The wedding would start at nine-thirty in the morning, the same as a church service. I clicked my fingernails together in my nervousness, until Joe told me to stop.
We waited until the singing began out in the barn, slow and long syllables in the traditional Amish chant. Joe led the way. The six of us filed in and stood in front of the chairs provided for us. Mem was not at the service. She was one of the main cooks, so she would come in later to see Joe and Emma exchange their vows.
Datt sat with the middle-aged men, looking meek and mild.
When the six of us were standing in front of our chairs, we sat down in unison. The bishops and ministers got up and shook hands with people and filed out to go to their designated room in the house. After a few minutes, Joe and Emma stood up, and Emma followed Joe humbly into the house to meet with the bishops and ministers for their marriage instructions.
The singing continued with the “Loblied” as the second hymn. When the third hymn had begun, Joe and Emma came back and sat down again. The bishops and ministers returned a few moments later and joined in singing the last verse of the hymn. Then the preaching began. A minister from Emma's church district preached the first sermon. It was very much like a sermon at church, except that it focused on marriage and how the woman should be submissive to her husband. I groaned inwardly and thought to myself that he shouldn't encourage Joe.
There was a break during scripture reading, the same as for a church service. Then Bishop Dan Wengerd stood up and began his sermon. He had been ordained as bishop in our church district the previous year, and this would be the first marriage he would perform. His nervousness was obvious through his pauses and his uneven, jerky movements.
Dan's sermon was shorter than most second sermons are, and then he asked Joe and Emma to step up to him. All the cooks and table waiters had filed into the barn to watch the exchanging of the vows.
I was hoping Bishop Dan wasn't going to mess this up. I wanted to make sure they were really married. I watched as they repeated their pledges after Bishop Dan, and then Bishop Dan joined their hands and pronounced them man and wife.
Joe and Emma looked as nervous as Bishop Dan, and I wondered if it was catching. Emma certainly seemed as submissive as a woman could ever become as she walked towards her seat, behind Joe.
The cooks and table waiters went back to their work in the kitchen. The congregation knelt, and Bishop Dan read a long German prayer. I couldn't help but feel relieved that my life had changed for the better. At the same time, as I looked at Emma, kneeling so quietly next to me, face so unreadable, I felt an ache of sympathy. She was now at the mercy of Joe and bound to him in ways that no one ever had been before. I said a prayer asking for God to have mercy on Emma.
After we stood for a scripture reading, we sat down, and people began to sing a lively hymn. When the last notes died away, all was quiet. The six of us stood up and filed out before the rest of the congregation.
Emma, Ada, and I quickly went upstairs and replaced our black coverings with our white ones. Emma was quiet, only asking Ada about where she had put this or that. It seemed impossible to me that someone could think about such small details right after such a huge change had been made in her life.
Several minutes later, we sat at the bridal corner, or eck, in the living room, with our respective partners. The men filed in and sat on one side of the table, and the women sat on the other side. When the bishop gave the signal, everyone bowed their heads for silent prayer, and then big platters and bowls of food were brought to the table by the table waiters.
Lizzie and Ella waited on our table. Lizzie was trying her best to do what she was supposed to, but Joe managed to get a dig in under his breath, something about Ella doing most of the work. They brought the six of us the choicest chicken and special dishes, homemade bread with apple butter, heaps of mashed potatoes and bowls of gravy, dressing, coleslaw, fresh garden peas, and applesauce. Ella's face was flushed red with the warmth of the day and the effort she was exerting to do her job just right. Lizzie looked as flushed as Ella did. Sarah and Susan, the next most honored table waiters, served the tables right next to the eck.
For dessert, we had strawberry tapioca pudding, vanilla pudding, apple, cherry, blueberry, and strawberry pies. The six of us had a special strawberry pie that had a whipped cream topping and had been chilled in the icebox. Halfway through the dessert, the men who were married to the cooks came around to collect money for the cooks and table waiters. They shook their saucepans vigorously, making the coins rattle loudly as people tossed money into them.
After the meal was done, Joe and Emma visited with folks out under the shade of the maple tree in the front yard while Ada and I gathered all the presents into one upstairs bedroom. The sound of the spirited hymns drifted up from the living room, where the men sat around the now empty tables. There had been a second sitting after we left the table. At least at weddings men and women ate together, rather than the men first and women last, as was done at family gatherings. The table waiters cleared the tables, washed the dishes, and reset the tables again for the evening meal.
After about an hour, Joe went off to the barn with the menfolk to give out cigars. I could tell by his stride that he was feeling like “king shit of the manure pile,” the way he often referred to others who he thought were “getting too big for their britches.”
Emma came upstairs to her bedroom and unwrapped presents: bowls of glass, plastic, and stainless steel; platters, pitchers, glasses, dishpans and a drainer; pots and pans; bath and dish towels, sheets, tablecloths, and potholders; a gas iron and a lantern; and every imaginable household item. Ada and I took turns recording who had given what gifts in Emma's wedding album. Women and girls came in small groups to watch; then they would drift away and another group would come in. The room got warm and stuffy, and cigar smoke drifted up from downstairs.
I took a break and went out in the cool shade when it was Ada's turn to record. Sitting beneath the huge maple in the front yard, I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of talking and laughter, of the horses moving quietly where they grazed in the field nearby, and an occasional car driving by on the road. I could smell the meatloaf baking, along with something sweet, probably date pudding. Enveloped by the very air of the Amish around me, I longed to just be able to give in, to accept that this life that I had been born into was the one meant for me. To know that sometime in the next five years, I would be in Emma's place, unwrapping wedding presents, and my new husband would right now be out in the barn, being congratulated by his friends. I imagined we would go home to our own place, and soon I would have children of my own.
I was brought out of my reverie when I heard a group of women approaching the bench where I was sitting. They brought out benches from inside to join me in the shade beneath the maple. I swallowed down my feelings. Aunts and cousins came by and visited in between their duties in the kitchen. Lizzie and Ella sat there for a while. They looked tired. Sarah and Susan were taking their turn in the kitchen.
The crowd thinned out in the late afternoon. Some people went home for chores with plans to come back for the evening festivities. Others left for the day. Just before supper was served to the married folks, the young people started arriving. They gathered in upstairs bedrooms with the girls in one room, the boys in another.
Joe began lining up the young folks to go downstairs. He had them line up boy, girl. He didn't give much thought about who ended up with whom. The young men resisted and went back into the bedroom, feigning shyness. Joe told them if they didn't want to eat, they could stay in the room, and they stopped resisting. Joe used to resist this lineup even more than other young men, and suddenly he was in charge of getting them to behave.
Finally, when all the young folks were lined up with Joe and Emma in the lead, we went to our place at the corner of the table again. This time we had meatloaf, buttered noodles, several kinds of slaw, corn relish, applesauce, vanilla pudding, fruit pies, and the date pudding I'd smel
led earlier. The money rattlers came back with their saucepans and gathered more money.
After the second sitting of supper was over, men carried lanterns to the barn and the dancing began. Someone turned on a tape recorder, and in the lantern light, the “party playing” began. Joe and Emma danced together for the last time. Once their wedding day had passed, it was forbidden for couples to dance. This was because when one joined the church, one was expected to obey the rules of the church, yet the elders still didn't fully enforce all the rules until young people got married. Marriage was considered the last step into adulthood, and therefore the expectations for full membership and the upholding of all the church rules now applied. Dancing or “party playing” was considered a courtship ritual and therefore superfluous for married couples.
I danced with Ada, but no young men cut in to dance with me. I didn't even see Albert.
It was well after midnight before the lanterns were taken from the barn—the signal for the young folks to go home. Couples got into buggies and drove off. Dates often took place the night of weddings.
Joe took me to the side of the barn. I knew he wasn't setting up a date for me, because I already had mine. He said, “You can sleep in the same room you slept in last night, but Albert won't be coming in. He decided he wanted to sleep alone tonight. I just thought I would let you know.”
Before I could say anything, Joe walked across the yard toward the house and left me standing there. I watched his retreating back disappear into the darkness, the light of the lantern he was carrying casting moving shadows that crisscrossed the yard with each determined step he took. I felt so rejected and alone, I wanted to cry—and then I realized that was exactly what Joe wanted me to feel. He had used his own wedding to “bring me down a notch,” as he often phrased it—as an excuse to dominate us. As if every woman would get too confident of herself if she didn't have a male reminding her every now and again who's boss. Unless I am just a reject and everyone knows it except me, I thought. I went to bed feeling more alone than ever. Even the darkness in the room was oppressive. I lay awake a long time before I finally drifted into a sleep that did not refresh me.
I awoke to the sound of others in the house moving about. It was my duty to help with cleaning up. I forced my body out of bed. Did Emma's sisters and parents know that I had slept alone? It would be just like Joe to tell them, to embarrass me even more. It was also like him to leave that to my imagination, so that I would keep wondering.
Joe and Emma were in the kitchen, among all the dirty dishes left from the night before. Joe's hooded eyes looked bleary. I couldn't read his expression. I wondered if his night with Emma had been different than any other night he'd spent with her in the last year. I decided I didn't want to know. I looked at Albert, who looked as though he was trying to disappear down a hole. I decided I was done feeling sorry for him that he was so shy.
We all had to do dishes right after breakfast. All the ones from the previous night were waiting, piled high on every countertop and table in the kitchen. I had never seen so many dirty dishes in my life. Emma's mother set up each of us three couples at different tables with wash and rinse water. I wondered when this tradition had started, with men helping with the dishes only after a wedding. I had not seen Joe do dishes since he was about twelve.
Albert went through the motions of drying, but he clearly didn't know how to do it. I could have wiped three glasses by the time he did one. I wondered why Joe hadn't excused him from doing dishes with me, after the embarrassment of not having been together for a date the night before. I wished I had the nerve to ask him why he had bothered to say yes to being one of the neva hocka at all. I wanted to ask him if he thought being shy was worse than feeling rejected. And I wanted to tell him I wouldn't have chosen him, but Joe and Emma didn't give me the choice, and did he know that he spoiled my day with his shyness, and how he might as well not have been there?
I finished washing our mountain of dishes; then I called a taxi from the phone booth down the road and went home. Mem mercifully let me go to bed and sleep, even though it was the middle of the day.
When I awoke late in the afternoon, Mem warned me that I wouldn't be able to sleep through the night, but I did. Sleep helped to soften the memories of the disappointment, hurt, and confusion of Joe's wedding.
A Grain by the Wayside
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: do this in remembrance of me.
1 CORINTHIANS 11:24
Tim shifted in his seat and asked how soon we would get to Northampton. I told him we were almost in Albany, and that we still had a few hours to go. David awoke and said he would continue to drive whenever I was ready. After another stop at a rest area, we settled into the positions most comfortable for all of us—David driving, me in the front passenger seat, and Tim listening to music in the back seat.
My thoughts drifted back to the events in the days before I left the community, particularly my struggles around becoming a member of the church. The choice that many people, looking in from the outside, think Amish young people have about whether they leave or stay in the community is a myth, at least in my experience. I certainly did not feel like I had a choice. It was as if I was being led down a long corridor, in which there was light ahead of me and darkness behind me, with someone representing the church firmly guiding me down that corridor in the direction of “joining church.” To choose not to join, I would have had to wrench my elbow away from that someone, and run back into the darkness of the unknown. I lacked the courage to face the unknown, but I also lacked the necessary conviction to be baptized into the church. I followed the firm hand at my elbow because it was the easiest thing to do.
First came subtle hints, then outright suggestions, and finally admonishments that I should “join church” and be baptized the summer I was turning nineteen. I was unsure about becoming an official member because I questioned my ability to be a “good member” of the church. A “good” member is one who does not question the ways of the Amish. I knew that if I did join the church and then left, I would be shunned for the rest of my life. But I would not be shunned if I hadn't yet become a member.
I had some good reasons for joining. I wanted to be more accepted in the community. I thought I would finally get answers to the questions about Amish ways that I kept asking. There were also the reasons for joining that I was not admitting to myself. I secretly hoped that if I became an upstanding church member, people would reach out and help me. People in the community were aware of the difficulties we had in our family. I was still nurturing a fantasy that someone like Olin Clara would step forward and offer to take me into her home, despite my rebellious reputation. I wondered why no one realized I was only rebelling against the situation I had to live in. I told myself that if only I didn't have to live in this family situation, I could be as good an Amish person as anyone. I thought, maybe if I became an obedient member of the church, it would be easier for Olin and Clara Yoder to invite me to come live with them.
It seemed to me that Olin Clara was the only person in the church community who cared about me. She was short, energetic, talkative, and could make anyone who walked into her home feel welcome. She seemed younger than Mem, even though she was four years older. She was also the best pie baker in the community.
When I was nine years old, she asked Mem if I could come and help her with cleaning and baking on Saturdays. I used to wonder why she would ask me to help her, out of all the girls in the community, but as I got older, I realized that she was really helping me out. She was showing me what was normal in other families, something to strive for when I started my own family someday. I hadn't dared to let myself think she was doing it just because she liked me and enjoyed my company. My mind drifted back to my first memories of Olin Clara, when I was four years old and she was the only person who accepted my outgoing ways.
An “English” family used to give us second-hand items that they ha
d collected in their church. A red pair of boots in just my size arrived in one of the boxes. Mem didn't intend on letting me wear them, because Amish weren't allowed to wear red, but when Sunday morning came and she didn't have any other boots that fit me, she wriggled them on over my shoes and said, “Now when we get to church, we will need to hide these in the corner of the washhouse.”
I nodded, and then we bundled up in black coats, scarves, bonnets, and capes, and huddled under three buggy blankets for the long, cold ride. Under Mem's feet in a denim bag was the soapstone that she had warmed on the wood stove all night. Joe, Lizzie, and I sat in the back seat. Lizzie and I wrapped the buggy blankets around our legs and feet. I wished I didn't have to cover those red boots.
Church was at the Eli Yoders' house that day. They lived the farthest away of the people in our church district. I asked how far we had to go, and Mem said five miles. By the time Datt stopped the buggy at the washhouse door, I had decided that five miles was a very long way. When we walked into the washhouse, I saw Olin Clara looking at me. She always had a smile and a kind word for me. I walked up to where she stood with a group of women and girls, ready to go into the warm kitchen. I held up one foot and said, “Look at my boots. I have new boots!”
Everyone became so silent, I could hear myself breathe. I put my foot down and looked at Mem. Her face was flushed with shame. I looked at Olin Clara, and she smiled at me reassuringly. Mem pulled me over to the side of the washhouse and said, “Take those off!” She pulled them off me so quickly that my shoes came off, too. “I told you not to show these to anyone!”
I was embarrassed for doing something wrong, but Olin Clara chatted pleasantly with Mem and me, and she said quietly, “Don't worry about it.” I could feel Mem's hold on my hand relax.
I wore the red boots home from church that day, and then they disappeared.
YEARS LATER, OLIN CLARA rescued me from shame in a different church service. On the bright, sunny morning of my ninth birthday, I awoke feeling excited about going to church. I knew people in church wouldn't sing Happy Birthday, but maybe if I told a few people, they would at least wish me a happy one. Church seemed extra long that day, but eventually it ended, like all other church services.
Why I Left the Amish Page 14
