“You’re supposed to defend yourself if you’ve been aggressed upon.” That’s what Ora Hochstetler, now 82, says in his own defense, a half-century after his excommunication from the Amish church. He likens it to a famous battle from Scripture: “Kind of like David and Goliath. I don’t believe in just going out and boom, kill somebody, but if I’m aggressed upon, I believe in defending…
Amish father Jonas Stoltzfus recently filed a lawsuit challenging a new New York state law requiring students to be fully immunized against contagious disease. Stoltzfus says he was informed that his three children will be blocked from attending their Cranberry Marsh School, a traditional Amish school in this Seneca County settlement of six church districts. All 24 students at the school are Amish. An Amish…
Going back again through some photos, I realized I still had a lot of shots from my last visits to Charlotte County, Virginia. I’ve already written about this community several times – in posts on an “off-the-map” Amish dry goods store, on Amish phone shacks, and on Esh’s Variety Stand, a little two-day-a-week business selling baked goods, canned goods, and more. I though you might…
Reader Marge asked on our recent Amish funeral customs post, “Why do Amish not publish obits in local newspapers?” I responded that they do in fact appear in local papers. You can quite often find them online. Here is an example: an Amish man named Roman E. Harshberger, 70, of the Nappanee, Indiana community, passed away earlier this week. Roman’s details appeared online in the…
We once had a monthly Amish auction update thanks to the hard work of one helpful reader, but there are too many of them for me to keep up with on my own. However, from time to time I like to promote upcoming auction events, especially ones you readers keep me posted on. Bob has kindly passed along the following notice of an upcoming auction…
The Amish community at Ellenboro, North Carolina is having an auction next month – the first annual sale for the five-year-old Swartzentruber settlement. What’s neat here is that the auction company has taken extensive photos of the things up for sale, posting over 100 photos online. The Amish are not “frozen in time”, as they are often labeled. But if one group of Amish were…
~ February 2026 Update on Bakery’s Closure & Miriam at Bottom ~ “I did not tell them I was leaving…I left them a note, and left.” Miriam Lambright says that “looking outside, I was like – there’s more there.” Leaving her community meant “freedom.” Miriam left the Amish seven years ago, at age 22. Her story is briefly told in a new video from Milwaukee…
Someone is swiping Amish buggy warning signs in Delta County, Michigan. After the latest round of thefts, the total of stolen signs is now four. And this is not just the sign the thief is taking – whoever is doing it, is actually uprooting the post as well – from three feet of concrete. Buggy sign in Delta County, MI. Photo by Clarissa Kell/Escanaba Daily…
An 11-year-old Amish boy was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon by his sibling in the Adams County, Indiana community. Details are vague at this time, but sources are describing it as “accidental”, and I’d assume that to be the case. Images by wpta21.com (update: article has been removed at source) This is just one of numerous shootings involving Amish children and youth over the past…
Amish residents near Berlin, Ohio have been complaining about the odors emanating from a local rendering plant for some time. They’ve now been given an outlet to do so formally – and have taken advantage of it. An “odor hotline” has received around 450 complaint calls since being set up in July. The complaints are going against a local business called Holmes By Products, which…