Name that Amish community
Do you know where these 3 photos were taken? (UPDATE: see “Clues” in the comments section)
Photo 1:
Photo 2:
Photo 3:
Is Amish Life Hard? One Amishman’s Answer
“Don’t feel sorry for us, no,” John says with a chuckle. “We’re having a good life.” In this video I interview John Esh. John lives in Nittany Valley in central Pennsylvania and runs the Goot Essa cheese & food company (Full video transcript below). John sat down for a longer conversation with me a week or so ago. I’ll be posting that full video soon….
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?