A tragic van rollover accident in Iowa two weeks ago claimed the lives of young Amish father Ervin Borntreger, his one-year-old son, and two of his also very young nieces. Remarkably, the Amish community has allowed the Dyersville Commercial newspaper to publish an account of the funeral and even some photos. This article is noteworthy in that it gives us one of the closest looks…
So I got another comment on the YouTube channel that made my head spin a little bit 😀 The commenter claims that an Amish home I showed in the video “Inside an Amish Home” is “Utterly NOT an Amish home!” The commenter includes a list of five points why he/she thinks it’s not Amish, adding at the end that the video was “total bologna.” This…
This Amish home for sale got my attention, first and foremost, for it being in South Dakota. This is in the state’s only Amish community, founded in 2010. You don’t hear much on Amish in the state, for reasons I’ll explain below. There is a second property that was listed at the same time, so it could be that two families are moving away. Here’s…
I really enjoy all the various accents we have in American English – the regional dialects, quirky localisms, unique manners of speaking (this may be because I also apparently have an odd way of speaking 🙂 ). Amish in different communities have different accents and pronunciations when they speak English as well. When you compare English pronunciation in the Lancaster County Amish community with that…
Anyone out there planning to steal from the Amish, take heed (more on that below). Now, that notice is not meant for the vast majority of people reading this. But why am I writing about this? Well first – what prompted this post. Pennsylvania state police are reporting arrests in a burglary ring which allegedly targeted Amish properties. The ring apparently consisted of five teenagers…
Amish in Unity, Maine recently completed their yearly harvest of ice. This ice is to be used in their ice houses for cooling throughout the coming year. Harvesting ice from local ponds is a common practice among the plainest Amish, though the Amish in this community don’t exactly fit the conventional definition of “plainest”. From the report at centralmaine.com: UNITY — A group of 30…
How do Amish families keep their homes warm? Heating methods and costs are on the minds of many of us, both Amish and English, every year as the calendar moves into the winter months. But as a group which does not use public grid electricity, how do the Amish heat their homes? Here are three ways they do it (read on, or check out the…
A van rollover accident claimed the lives of four Amish individuals, three of them young children, in central Iowa on Friday. The group of Amish (more than one family) were on the way to Missouri to visit relatives. From kmch.com: The Iowa State Patrol says three children and one adult were killed when the passenger van they were riding in lost control on Highway 20….
Visit the larger tourist-friendly Amish communities, and you’ll find the label “Pennsylvania Dutch” or just “Dutch”, and variations of it, everywhere. Amish use the term as well, for instance in the names of their businesses, or in nicknames. But where does this term come from? When you hear “Dutch” in a vacuum, the Netherlands (or Holland) invariably come to mind. And some accounts mistakenly have…
This is a neat article (Jamestown Post-Journal) on the opening of one Amish family’s new pizza place, the aptly-named “Family Night Pizza”. On first glance, the article title itself is eye-catching, for more reasons than one: “Amish Owned Pizza Business Has Opened In Panama”. That would be Panama, New York – not the Central American nation. But the pizza part is just what you would…