My People, the Amish: The True Story of an Amish Father and Son

by Keim, Joe

  About five hours later, I was in the field across the road from Leander’s farm, cutting grain with a binder. Suddenly, I heard someone screaming my name. Leander’s brother David yelled in my direction.

  “Stop working. We think Leander drowned!”

  I jumped down from the binder and didn’t tie the horses or anything. I ran. My mind blanked with shock and disbelief, as my feet pounded the familiar ground to the pond where we had camped the night before. I stood on the bank of the pond, my chest heaving to catch my breath as I stared at the water. Leander could be in that deep dark pit.

  Leander’s clothes were on the bank, but he was nowhere around. Scuba divers were called in, and Amish neighbors gathered around the shore. Hardly anyone talked as we stared out at the water, searching for any sign of Leander. The scuba divers would surface occasionally, but then go back down and continue their search. To describe what I felt would not be possible. Time stood still but lasted forever. I desperately hoped against all odds that somehow Leander would just show up from nowhere and surprise all of us. He was too young to die, and was by far our best swimmer. Hours went by and still no sign of him or his body.

  Suddenly, one of the scuba divers poked his head out of the water and nodded. Immediately, we all knew what that meant. They’d found his body. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to. It’s the most difficult thing I ever experienced my entire life. They pulled his lifeless body from the water, his family identified him, and they zipped him up in a body bag.

  At that moment, I thought about the cigarette lighter he usually carried in his pocket. I broke away from the scene and ran to his house. My feet hammered up the stairs two at a time to his room where I found the lighter. I grabbed it and thrust it into my pocket to protect his secret. My goal was to make sure no one knew he owned a forbidden cigarette lighter. I didn’t want someone to think Leander went to hell for disobeying the church rules.

  Left alone with my thoughts, I wondered if there was any way we could know Leander was in heaven. I went to one of the preachers in the church and asked, “Do we have any assurance that Leander is in heaven?” I had to know.

  I can still hear that old preacher’s words when he said, “Well, the Amish church has always taught that a person is unaccountable for his sins until he joins the church. Since Leander was still one year away from becoming a member, we believe his sins are covered, and he’s in heaven.”

  I remember walking away wondering, Is he right?

  Leander’s accident left us wondering what could have happened on that fateful day in 1984. According to his dad, he had been raking hay in a field near the pond. We could only guess that he wanted to let the horses rest, and he took a quick dip to cool off. Since the two-by-twelve diving board was missing from the structure and floating in the water, we had to believe that while he was bouncing and preparing for a dive, the nails pulled out on the back end of the board. Most likely, Leander fell straight down into the water. When his head surfaced, the board somehow flipped end over end, hit his head, and knocked him out. Looking back, I’ve often wondered why we only used nails.

  For many years after Leander’s death, I’d regularly dream about him. At times, I blamed myself for being the cause of the accident. To this day I still think of how close we were, and how devastating it was to lose my best friend.

  I have always believed, and still do, that God never wastes pain. In Leander’s case, God used death to start me on the path to find out if we could have assurance of salvation. I never thought the Bible held the answer, because we were taught to believe what the church believed. But the Bible does have the answer.

  And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life. (1 John 5:11-13a, emphasis added)

  Chapter 9

  Life out of Control

  By the age of seventeen, I had left the Amish several times, so most parents in the Ashland community had grown leery of my rebellious streaks. They didn’t want their children around me, fearing I would get them in trouble, or worse yet, lead them astray. It was then that Levi Miller showed up in my life. He was the Bishop’s son and had never left the Amish, but radios, smoking, and alcohol were a big part of his weekends. We quickly became close friends and started hanging out every weekend. On many occasions, we got in our buggy and drove outside of the Amish community where no one could see what we were doing.

  We found a place that would sell us alcohol, even though we weren’t of age, and most Sundays we’d get drunk. I lived any way I wanted in spite of being a member of the church. At home, I’d get caught having too much to drink, owning a radio, or having cassette tapes, which Dad often smashed with a sledge hammer.

  In addition to buying alcohol, we smoked; sometimes I cared, sometimes I didn’t. The church publicly disciplined me on numerous occasions. People really cared about me, but I didn’t care about people. I was cold and detached from them. I was so into myself it was unbelievable.

  What caused me to go down this road? That’s a good question. In my mind, much of it goes back to my perception of Dad not having time for me. I so badly wanted his time and approval. When I didn’t get it, I gave up and went searching for other ways to fill that void in my life. But I also know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). God is in control. This verse doesn’t say all things are good, but they work together for good, and that is how God ended up working in my life even through these dark times.

  Throughout my various escapades, I stole a lot of money from Dad. What a bleak time in my life! And I didn’t just steal from Dad. While I was outside the Amish, I went around the Amish community and stole money while they were in church. Later, when I was eighteen, the Lord saved me, and I went and paid all those people back. Some said, “It’s not necessary, Joe,” but I laid the money in their milk houses.

  I even worked for my dad for free to pay him back – not just for the money I stole, but also for the pickup truck I ran into. Dad had covered those bills but asked me to pay him back. When working hours were over for the day, I made wind chimes and sold them for extra money. I hadn’t realized Dad knew I’d taken any money. I thought I had been so sly, but just like he knew where I was and what I was doing, he knew I’d been stealing from him.

  “I’ve watched you steal from me over the years,” he said. He tallied it to be a thousand dollars.

  Amish Dating

  When I was struggling through my nine weeks of baptismal classes, a man in our community tried hard to get me to date his sister-in-law, Esther Yoder. I barely knew her, but I knew of her family. We lived in the same community but on opposite sides. Her house was an hour away by buggy. The motive of this Amish guy trying to set this up was that he was sure if he could hook me up with Esther, I would settle down and stay Amish. The thing is, in my heart, I really didn’t want an Amish girlfriend, but I agreed to have one date.

  I have to say she wasn’t what I expected. Not only was she beautiful and about my height, but I loved the way she talked. As our dating time was winding down for the night, Esther leaned over and left a hickey on the side of my neck. I was slightly embarrassed and glad the kerosene lamp was turned down low enough, so she couldn’t see my red face. Since I had never been kissed by a girl before, I tensed up and didn’t know how to react. She accepted me just the way I was, and I went home knowing there was something special about this girl that I really liked.

  Before I go on with the account of my dating life, I must explain Amish dating to my non-Amish readers. Of course, it varies from one community to the next, but in my community rumspringa (dating) started at age seventeen. What it amounts to is that we
held church on Sunday, ate a lunch of pickles, red beets, and bread with a choice of apple butter and homemade peanut butter as a spread, and then all the people went home. On Sunday night, the young people returned to the house where the church service had been held. All the church benches were still set up.

  We gathered in the kitchen where the boys and girls faced each other while sitting on the same wooden benches we sat on just a few hours earlier. How many young people gather depends on the size of the community, but generally we had three to four rows of boys and the same for girls. We’d sit there from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. singing and looking at each other. While still in German, the songs were faster and more up-tempo than those sung during the church service.

  The blend of young people includes some guys and girls who are in a dating relationship. Others aren’t going steady yet. Until a girl is going steady, all the free guys can try to date her. Girls don’t actively pursue the guys, but the guys chase after the girls. The girl can either accept or reject the offer.

  The offer itself is often made in a roundabout way. Normally, if I wanted to date a girl like Esther, I wouldn’t go to her directly. Instead, I would write her a letter, asking if she would allow me to have a date with her. This process could take up to several weeks and was not a very handy or popular way of scheduling a date. The better way was to send a trustworthy friend to go to her after the singing and ask, “Can Joe Keim take you home tonight?”

  If she said no, that was the end of it. If she accepted, you didn’t want to let anyone know, which I will explain.

  In my case, I sent my trusted friend, Levi Miller, to ask Esther, and she said yes. So he took Esther a mile or two up the road, and then I came along on my buggy and took her the rest of the way home. When I arrived at her house, she climbed out of the buggy while I went out to the barn and put my horse up, because I’d be there until two in the morning.

  By the time I put the horse up, Esther had changed into a dating nightgown. I took my hat off and made myself at home. By church standards we could date two different ways. The first involved two chairs facing each other, or some girls like the rocking chair scenario. For the rocking chair, there was only one chair. The guy sat in the chair and girl sat on his lap. I had one experience with this when dating another girl, and my legs grew totally numb. When she got up, I couldn’t even get up. I had to let the blood flow back into my legs first.

  With Esther, we didn’t choose the rocker or the chairs. Instead, we sat on the couch, and often broke the rules and laid on the couch with the warm flicker of the kerosene lamp dancing across us in the small living room. Her parents were in their bedroom right on the other side of the nearby double doors. About halfway through our date, Esther got up and brought in a snack prepared for the two of us. But at 2:00 a.m. time was up and the date over. A couple of times I stayed until 2:30, and her mother banged on the door.

  “Time to go.”

  That’s all she said, and I knew I needed to leave.

  In Esther’s case, at least six other guys courted her. Most of the time I couldn’t ask her for a date on a Sunday night, because she was booked up for four to six weeks; and because of the way we did it, I never knew for sure which other guys were seeing her, or if I’d be the guy who ended up going steady with her. For me, it made the situation very hard. On top of that, I found out my trusted friend Levi was also dating Esther, and he never told me! When I found out, I was really hurt.

  All of this happened before a boy and girl started going steady. The reason for the secrecy is that you didn’t want the other single guys to know you had a date, because they’d sneak around to the houses where they thought a guy might be having his first, second, or third date and play tricks.

  One night as Esther and I were having our date, a whole bunch of guys snuck up to Esther’s house and pounded on the window. Boy, did that startle us! We couldn’t see a thing in the dark so we didn’t know who they were; but somehow they knew it was me having a date that night. Sometimes, they took the wheel off the buggy, stuck the axle though the fence, and put the wheel back on, so when the person drove away it would take part of the fence with him. Other times, they’d place trip ropes across the walkway so you’d trip as you were leaving.

  Some tricks were pretty nasty. The worst trick played on me happened one night when my horse was nowhere to be found when it came time to leave. The pranksters left the buggy, and I had no idea what had happened to my horse. I didn’t know if he’d gotten loose or someone took him. As it turned out, they’d taken my horse up the road to another Amish neighbor’s barn, and I didn’t get home until time for chores the next morning.

  After some time, Esther weeded out her suitors. We had about six dates over eight months, and I fell so in love that I didn’t think I could go through life without her. One night these feelings were very heavy on me.

  “Tonight you have to tell me if I’m the right guy or not. I can’t continue like this – not knowing.”

  Fear shredded my insides because I worried she’d say no. We talked and talked that night, but she didn’t give me an answer. I figured she just couldn’t tell me the answer was “no.”

  I went home unsure of what to think. My world turned upside down days later when I heard Esther had left the Amish. To make matters worse, I learned she’d moved in with some English guy I didn’t trust at all. I called an English taxi driver and asked, “Will you take me to see Esther Yoder?”

  When I found her, she confided in me. She wasn’t happy. The guy she was staying with was married and coming on to her. This planted a new idea in my mind. I begged her to leave the Amish with me.

  “The two of us can hang out together, move into town, and get jobs.”

  She agreed, but in the meantime, she came back to the Amish.

  The two of us didn’t leave right away, but we made a plan to leave the Amish together and move into town. The following week I picked her up on Sunday evening. We didn’t go to the singing but went on a halfway date. We drove out into the neighborhood in the dark and spent our time drinking. The horse I owned was spirited and tended to be a bit wild and almost uncontrollable at times, particularly at stop signs. Around midnight, we were moving at a pretty good clip. In front of us, an English driver drove right out into the highway. Our buggy slammed into his car. The horse broke free from the buggy, but no one was hurt.

  We dragged the buggy over to Esther’s house. What a sorry sight we were: drunk and involved in an accident. Her dad caught us dragging my buggy back to her house. He blew up.

  “I don’t want you dating my daughter. I don’t want you ever to come on the property.”

  I got the full blame that night and deserved it.

  Later, just before we were ready to leave the Amish together, the English driver who pulled out in front of my buggy came to my dad’s shop and wanted to know how much cash was needed to pay for the damage to my buggy. My heart beat a little faster. This would provide the money we needed to live until we found jobs.

  “A thousand dollars would cover the damage,” I replied.

  The English guy looked at me and said, “That sounds fair enough, and far cheaper than fixing a car.”

  The deal was made, but as the conversation continued, the deacon of the church walked up and started listening in. Before long he realized what was going on and butted in on the conversation.

  “Don’t worry about it; we’ll take care of it.”

  The chance to make some easy money walked out the door. At the time, it really irritated me.

  Chapter 10

  The Gift of Eternal Life

  Getting Settled

  Within the Amish community, many teens pull away from their parents and get in trouble with the church for things such as having a radio or drinking. In Esther’s case, the church constantly harassed her for her dress or head covering being too fancy, and s
he had her own inner struggles with Amish rules that stemmed back to when she was a young girl. One time, her father told her to go call the veterinarian, but she couldn’t understand why it was okay to use the neighbor’s phone when they weren’t allowed to own one. It seemed to be a double standard. The second time her father asked her to make a call, she cried because she didn’t want to use the phone when it was a sin to own one.

  “Just go along and do it,” her dad said. “This is the way the Amish do it.”

  These things really bothered her. If we do the things we do only because that’s how we’ve always done it, I don’t want any part of it, she thought. As children, we were programed to believe certain ways without question. But as we got older, we had to own those beliefs. Most of the time it worked out, and those same beliefs continued to get passed on to the next generation. In my case, I thought it to be rebellion – my disconnect with my father. But really my rebellion could be traced back to the same problem that Esther had. I struggled with these things controlling my life when they didn’t make sense.

  I was eighteen years old when Esther and I moved into town. We left together and both got our driver’s licenses and jobs. She worked for an older lady whom she cared for. I, on the other hand, applied for a local welding job. When they called me in for an interview, I called one of my dad’s English customers and asked if he would allow me to come and practice electric welding. I had never welded with an electric welder and wanted to make sure I could do it.