Maybe more than any other Amish place name, I’ve never had a clue how to pronounce “Chouteau” (Chah-toe? Shoh-two? Choo-tee-ow? 🙂 ).  Lucky for me, this is a blog, not a podcast. Why am I pondering pronunciation quirks again? Well, our busy contributor Tom Geist checks in today with a visit to the Chouteau, Oklahoma Amish settlement. Tom, I should say, gets around pretty well. Besides recent…
Oklahoma! Â It just rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it? Â It’s probably my favorite state name, outside of Mississippi, of course. Oklahoma is hardly full of Amish. Â But, it does have a couple of settlements, including the 100-year-old community at Chouteau. Oklahoma’s two Amish communities are unlike most others, for one key reason. Â You can read more, and also see more photos of the annual Clarita…
The Great Plains have long attracted Amish settlement. Â However, Amish populations in most Great Plains states, such as Oklahoma and Montana, remain low. Kansas holds to this pattern; despite a history of Amish settlement stretching back 140 years, the Sunflower State is today home to only about a dozen church districts. There are some interesting communities in Kansas, however. Â The settlements in Reno County (Yoder;…
Ice storms thrashed the country last week. Oklahoma was especially hard-hit. An article (no longer online) in the Tulsa World explains how the area’s Amish and non-Amish have handled it. A local English man, suffering through an extended power outage, told an Amish compatriot that ‘we’re living like you are now.’ The Amish haven’t felt the effects as much. They usually heat with propane or…