name that amish community
I don’t know about the first two but the third one might be in Holmes County, OH
I’ll just take some guesses here:
#1 – Holmes Co., Ohio
#2 – St. Mary’s Co., Maryland
#3 – Dover, Delaware
Photos
1 could be Crofton , Ky . They use tractors for there ways of getting from point A tom Point B
My guesses:
1. Union Grove, N. C.
2. Wayne County, Ind.
3. Branch County, Mich.
That gray buggy looks like some I’ve seen in Parke County, Indiana, near Rockville. Here’s a photo from a year ago.
I may have seen a cemetery like #3 in LaGrange County, Indiana, but am not quite as sure about that one. Dunno about the tractor. I recently saw an Amish tractor with steel tires in Wayne County, Indiana, but this one has rubber tires.
Well, if it’s a community of less than 20 church districts, that rules out LaGrange county for the cemetery.
The winners
Here are the winning guesses:
1. Guthrie, KY–tractors commonly used for road transportation in this electric New Order settlement
https://amishamerica.com/amish-kentucky/#guthrie
2. St. Mary’s County, MD–as Rich said, this photo looks a “bit bushy” for Lancaster. They are one of the larger Lancaster daughter settlements.
https://amishamerica.com/maryland-amish/#stmarys
3. Allen County, Indiana–unconventional cemeteries, wooden stakes marking graves.
https://amishamerica.com/indiana-amish/#allen
mystery pictures
Thanks Erik….that was fun. I automatically thought Lancaster Co when I saw the gray buggy, but otherwise I did well.
You did do well Galen, thanks. I almost had to call it for you. The 2nd was probably the toughest.
I thought so…actually I had all 3 wrong, but fun trying to figure out
Glad you enjoyed it too Bob, we may need to do another one of these in future.
Glad you’d given the anwers by the time I saw this post – Id *never* have guessed any of the three, but sure would have driven myself up the wall trying to guess *grin*. These types of things are fun, Erik! ( PS – Raking leaves? What in the world does that mean…..*looks under her huge Ash tree at a yellow + brownish “carpet” of leaves and sighs*. 😀 ).
“Suggestion Box”
Hi Erik. I recall you wrote an interesting article on how a person joins the ministry in the Amish faith, but I was wondering if somewhere along the line you could work on a post on how a minister prepares for a church service in the context of the Amish. I think it would be something interesting to read about.
How do Amish ministers prepare?
Shom, a very good thought for the suggestion box 🙂 When I’ve asked ministry people, the response usually goes something like spending time with the Bible on Saturday reading. When I was selling books, I had at least a handful of the ministers who bought from me say that the books would be helpful in brushing up, particularly for recounting the Old Testament for twice-annual Communion service (not to toot my own horn or my books’ horn).
To be honest I don’t know to what degree each minister would go in armed with what he is going to say. I’ve heard it described as part inspiration, which is what you’d expect. You don’t see preachers whipping out notecards when they lose their train of thought. I’m not the best to comment, as I don’t speak the dialect, though I can tell there are often periods of repetition during the sermons. I believe The Amish Way also discusses this.
I was just in St. Mary’s Co.! 🙂 Visited the Pineview dry goods store. I have also seen them crabbing on the Potomac (it looks rather odd to see a buggy hauling a pedal boat!) If they are a daughter settlement of Lancaster, that would be why their buggies and clothing are similar?