Albert Miller grew up as the son of an Amish church deacon in Holmes County, Ohio. He left his community at the age of 18, got his GED, attended Kent State University and eventually medical school, before becoming a doctor. He documents his journey in a new book: You Can’t Do That!: The Story of an Amish Deacon’s Son Who Left the Fold and Became…
Big Olaf is an Amish-made ice cream brand based in Sarasota, Florida. The company has just recalled its ice cream products after allegations that its product was contaminated by listeria. Two lawsuits have been filed, one by the estate of an Illinois woman who it’s claimed was made ill and died after eating the product. Another is by a couple who lost an unborn child…
We’ve got another collection of Don Burke photos for you today – this batch from the Amish community at Chetopa, Kansas (Labette County). We don’t talk too often about the Amish in the Sunflower State, but they have a solid and long-running presence there. In fact, several of the oldest Amish communities are in the state (namely the Haven/Yoder, Hutchinson, and Garnett communities). Chetopa is…
While in Lancaster County last month, I had the chance to film inside the buggy of a friend’s son (16 years old). He helpfully explained the controls and other elements of the buggy (useful for an English non-buggy-driver) so I could better explain them to you. In this video I give you a look at what all the knobs and other things in the buggy…
In her weekly column, Amish mother Lovina Eicher from time to time shares an hour-by-hour look into her daily life. We saw this in both 2018 and 2020. One change I noticed between those two accounts is that Lovina’s wake-up time “improved” from 3 AM to 4 AM. I think that reflects a change in the work schedule of the working men in her household…
Last year we noted an exhibition of photographs by Dennis L. Hughes, who captured thousands of images of Amish life. This exhibition, at Elizabethtown College (Lancaster County, PA) has returned, and is currently running until August 4th. If you’d like to view the collection here’s more on how to do that, along with a link to the online exhibition: Amish Life in Focus: The Dennis…
A viewer recently asked if Amish marriages are arranged on the Amish America YouTube channel. And the answer to that is a definitive “no”. Odds are you already knew the answer to this one. But I can kind of see where the question might come from – when looking at this religious society, which certainly must appear “strict” to some, from the outside. The…
This is the first Amish home I’ve seen listed online for sale in Canada. Amish have had a presence in Canada for nearly 200 years, the vast amount of that time only being found in Ontario. In recent years they’ve settled in three other provinces. From what I can tell this home is found in Huron County, in what would be known as the Lucknow…
Often when people look at the Amish – a horse-and-buggy people, after all – they assume they’re dodging the pain of high gas prices. But is that really the case? First, there was recently a humorous column by Star Beacon writer Shelley Terry “Hubby going Amish due to rising gas prices“, which illustrates this view well. An excerpt: When gas hit $5.09 a gallon, Hubby…
On Saturday my brother and I paid another visit to the Swartzentruber Amish settlement in western NC (the area of Polkville & Ellenboro). I am happy to report that the community is up to 22 households, up from around 14 in late 2019. At that time I had been informed a couple of families had moved away, and wondered if that signaled a declining trend….