Conflict over the SMV safety triangle, which has seen numerous Amish sent to jail in Kentucky, has ended. Governor Steve Beshear signed Senate Bill 75 into law yesterday. Â The new law allows reflective tape to be substituted for the Slow Moving Vehicle emblem. Â Amish reaction from the APÂ story (no longer online): Atlee Miller, an Amish farmer from Franklin, said he appreciates the help from the…
If you’ve been following the Kentucky Amish SMV case, you know that some people still do. Jacob Gingerich of Graves County, Kentucky recently wrote 138 letters to KY legislators explaining the Swartzentruber Amish position on the safety triangle. Thanks in part to Gingerich’s efforts, a compromise bill acceptable to his people has quickly passed the KY Senate and is now moving through the House with…
The big story last week was the imprisonment of 8 Kentucky Amishmen for not displaying the Slow Moving Vehicle triangle on their buggies. Back in June we covered this issue with a lot of discussion on the implications of the case. Â It’s an issue of freedom and safety, similar in a sense to controversies over raw milk or vaccines, and one that brings out strong…
Here’s a video of a singing taken in the Guthrie, Kentucky Amish community (thanks to Mike). From the video commentary, the occasion was a funeral visitation, for an Amish man hit while driving a tractor. Beautiful singing.
Here on the blog and on the Amish America Facebook page, some of you have been bringing up the court decision in Kentucky on Slow-Moving-Vehicle (SMV) triangles. Â The SMV triangle has become iconic of the Amish and the vast majority of them willingly display them on their carriages. However, some of the “lower” groups (in particular the Swartzentruber Amish and a few others) refuse to…
I hope you enjoy these shots of an Amish settlement in Hardin County, Kentucky, taken a while back on a beautiful summer day (note: this first photo is not an Amish place, but is from a nearby town; all the rest are Amish). More Kentucky Amish posts: Munfordville, Kentucky Amish Graves County, Kentucky Amish Kentucky Amish…
The front porch is a great place to spend an afternoon, especially with cool spring days ahead. The key, of course, is having a good place to park your rear end. Â I think these blue rockers do the trick. Â From the Hardin County, Kentucky Amish settlement. More on Kentucky Amish furniture.
You’ve probably heard about the accident in a Kentucky Amish community last Thursday. Â Flash flooding in a normally passable creek caused a crossing buggy to overturn. Â Four children, ranging in age from 5 months to 11 years, were swept away and drowned. The Amish community, in Graves County in western Kentucky, has suffered a difficult loss. Â One hopes the parents take some bittersweet comfort at…
The Amish settlement near Munfordville and Horse Cave, Kentucky is the largest in the state, with 13 church districts as of 2010. Last week I had a chance to visit a number of Kentucky Amish communities, including the Munfordville settlement. The Amish here live among the hills of Hart County, which lies about halfway between Lexington and Nashville. Munfordville and Horse Cave are both small…
From Lancaster, Pennsylvania, through Ohio and Indiana and on out to other long-established settlements in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, we tend to associate the Amish with the nation’s middle latitudes. Since their earliest years in America, the Amish have gravitated to the cooler climes of these corn and dairy regions. However, the Amish have also had a long history of attempting to settle America’s southern…