The Amish of Harmony, Minnesota are putting old things to use again. Â From the St. Paul Pioneer Press: Jonas Hochstetler looked around at the eight abandoned greenhouses, thought of the work for a few seconds — and smiled. Hochstetler and eight other Amish men had just traveled nearly three hours from their hometown of Harmony, Minn., to West St. Paul on Thursday morning, March 21,…
I am speaking with someone shortly for a story on use of the Amish name to sell products. Â I’ve found this a topic people react strongly to. Doing anything involving the Amish name to make a buck is obviously exploiting them, after all. I’ve also found that with reflection some see it differently. There are a number of topics like this, where there is sort…
The Harmony, Minnesota Amish community is the largest in the state. In the video below, a television station visits the community and interviews an Amishman named Dennis as well as a local tour guide. It’s a brief but enjoyable look at this conservative Swartzentruber settlement. I don’t recall a lot of cases in which Swartzentruber Amish appeared on camera. Dennis gives a nice interview here;…
The familiar yellow buggy warning sign tells drivers “Amish ahead”. But there is no standardized design. So the signs you see can vary. Below, twelve examples of Amish buggy warning signs you’ll find across America – and one from outside our borders. From Dauphin County, near Elizabethville, Pennsylvania. Â Dauphin County is home to a sizeable Lancaster Amish daughter settlement. Taken near the aptly-named Plainville, New…
Here’s a pretty mundane news story about buggy warning signs being painted over with big red X’s in a Minnesota Amish community (no longer online). This sort of thing goes on to greater and lesser degrees in many places where the Amish live. Could the culprits be English bigots, kids out for a prank, Amish youth even? Does it matter? Just a dumb thing to…
photo: Jerry Olson/Post-Bulletin Some Amish in Minnesota will need a new outlet for their milk.  The last creamery in Minnesota to accept milk in cans–mostly provided by local Amish–no longer does. I guess you call that an end of an era. Milk is an important liquid in Amish America. And surprisingly, a controversial one as well. Some Amish farmers have gotten in trouble for selling raw…
Some Amish avoid vaccination. Why? There are a few reasons why, but some have a motive similar to why almost all Amish avoid insurance: it would be placing faith in an outside body instead of in God. A lot more Amish do vaccinate their kids than participate in insurance programs, however. The motive rings clear to non-Amish ears–why take the chance with your child’s life?…