What makes this home particularly interesting is that it is another, originally English-built, home that a Swartzentruber family converted to their needs. This is actually the second home from this community at Whitefield, Maine (previously we had a look at the home I nicknamed “blue barn”). You can tell instantly that it’s not built in the distinct Swartzentruber style, going by features you’ll see below…
How would you like to manage the shopping, food prep, and cleanup to feed 1,000+ people? Lovina Eicher is facing this task as she prepares for the upcoming wedding of her daugher Loretta, as she writes in her latest column. She will, of course, have some help: Yesterday my three head cooks came, and we went through the recipes to see what all we need….
Joe Donnermeyer of the Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities guest posts today with a look at multi-settlement Amish counties across America. In March I did a list of 10 Amish “supercounties” – which I defined as having at least five settlements (full or partial) within their borders. Joe expands on that list with this guest post. He actually finds 20 counties that qualify under the…
The addresss for this latest home is Curryville, but the community is better known as the Bowling Green settlement (Pike County, MO). We’ve got a three-church-district community that is the Show Me State’s oldest, having been first settled back in 1947 by Swiss Amish from Indiana. I first began hearing about this settlement around a decade ago when a reader sent in photos for a…
This is a neat story on how a local non-Amish resident of Medina County, Ohio has taken matters into his own hands to try to help Amish neighbors be safer on the roads. There have been multiple recent car-buggy accidents in the area, and Jim Coleman decided to try to do something about it, reports the Medina County Gazette: SPENCER TWP. — Driving in Spencer…
We’re back with part 2 of a two-part Q & A with Don Burke on his Amish photography. If you missed part 1 you can catch up here. In this part Don shares how he chooses which communities to visit, what he’s learned from taking Amish photos, and more. Amish America: Have you ever gotten anything unusual or unexpected while taking pictures? Don Burke: Oh…
 Here’s a look at six surprising facts about the Amish and cars. Contrary to some belief, the Amish do make use of cars – just not as drivers. They are often passengers in cars, may hire non-Amish to drive them, and in some cases even own their own vehicles (e.g., for work purposes). This article answers questions including: What is an “Amish taxi“? Do…
Just a small addendum to the post on the tragic loss of a three-year-old in upstate New York. In that one I made the frequently-made point that different Amish do things differently, and also that some ways of being Amish are more dangerous on the whole than others. Following that post, Jim Halverson has sent in some photos of an Amish vehicle with child safety…
Tragedy hit on Sunday in an upstate New York community. A young Amish boy lost his life after falling from a buggy. There are not a lot of details, but this is most of the report at news10.com: New York State Police confirmed that on September 12, troopers responded to a report of an accident involving an Amish buggy on Elmer Road in Moira. According…
Reader Rebecca Rury recently took a visit to the only Texas Amish community, at Beeville in Bee County. She stopped in at the community’s best-known Amish business – Borntrager’s Combination Shop – but writes that she “didn’t get to chat with Mr. Borntrager as he was busy shoeing a horse.” Mr. Borntrager is the owner of the combination shop, and the bishop of this community….