Taxes, puppy mills, cream-cheese muffins – I just looked down the list of posts for the last couple weeks and realized that the Amish have been the subject of a good bit of controversy recently. Most of it fairly tame. But this one made me do a double-take. Apparently tempers got hot at the championship game of the Regency Hockey League in Lancaster County last…
‘The Amish don’t pay taxes. They’re freeloaders.’ Ryan Robinson of the Lancaster New Era writes (no longer available) that myths such as these persist, apparently even among long-time neighbors of the Amish. Why the confusion? Amish are generally exempt from paying Social Security taxes, a privilege negotiated some years ago with the federal government. But at the same time they also refrain from receiving benefits….
Amish men wear beards, but no mustache. Why? An Amish friend shared his answer that question (see that below). But first, Stephen Scott gives possible reasons in Why Do They Dress That Way? “Evil-looking” European soldiers used to wear curly mustaches. Amish shaved theirs to set themselves apart. The mustache has been considered unclean. An Amish friend explained the reasoning behind the beard, which overlaps…
You may have heard that the Amish have been accused of treating puppies poorly in what have been termed “puppy mills“. Amish businesses have thrived in recent years – though there has been some clashing with non-Amish society along the way. “Puppy mills”, Amish construction firms, and woodworking shops have all rubbed people the wrong way at times. “Puppy mills” is the term applied to…
Typhoid fever and bad ‘plumbing’ did this bunch in. David Luthy, Amish convert and historian, explains in his Settlements that Failed that the Amish settlement at Ordway, Colorado started off promisingly enough in 1910. The area had been heavily promoted by a realty company for settlement, and proved attractive enough for some families to move there. A town named Dayton was meant to arise in…
Genevieve at prariebluestem.blogspot.com has shared some local insight in a piece about the influx of Amish and Mennonites into the Kentucky community where she lives. Kentucky Plain People In Christian County live not only Amish but Old Order Mennonites, who also travel by horse-and-buggy and share many similarities with the Amish. It seems a wide variety of other Mennonite designations are active in the area…
The Nebraska Amish find themselves on the ultraconservative edge of Amish society. “Nebraska” is something of a misnomer, however. This group is found mainly in Mifflin County, Pennsylvani, in the diverse Big Valley region. A second, smaller group is found in northeastern Ohio. The Nebraska tag comes from the origin of the group’s founding bishop, Yost H. Yoder. Today there are a number of subgroups…
Respect to the Amish farrier. His is a tough job. Amish occupations may vary from businesses that cater to non-Amish to those that service the Amish community. The farrier keeps Amish horses running. The typical horse needs a ‘tire change’ about once every 4 to 8 (to 12 in winter) weeks, depending on horse, climate, and season. A typical change of shoes takes about 45…
The Amish often ignore daylight savings time. Tradition and symbolic separation from the world are often cited as reasons why. When attending church in Lancaster in the summer for example, Amish may refer to the 8 o’clock ‘slow time’ church start time, in other words, 9 am on DST. Church begins at the same time, the whole year round, regardless of what the clock says….
Digging back a bit, I managed to pull up a neat story from the Cellar on an Iowa Amish settlement, originally found in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. After buying a tract of farmland, a developer auctioned off the unwanted turkey barn located on the property. After chopping it into four pieces, the local Amish managed to move it by hand to a location one mile…