Selling books to the Amish is a pretty cool job. I’m doing my deliveries now. I had about 270 Amish families get books from me this summer. So it’s been a busy week. As I was leaving one family earlier today, the dad looked at me and said ‘we’re going to think about you when we read them’. And I think that hearing that is…
‘A hog farmer and a teacher!!’ Hog farms are few and far between in Lancaster dairyland, and hog farmers who deal with Amish ‘ninth-graders’ on a regular basis even fewer. Perhaps that’s why ‘Ephraim’ nearly shouted at me in glee when describing his odd occupational mix. He’s been handling vocational school duties for his area for twenty years now. You can tell he enjoys it….
This one goes back a couple years, but really surprised me when i first found it. An English-language Polish weekly, the Warsaw Voice, reported back in 2000 that a few families, apparently of an Amish or Mennonite persuasion, had settled in a village not far from the capital. The arrival of the families apparently caused quite a stir: one villager ‘ran from house to house…
I run into Amish dog breeders almost every day here in Lancaster County. On this blog I usually contend that allegations of animal abuse in what are termed Amish puppy mills are at least a tad overblown. I do feel sorry at times to see dogs kept caged. At the same time I don’t know that I’d go so far to allege abuse on the…
This week while selling books in Lancaster County, I met ‘Abe’ and ‘Anna Ruth’, an excommunicated Amish couple, kicked out, they said, for promoting the idea of assurance of salvation. While they still attended their local church services, lived and dressed ‘Amish’, they had lost full membership and were presumably under the Bann. Amish believe that all we can do is do our best to…
Today, a small New Order Amish settlement is found in western North Carolina, near the town of Union Grove. Before this settlement came about, (and not counting a short-lived community in the late 50’s), the only other full-fledged attempt to settle in the Tar Heel State occurred in 1918, lasting a full quarter-century before extinction in 1944. The Amish who originally came here, mainly from…
Note: I wrote this way back in 2007 while living for a summer in the Lancaster County Amish community. Snitz pie was a wonderful discovery I made towards the end of my time there. If you’ve never had it, I highly recommend trying it. It’s mainly seen in the Lancaster County Amish (and related churches). It used to mostly only be made by the Amish…
Lancaster County is home to many covered bridges. Around 1500 were built in Pennsylvania during the 19th century. Over 200 remain, more than in any other state. Lancaster has the most of any county in the state. Why the cover? A handy spot to park your buggy during a rainstorm? Sure, but apparently the main purpose is to protect the structure of the bridge and…
I always seem to have neat things happen to me during the week as I’m working. I try to make a note of them for posts like this one. Last week I was treated to a rendition of the Noah’s Ark song (sung to the tune of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, by five sisters, ages fifteen to two. I’d heard the Amish sing from…
Just got back from my leisurely Sunday walk through downtown historic Strasburg, the borough where I’m living this summer. Amish buggies go past my window on a regular basis; horse manure lines the streets of stone and brick homes, many of which date from the 1700’s and 1800’s. One of the buggies rolling down main street today was a bit different though–from far off, it…