“Pud” Sam Stoltzfus is a retired Amish farmer and gazebo builder known throughout the Lancaster County community for his outspoken nature. He has been a frequent writer of letters to the local Lancaster paper, an impromptu spokesman for the Amish in some sense. If you get a chance to meet him, you probably won’t forget it. Pud Sam is a historian, grandfather to 51, and…
If you’re hungry in Holmes County, you could do a lot worse than Boyd & Wurthmann. This restaurant, located in “downtown” Berlin, is a local institution, serving up sandwiches and hearty meals for 70+ years. I visited in December, again with my friend Rich Stevick. It’s a circa-1940s restaurant and it kind of has that atmosphere (I wasn’t around then, but I can imagine). I think…
The Amish are well-known for living by specific rules on technology, dress, and other aspects of daily life. But Amish churches are not all the same. Some are more traditional, and others more progressive. Some do things one way, and others do things another way. So how do Amish people know all the dos and don’ts of their churches? The Ordnung (Church Rules) This information…
Have you ever heard about the Amish in Mexico? It’s quite a remarkable story. No, there are no Mexican Amish communities (at least not anymore). But thanks to their outreach to a group of spiritual kin, the Amish have had a regular presence in Mexico for the last two decades. Old Colony Mennonites are an Anabaptist group with some cultural similarities to Amish, including Plain…
I don’t how much of an anomaly this might be, but it seems there have been an awful lot of fires striking Amish businesses lately. In the past few weeks, there have been at least four significant Amish business fires: January 14 – Spring Mills, PA (Centre County): Diamond Custom Kitchens burns down (the Amish opted not to call the fire department, for reasons, I…
What do Amish wear to church? In addition to their many women’s head coverings, the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center also has several items of church clothing on display. The Woman’s Cape & Apron First of all, a woman’s cape and apron: The cape and apron are commonly worn on Sunday across communities (we had a look recently at Amish wedding clothing, showing another example of…
I’ve got some nice photos shared by readers over the past months, which I’ve been wanting to pass along to you. We’ve also got one piece of writing. Here we go! 1. Amish Timepiece Shop – First of all, long-time readers might recall a 2012 post on Mahlon Shetler’s Clock & Watch Shop in Dayton, NY. That post was based on photos and comments from another…
A 17-year-old Amish girl was rescued Thursday from atop her buggy during a flood in Wayne County, Ohio. From the Massillon Independent: Brewster Fire Department personnel rescued the 17-year-old girl who had been driving the horse-drawn buggy, which had been swept into the high water along the rural roadway. According to Lt. Roger Carpenter of the Brewster Fire Department, the teen was sitting atop the…
The vehicles Amos Zook restores, specifically, are Ford Broncos from the “first-gen” era, built from 1966-1977. Zook lives in Lancaster County, where he runs Zook’s Bronco Barn, doing work for clients as far away as Florida, on projects that can exceed six figures. What makes this story unusual is that Zook is Amish. That’s not the only thing unusual about him though, as revealed in…
As a people who live close to animals and nature, the Amish still do something that most Americans left behind long ago – that is, butchering and processing their own meat. This might make some us think “yuck”. But it’s the way of things when you’re on Amish farms. Amish have days dedicated to the task – usually in the autumn or winter when the…