Here’s a neat story of friendship that started when a fifth-grade teacher in Pennsylvania came across a balloon released several days earlier by an Amish girl in Ohio. From triblive.com: A deflated and tattered orange helium balloon landed in the Leechburg backyard of the Young family on April 20 of that same year. “It was not easy to read,” recalls Debbi Young, who was teaching…
We had a look at icehouses last week, which you’ll find in plainer Amish settlements. What are some other things you’d expect to find in the most traditional Amish communities? 1. Outhouses So we start with another type of “house”. Homes in the plainest Amish communities don’t have indoor plumbing. This means outhouses, and for that matter, less frequent bathing (as a two-shower-a-day person, I…
Photographer David Marvitz has captured some striking images of Amish doing an important winter chore in Iowa. While many Amish use propane or natural gas-powered refrigerators to keep food cold (see point #4 here), the more traditional Amish use ice houses. This is prime time to collect frozen fuel for these structures, which keep food chilled well into the warmer months. Here’s what those ice blocks…
Reader Steve writes in with a question. I know a lot of you have Amish friends and may have faced this situation: I LOVE your website — I often find myself poring through it in the hope of finding a new or different slant on things. We recently bought a house in Lancaster County (PA) and have become friendly with the Amish family that lives…
“Sis en Bu.” “Sis en Maedel.” You’d hear these words often enough in Amish homes, with their ever-expanding families. These Pennsylvania Dutch phrases mean “It’s a boy” and “It’s a girl,” as noted in a recent article on the language, “Keeping the Pennsylvania Dutch language alive – and thriving.” Is Pennsylvania Dutch alive and thriving? Well, it depends where you look. Patrick Donmoyer and Douglas…
What do racing horses have to do with Plain buggies? And why do some feel safer in a buggy than a car? Reporter Corey Kilgannon recently visited Plain communities in New York to learn about buggy safety from the local Mennonite and Amish populations. The result is a pair of articles in the New York Times. In “Quaint Buggies, With a Deadly Side“, Kilgannon explores…
Sam Mullet was sentenced in 2013 to 15 years in prison for orchestrating beard and hair-cutting attacks on Amish. Mullet later saw his sentence reduced to a little under 11 years. If you missed the story at the time, Mullet was the bishop of a breakaway Amish group which began following decidedly un-Amish practices, detailed in the book Renegade Amish. These included attacks by Mullet’s followers on…
A Pennsylvania court has ruled against an Amish family, ordering them to do something they staunchly oppose: After a legal battle spanning more than five years, a Pennsylvania court has agreed with a lower court ruling that ordered a Warren County Amish family to connect to a municipal sewer, even though doing so requires the use of an electric pump. In an opinion issued Jan….
“For Thanksgiving my extended Kuhns family came to town and for entertainment the 2 year olds were playing church,” writes Karleen Kuhns. After viewing Karleen’s videos, I realized they were too cute to not share with you. In the first of three videos, one of the boys sings the opening to the Loblied (“Hymn of Praise”, sung as the second hymn in every Amish church…
Thanks to everyone for another great year. It’s been over 11 years now since I fired up this site in November 2006, really having no idea at the time where posting my observations on the Amish might lead. Thousands of posts and nearly 50,000 blog comments later, it’s been one of the most enriching things I’ve ever been a part of. I hope that you…