Alice Aber shares a pile of pics from a trip to the Arthur, Illinois Amish community. Â A special thanks to Alice; I think you’ll enjoy these photos: See Alice’s photos of the Roselen’s Amish coffee shop at Arthur. Read more on the Arthur Amish and Amish furniture in Illinois.
Today is the first day of spring (also known as the furthest day possible from next winter). Depending on your latitude, you may need the calendar to tell you that. But even if your weather this morning doesn’t seem so springy, it will be here soon enough. With spring, plants know the wait is over. They may now officially begin to sprout and grow. Of…
Roselen’s Coffee & Delights 1045 E Columbia St Arthur, IL 61911 (217) 543-3106 In last Friday’s brain dump I mentioned Roselen’s Coffees and Delights, a drive-thru coffee shop in the Arthur, Illinois Amish community. Roselen’s is operated by Amish sisters Rose Plank and Lena Otto. Â I guess we can figure out where the shop’s name comes from (but why did poor Lena have to lose…
It’s become something of a habit to share a few thoughts, comments, and links every couple weeks in what I call a “brain dump”. Â It’s not as scary as it sounds: Reader Steve recently asked “Where are the Texas Amish?” Â We don’t have a Texas Amish State Guide entry yet, but I can point you to this blog post entitled Southern Amish, which has a…
I sent a thank-you copy of my book to an Amish friend in PA. He received it yesterday. He thanked me and let me know that he would read it asap, but admitted that “reading in the summer is like swimming in the winter for us here”.  Which cracked me up, but made sense. I encountered the same thing when selling books in Amish communities. …
The ten largest Amish settlements, by number of church districts, as of 2009: 10. Allen County, Indiana (Founded 1852; 19 church districts). This Amish settlement located to the north of Fort Wayne is a Swiss-ethnicity community. Open buggies are driven here; the construction trade is popular. Allen County Amish homes are often built of red brick, unlike those of most other Amish. The three most…
Outside of a childhood trip to Lancaster County and a brief day in a southern Michigan Amish community, Arthur, Illinois was the place where I first came to know Amish, while selling books there in 2004. Arthur is in fact the sixth largest Amish settlement, with a population of about 4,000. Arthur is a community about 3 hours south of Chicago in the flat farmland…
An AP story has just hit the wire on population growth among the Amish. This coincides with the release of additional information on trends in Amish growth and migration from here at the Young Center. The Amish studies site now lists trend data for the 1992 to 2008 period as well as the 2007 to 2008 one-year trend. The most surprising statistic: according to the…
‘No motive for the deed is known, as he was wealthy and popular.’ Reporting of long ago can seem…a bit, well, simplistic, can’t it? As in, what was the reporter’s thought process? Wealth? Check. Popularity? Check. So what was this Shrock fellow’s problem? What else could there have been to life? This is from a 1903 New York Times article. Shrock, whatever his troubles may…
‘Sylvan’, one of my Amish friends in Lancaster County, runs a scooter workshop in addition to milking cows. In Lancaster County and related settlements, you rarely see bicycles–in Lancaster, for instance, there are only a few church districts I’m aware of that seem to allow them. I’ve also seen scooters in use among the Amish of Allen County, Indiana, and I’d imagine they’d be found…