Crossing Over

by Ruth Irene Garrett

  We were also warned that everything outside our world—otherwise known as English—was evil, inhabited by thieves and liars.

  Amish children—along with Amish wives—were, and still are, a subservient class. Children are valued more for their work habits than their developing personalities, and any money they make before they turn twenty-one must go to their parents. Wives exist to care for the children and to serve their husbands. Nothing more.

  That’s not to say we didn’t have fun. In our spare time, two of my brothers and I would run barefoot in the van Gogh fields behind our farm and hunt butterflies for my collection. We didn’t have a net, so we’d sneak up on them and, just when their wings shut, we’d slip our fingers over them. We put them to rest by dipping their heads in tiny vials of gasoline.

  I was attracted to the beauty of the butterflies. And while I felt sorry that they had to die, I figured that meant I could enjoy them that much longer. Such is the way of life—and death—on a farm.

  Sometimes we’d also go hunting for bird eggs to destroy, targeting the nests of blackbirds and cowbirds. They were considered nuisances because they robbed the nests of other birds.

  It was a fascinating exercise. You’d have to look up and watch the behavior of the birds. When they circled above your head, scolding and carrying on, you knew you were close. When they backed off, you knew the trail was cold. Sometimes they’d get really close to our heads, but we never paid much attention.

  Again, it wasn’t that I didn’t like birds; I’d spend hours listening to their whistles and songs so I could identify them by sound. It’s just that on an Amish farm, animals are viewed more as commodities or pests than pets or natural wonders.

  One time, an English woman came to our farm and began fussing over a piglet in the hog shed. She kissed it all over despite its foul smell, and I thought, “This lady’s lost it. She thinks this stinking pig is a pet or something.”

  One of our favorite childhood pursuits had nothing to do with animals. We made mud cookies. We’d take water and mix it with dust until we had the right consistency. Then we’d shape the mud into patties, put them on sheets of tin, and set them in the sun to dry. Later, we’d top the patties with seeds from lamb’s-quarters. They looked just like sprinkles on a cookie.

  We didn’t eat them, of course. We’d pitch ’em when we were done.

  I also remember riding ponies, ice skating on our pond, playing church and school, competing in a pool-like game called carom, frolicking in the corn crib, hayloft, and silo, and engaging in a bit of role-playing unique to the Amish.

  Instead of playing with cars and trucks, as many English boys and girls do, we’d play horse and buggy. My mother would make harnesses and reins out of scraps of denim and we’d take turns playing the horses and drivers, pulling tiny wagons or carts around the yard and reprimanding the horses when they grew unruly.

  These sorts of romps had to be worked into busy schedules that included chores around the farm, schooling, and lots of prayer.

  Because we were Old Order Amish—the most conservative of the so-called plain people—we adhered religiously to not owning cars, electricity, or phones, considering them too worldly. That meant most of our work was done by hand or with the aid of gas-powered engines.

  On school days, my father would awaken us at 5:30 A.M. with a shout up the stairs. My jobs were to help milk the dozen or so cows, help Mom with breakfast, and wash dishes before heading for school about 8:30 A.M. The milk was a cash crop; a man would come by twice a week to collect it.

  Breakfasts were usually pancakes with syrup or with sausage or hamburger gravy. Sometimes we’d have hot and cold cereals—oatmeal, cracked wheat, corn flakes, and the like.

  About 4:20 P.M., I’d get home from school and gather eggs (another cash crop) from the chicken house, fill the house’s lanterns and lamps with kerosene or gas, and help milk the cows again. Winters, I’d gather wood for the stove.

  Because lunch was the biggest meal of the day—meat loaf, fried hamburgers, or chicken, mashed potatoes, and vegetables—dinner was light. Maybe soup. Cheese. Homemade baloney. Some fruit and cake.

  Before breakfast and at bedtime, we’d kneel on the floor and Dad would lead us in a German prayer. We’d also bow our heads at the table and have silent prayers at the start and finish of every meal.

  Then we’d pray at school and in church, which we attended every other Sunday.

  The silent praying was baffling to outsiders who’d occasionally visit. A few of them were in the middle of talking when, without warning, our heads would suddenly drop. I can only imagine what they must have initially thought—and felt once they realized what we were doing.

  All this praying, the Amish believe, gives them a chance at going to heaven. And it is only that—a chance. Unlike other religious faiths, which virtually guarantee repentant sinners a place aloft, the Amish believe that by works and deeds they might find themselves worthy in God’s good graces to go to heaven.

  Ask an Amish person if they’re going to heaven, and they’ll say, “That’s not my choice. That’s God’s choice.”

  They can never be sure they’re going, because they might misstep between now and the moment they die.

  It doesn’t make sense. Romans 10:13 says: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That leaves little doubt.

  But I, especially, had to strictly follow the Amish’s inflexible beliefs and stern rules of the Amish church (the Ordnung), which govern everything from dress and modes of transportation to dating etiquette and reading habits. My father, grandfather, and two uncles were ministers. Another uncle was a bishop. As such, they were important, respected leaders of the community, and their families, by association, were expected to set high examples.

  Amish neighborhoods are divided into districts, and each district has two ministers, a deacon, and a bishop. The ministers do the preaching at Sunday services, usually held in church members’ homes. Deacons make sure members don’t violate the rules of the community; if they do, the wayward must confess openly in church. Bishops watch over the ministers and deacons, and also handle marriages, funerals, and baptismals.

  The Amish believe that if a minister—in this case my father, Alvin T. Miller—can’t keep his family in line, he’s not capable of keeping the church in line.

  Beyond that, there’s an inherent code among the Amish that requires people to monitor the activities of others—and point fingers when someone has gone astray. Neighbors tell on neighbors. Children tell on children. No one is safe from judgment.

  Among the things closely watched is the attire of women. They must wear a well-defined set of modest clothing, including starched organdy head coverings with eight pleats on either side. Not five pleats or six.

  Tradition is the main reason for this edict. The other: Fewer pleats on either side would make the head covering too small.

  Women wear the head coverings (scarves are allowed while working outdoors) all the time, including while they sleep, should they feel moved to pray in the middle of the night. Head coverings worn in church are white if they’re married, black if they’re single. And they must always keep their hair tied in a bun.

  They wear lace-up, black leather shoes; thick, knee-high nylon leggings; and long, homemade, double-knit, dark-colored dresses held together with straight pins. The dresses are to be no more than eight inches from the floor.

  When they are away from their homes, they often wear a knit cape that’s fastened with pins on the front and back.

  There are dress codes for men, too, although they have more liberties. They don’t have to contend with pins, and they can wear lighter colors.

  Men dress in homemade, buttoned, cotton shirts that are often pocketless; zipperless denim pants that button in flaps across the front; suspenders; wide-brimmed straw or felt hats; and black or brown boots.

  They are not permitted to layer their hair or grow mustaches. Those who are married have beards. Those who
are single are clean-shaven.

  The Amish take great pride in such restrained conformity. Their clothes represent their humility, their lack of vanity. And for some Amish, the extreme is most preferable.

  There are those—not my family, thank goodness—who believe the dirtier you are and the more worn your clothing, the more Amish you are. They are the riper ones among the Amish.

  This attention to plainness is also mirrored in a lack of expression—literally.

  The Amish rarely smile or laugh. They frown on excessive hilarity, believing that if something is extraordinarily funny, it must be bad. They are more content taking their religious, agrarian life seriously, living by the motto that the harder it is on earth, the sweeter it will be in heaven.

  The Ordnung, a closely protected set of rules that varies among the Amish settlements, ensures such somber conformity beyond clothes and expression. In our settlement, it also forbade Amish to fly in airplanes unless there was a medical emergency, mandated that the inside of buggies be kept plain, prohibited long curtains in windows, and asked that members not have photographs of people in their possession.

  It all sounds rather stifling for a child—or anyone for that matter. But if you have nothing to compare it to, it is your life. And later, when you enter adulthood, you still remember things that at least bring a modest smile to your face.

  Like the butterflies, the mud pies, the birds—and the swans.

  Not long before I left the farm, my mother bought a pair of big, white, beautiful swans for our pond. She got them at an exotic animal sale in town where the proprietors also offered rheas and llamas, guinea pigs, and mice. My father said the swans were too expensive—I don’t remember how much Mom paid—but we kept them anyway.

  I was ecstatic. I had fallen in love with swans at age thirteen when I saw their images on a greeting card. They were floating on a willow-bordered stream, and they seemed so proud and graceful and serene.

  Swans and butterflies, I realized, have a lot in common. They start out as drab cygnets and caterpillars, then blossom into stunningly beautiful creatures. In this way, I was different from some Amish: I held an awe and appreciation of nature.

  And I guess I liked the idea that things so plain could turn into things so pretty.

  Three

  (Wer auf dem fleisch säet wird auch ernten die ewig feuer, schrecklich wo du stehst! So komm zurück und lasz Jesu dich reinichen!)

  Who soweth in the flesh will also reap the eternal fire, frightful where you stand! So come back and let Jesus cleanse you!

  —LETTER FROM ALVIN MILLER (DAD)

  My first inkling that the Amish way had flaws was twofold. They were subconscious childhood realizations and certainly not cemented until much later. But they were the beginning of my questioning.

  The first language Amish children learn is Pennsylvania Dutch. So, if your parents don’t want you to understand what they’re saying, they speak English. Hence, children are intent on learning English as quickly as possible. But the language puzzle doesn’t end there. All of the church services and all of the prayers are conducted in German. I’m not sure the Amish know why it’s done that way, other than it’s tradition. But I have a hunch it may be to make it difficult for people to closely interpret the Bible. The Amish, who came to America seeking religious freedom, are fiercely afraid of change and therefore not interested in having an enlightened community. Church leaders tell the flock that if they read the Bible too thoroughly, they’ll learn more than they should know. The common refrain is: “You’ll get too smart for your own good.”

  It’s like the Catholic days of yore when the priest was the only one who read the Bible; people would merely listen to what he told them.

  I know of at least two bishops who were excommunicated—“put out,” “put in the ban,” or “shunned”—because leaders felt they were reading the Bible too much and not focusing on teaching the Amish way.

  Some Amish even believe that if someone begins reading the Bible regularly, it’s a sure sign they will be leaving soon—that they will finally know the truth and stop listening to Amish sermons.

  This austere commitment to German prayer and preaching is so tightly followed that prayers are never spoken from the heart, never personalized. All prayers are read verbatim from a German prayer book. There is no room for multiple meanings to a passage.

  The fact that Amish children are formally educated only through the eighth grade is further evidence of the need to keep the Amish people in the dark. Even the subjects in school avoid any discussion of modern technological advances; the Amish prefer instead to focus on basic reading, writing, vocabulary, spelling, arithmetic, English, and social studies, all taught from outdated textbooks.

  But it was the language issue that first raised my suspicions about the secretive, rigid society in which I was raised. Even today, my parents write portions of their letters to me in Dutch or German when they don’t want my husband to understand what they’re saying.

  As a child, I was forever going to the dictionary to see what words meant. I was determined not to be a third party to anything.

  Another troubling aspect of the language maze is that there is no word for “love” in Pennsylvania Dutch. It appears mostly in the German (liebe) they speak, and only then when they are referring to God.

  On the rare occasions when they use the English “love,’’ it is often so wrapped in religious rhetoric that it loses its effect.

  “Greetings of love and best wishes in Jesus’ name . . .” is the way some written correspondence began.

  The other concern I had growing up was the dominant—sometimes cruel—behavior of my father, a stern, unforgiving man with stunning white shocks on his scalp and chin and a cold look of disdain that can freeze a person standing. For as far back as I can remember, my mother, a gentle woman with a round face that flushes easily, was the subject of his persistent ridicule—warranted or not. The children, meanwhile, were held to sometimes impossible standards, and any weaknesses they might have—physical or mental—became the subject of my father’s scorn.

  In my mother’s case, his less-than-considerate attitude toward her may have stemmed from the fact that she had come to Kalona from another Amish community in Kokomo, Indiana. The Amish are often leery of Amish who come from other settlements, and in some cases prohibit couples from different communities from marrying. It did not help that the Kokomo community was considered more liberal than ours.

  My father may have felt pressure to treat my mother as an outsider. Certainly, some people in our community felt she didn’t belong.

  My mother always seemed to be under watch in Kalona; if she didn’t dress precisely to form, some Amish would perceive she’d done it intentionally—to snub the community. At home, my father would find fault with virtually everything she did; even with things she didn’t do.

  He would frequently scold her, and she would often accept the punishment quietly and move on. Sometimes, she would go outside to cry, but we’d never see it. We’d see only her reddened eyes when she returned. I’m sure she felt very alone.

  My parents would never talk to us about their differences, and we would never confront them. That simply isn’t done among the Amish. Parents don’t share their private lives with their children. Children are taught—above all else except God—to “honor thy mother and father.”

  And honor them we did.

  But the constant berating of my mother nevertheless dug scars in me that I still carry today. Mental wounds that fester.

  Occasionally, my mother would stand up to my father, and that would be a source of great pleasure to me. And to my mother, I imagine, although she would never say so.

  One time, my father came home from selling pigs and announced they had weighed less than they should have, that he’d received less money than he’d expected. He was furious and all but said it was Mom’s fault.

  Mom, bless her heart, told him: “I didn’t feed those pigs. I didn’t do anything
with them. So I don’t know why it’s my fault.”

  My father, still simmering, went outside and slammed the door behind him. I can’t be sure, but I suspect he knew how ridiculous he had sounded.

  Some of the children fared less well under my father’s iron rule. In most cases, it wasn’t so much the spankings from his hand or the whippings he carried out with a leather strap. It was the cutting words that accompanied his explosive, unpredictable temper.

  “I hope this will teach you to work next time!” he said once while disciplining one of my brothers for not being attentive to chores.

  It was not an isolated occurrence. We were all deathly afraid of him, unsure, for the most part, when something was going to send him into a rage. My sister and some of my brothers became so submissive, they walked around with their shoulders slumped and heads down, unable to maintain eye contact with people.

  Looking back—and this is hard to admit—I realize I must have behaved the same way at times.

  One of the things my father was most insistent about was conserving water, which came from two sources—rain for bathing and a 300-foot-deep, windmill-powered well for drinking.

  The rainwater would collect in gutters around the house and funnel to a cistern. A gas-powered motor would pump the water out of the cistern and through the faucets.

  My father was chronically worried that if we used too much rainwater, we’d have to borrow from the well supply—and he didn’t want to do that. So, we were left taking bucket and basin baths every day—washing our feet, hands, and faces—and full-body baths once a week in the winter, occasionally more often in the warmer months.

  By English standards, the body baths were hardly robust. The children rarely put more than three inches of water in the tub, and to this day I still fill it only halfway.

  One of my brothers, Wilbur, became so concerned about doing the right thing in my father’s eyes that he developed an obsessive-compulsive disorder about turning off faucets, making sure he was clean, and getting every ounce of milk out of the cows, among other things.