Growing Up Amish

by Ira Wagler

  Like me, I’m sure he was always painfully aware of how much more there was beyond the boundaries of his unsophisticated world.

  Perhaps, lured by the modern conveniences of the surrounding society, he longed to drive one of the roaring roadsters that passed his plodding team and wagon in the heat, leaving him strangled and choking in swirling clouds of dust.

  Perhaps, tempted by the throbbing dance music wafting from the pool hall in town, he allowed himself to briefly roam far and free from the mental chains that bound him.

  Perhaps at times he questioned his roots and his background and the value of the traditions his elders clung to so tenaciously.

  Perhaps he chafed at the narrow confines of the simple, unquestioning Amish theology that demanded his abject submission to an ageless tradition that taught any other path would lead to eternal damnation in the fires of hell.

  Perhaps all these things and more occurred, calling to him, daring him to forsake forever the seemingly senseless traditions that confined him.

  Perhaps.

  But unlike me, in the end, he chose to stay.

  8

  On the outside, Amish communities seem stuck in time, immune to change. But in reality, even places like Aylmer are in a constant state of flux. Nothing stays the same.

  Events unfold. Below the surface, things are always happening. Disputes arise. Tensions flare. People come and go. By the time I was ten years old, some minor tremors had shaken the little community that was my world.

  In 1968, my uncle Peter Stoll, a great jovial bear of a man and one of Aylmer’s founding patriarchs, abruptly decided to leave and move to Honduras.

  Honduras.

  Halfway across the world.

  His goal was to start a new Amish settlement there, help the natives live better lives by teaching them Amish farming methods, and gain converts. This was a strange and startling thing, coming from an Amish man. The Amish traditionally live their beliefs quietly and don’t go around proselytizing a whole lot.

  But Peter Stoll was different: softhearted and driven by a fervent desire to help the less fortunate. And once gripped by his vision, he didn’t waste a lot of time tolerating second-guessers. In short order, he sold his farm, held a public auction to dispose of excess goods, and set off for Honduras, thousands of miles away.

  A few other Aylmer families got caught up in Peter’s vision and moved with him. Their departure really shook me up, especially because several of my classmates and good friends left with them.

  Just like that.

  Gone.

  Out of the community, and out of my life.

  There must have been something in the air around that time, because no sooner had the Honduras settlers left than our austere, barefoot preacher decided to scratch the itch that had been bothering him as well.

  Long considered somewhat of a fringe element in Aylmer, Nicky Stoltzfus and his wife, Lucille, sold their farm and moved to a small, isolated community somewhere in the Midwest—someplace where they could live in extreme simplicity, where Nicky could allow the bristle of his mustache to sprout into the real thing, and where he could preach his long, bone-dry sermons in peace.

  Even Bishop Peter Yoder got caught up in the moving frenzy. Shortly after Nicky and Lucille pulled up stakes, Peter and his wife, Martha, decided to leave Aylmer as well and join a new settlement that was starting up in Marshfield, Missouri. And once again, several other Aylmer families followed.

  Why they went and what they were searching for was beyond the comprehension of my young mind. They just moved, and that was that.

  Amish people do that once in a while, for reasons not readily apparent to little children.

  But not our family.

  We stayed put. My father’s feet were firmly planted in Aylmer. He had no intention of moving anywhere, and that was fine by me. Aylmer was the only home I had ever known. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  Some of my older brothers and sisters, however, could.

  * * *

  My sister Maggie was the first to leave. Fed up with Aylmer’s harsh rules and stifling discipline, she moved to Conneautville, a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania, where she took a job working in a nursing home. For a while, she attended services at the New Order Amish church in the area, but after a few years, she decided to leave the Amish altogether and joined a local Mennonite church.

  When she informed my parents of her decision, they made a hasty trip to Pennsylvania to try to convince her to change her mind. Mom didn’t say a whole lot. But Dad did. He blustered and cajoled and begged and threatened, but it was all in vain. Maggie remained firm.

  Frustrated, Dad could do nothing, and they returned home defeated.

  Those were tense and turbulent times. It was a huge blow to my father’s ego to have a daughter up and leave the Amish like that. My father was among the leading intellectuals of his people. A writer of many great stories, all laced with moral lessons and conclusions. Not to mention a strident defender of the Amish faith and lifestyle. What would his readers think?

  Of course, even as Maggie embraced her new life of freedom, she still felt a connection to her roots, and returned home now and again to visit for a few days—truly a brave thing for her to do.

  Dad always accosted her from the instant she walked in the door, berating and admonishing her incessantly during her entire visit. Frankly, I’m amazed she ever came back at all. But she did. And the other children were always delighted to see her.

  Then it was Jesse’s turn. At eighteen, Jesse was a strong, silent, burly young man—an intelligent loner who didn’t say much but thought a lot. And somewhere, deep inside, he instinctively knew there was something more, a better life, somewhere out there.

  Quietly, secretively, he made his plans. And then one night, without warning, he just slipped out through an upstairs window and disappeared.

  He turned up a few days later in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was soon visited by Dad and a small but strident contingency of Aylmer preachers.

  Jesse sat there silently as they cajoled, pleaded, and admonished.

  Would he not just come home and try it again?

  Surely it couldn’t have been so bad.

  It was all a misunderstanding.

  Things would be better if he just came home.

  Finally, against his better judgment, and after months of unrelenting pressure, Jesse allowed himself to be persuaded, and he returned home.

  He tried to settle back into the flow of things, but it was no use. Dad’s shimmering promises drifted off in the wind like the fluff they were. Things had not changed and would not change. Less than a year later, Jesse packed his stuff and walked out. This time his face was set. He would not return.

  He lived for a few months in St. Thomas, about ten miles west of Aylmer. Eventually, he moved to Daviess County, Indiana, the area my parents had left decades before. There he connected with his Yoder relatives for the first time. They received him—a total stranger bound to them by blood—with great joy and open arms. He settled in, joined a Mennonite church, and built a stable, happy life. Eventually he married Lynda Stoll and moved to her home community in South Carolina.

  Unlike Maggie, however, Jesse rarely returned to Aylmer and pretty much became a stranger to his younger brothers.

  Naturally, my parents were shocked and stunned both times Jesse left. We all were. Mom broke down and wept as if her heart would break. It was a brutal thing, the thought of her child out there all alone in the cold, dark world.

  Jesse was the first of her sons to pack a bag and simply walk away into the night.

  He would not be the last.

  * * *

  The departure of Peter Yoder and Nicky Stoltzfus marked the end of an era in Aylmer. The old guard was gone. It was time for a new dawn.

  And so two ordinations were held in Aylmer about a year apart. The first was that of Elmo Stoll. The second, Simon Wagler. They were both very young—in their upper twenties, maybe t
hirty—and were greatly burdened with their callings.

  Of the two, Elmo Stoll rapidly rose to a position of prominence. Soon after his ordination, he finagled his way to a pinnacle of influence and unquestioned power such as Aylmer had never seen before and has not seen since.

  Elmo had a grand vision of how things should be. He was a natural leader, a gifted man. A spellbinding speaker and preacher, he moved aggressively to solidify his power. He quickly overwhelmed and swept aside the kindly elder preacher, Jake, and began to deliberately dismantle the structural safeguards that Peter and Nicky had left behind.

  A hard-core Amish firebrand, Elmo set out to please a furious, frowning God, a God who just might be placated if enough sacrifices were made for his favors.

  Suddenly, stricter rules were in place, and things that had always been allowed in Aylmer were proclaimed sinful and forbidden.

  Wire-rimmed glasses only, no more plastic frames.

  Longer dresses.

  Bigger head coverings for the women.

  Buggy interiors painted black.

  And the builders, the few that remained, were forbidden to accept jobs that required any transportation other than a horse and buggy, which greatly restricted their range and their livelihoods.

  It was never enough, though. Elmo was restless and driven. He never stopped tweaking the church rules and was always dreaming up more stringent requirements.

  At first, most people grumbled and complained a good bit. But Elmo was a very persuasive speaker, and as he preached in mellow, lilting tones, smoothly conveying his vision of how things should be, members of the community began to see things as he did—albeit begrudgingly and sometimes despite themselves. And that’s the way it went.

  But under the surface, a lot of the common folk seethed and simmered quietly. Especially the youth, who watched helplessly as their few remaining rights and privileges slipped away, replaced with ever more-demanding rules and restrictions.

  I was a gangly, knock-kneed kid then, just entering my adolescent years. And even though I wasn’t directly involved, I heard the murmurings of dissent, the stories swirling around me: The preachers did this, and they said that. How awful and unfair was that?

  Did you hear? Now Elmo wants to outlaw volleyball. He doesn’t think boys and girls should play together because it might lead them to have lustful thoughts. Or some similar lunacy. It never stopped. And before I even had a chance to form my own opinions, any natural respect for the preachers and their edicts that I might have had was duly crushed.

  My relationship with Dad wasn’t much better.

  My brothers and I hung together, in silent revolt against his rather strident admonitions. That’s pretty much how he communicated with us. Not by discussion but by dictates.

  And so he lost us, one by one, as we entered our teenage years.

  Always frantically busy, always overwhelmed with his writing duties at Pathway, I don’t know if he even noticed.

  Of course, every once in a while one of us would do something wrong, and he would catch wind of it. Then he would launch into one of his long, angry lectures, and we would simply hunker down and take it, knowing that the storm would eventually pass.

  And it always did. Within hours, he would be back at Pathway, absorbed in the details of his daily work. And we would return to our state of quiet rebellion. In retrospect, it was doomed to fail—his relationship with his sons. There was no way he could win.

  Not after we were old enough.

  Not after we could stand up to him.

  Not after we could leave.

  9

  After Maggie and Jesse left, it was a great relief to my father when, at age nineteen, my brother Stephen decided to join the Amish church.

  It’s a huge deal, the decision to become a member and begin “following church,” because among other things, it means that the chances of that person leaving are greatly diminished. All Amish parents pray that their children will make that choice. Unfortunately many Amish youth make the choice not of their own volition but to fulfill the expectations of those around them.

  Joining the church takes about four months. On a Sunday morning, after the singing starts, the preachers get up and walk solemnly to a separate conference room, or Obrote. After the preachers leave the room, those who are taking instructions for baptism rise and follow them to the conference. There, the preachers admonish and instruct the applicants. After half an hour or so, the applicants return to the congregation. The preachers confer among themselves for another fifteen minutes or so, then rejoin the congregation.

  During the time it takes to join, applicants must not only be on their best behavior but also be prepared to walk the gauntlet and take gratuitous swipes from anyone and everyone. To smile and accept even the most shallow yet stinging criticisms. Attitude is everything, and even the slightest sign of resentment might be enough to delay or even deny baptism and membership. Everyone scrutinizes the applicants closely, looking for the tiniest faults, and when admonished, the applicants must submit humbly. Promise to do better. And then walk the line even more flawlessly.

  The pressure can become unbearable—especially if applicants are known for having engaged in rowdy behavior in the past. Then they are watched all the more closely—and admonished all the more incessantly.

  Poor Stephen chafed under these conditions. He was constantly being rebuked: His hairstyle and sideburns were too worldly. His beard was too thin, too trimmed. And so forth, on and on.

  Slowly, silently, he simmered. Until he could not take it anymore. At some point, in total secrecy, he began to plan his escape.

  It all came down one fine winter day. My parents had left that morning with an English neighbor to do some shopping. They would be gone all day. My sisters, too, were gone. So only three brothers—Stephen, Titus, and I—were at home. We worked through the morning hours, and at noon, after eating, Stephen disappeared upstairs. There he packed a bag—some clothes, his meager stash of cash.

  Then he left. Walking across the snow-covered fields to the south, through the woods to Highway 3. From there, he hitchhiked east. And just like that, he was gone.

  Before he left, he handed Titus a note to give to Dad. That afternoon, Titus and I worked uneasily around the farm. We did our evening chores until darkness fell. Around six thirty or so, the car pulled in. Our parents had returned.

  We helped carry in the day’s haul: bags of groceries, store-bought ice cream for supper, even some candy and hardware items. Dad proudly unveiled a brand-new Homelite chain saw.

  “So Stephen can cut wood with it,” he said. Quickly busying ourselves with the bags and boxes that needed to be put away, neither Titus nor I responded.

  The table was set for supper, and Mom bustled about, stirring a pot of soup on the stove. Then Titus nervously disappeared upstairs. When he returned, I knew he had the note. He approached Dad in the living room.

  “Here’s a note from Stephen,” he said.

  I felt very sorry for Titus, for the hard thing he had to do. It wasn’t right that Stephen asked such a thing of his brother. But then again, what are brothers for, if not to do the occasional hard thing for you? Titus stood there bravely, unflinching, looking right at Dad.

  “What . . . what do you mean?” Dad stuttered uncomprehendingly.

  “A note,” Titus repeated, thrusting it at Dad. “A note from Stephen. He left today.”

  “Ah, my. Oh, no,” Dad groaned, his face darkening. Mom, sensing something was amiss, walked into the living room.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked sharply, sensing doom.

  “Stephen left today,” Dad told her. “We don’t know where he is, or where he went.”

  I lurked behind a curtain in the living room and heard the exclamations of dismay and grief as my parents absorbed the news. Dad’s face was twisted into a furious frown. Mom stood frozen in shock, mouth agape.

  All the joy was gone—the treats they had brought us from town, the ice cream and candy, the
new chain saw. Dad proclaimed he wasn’t hungry and stomped off to his office. Supper forgotten, her soup simmering forlornly on the stove, Mom walked about with heaving shoulders, sobbing and entreating no one in particular to tell her where her son had gone.

  But no one could tell her. Because we didn’t know.

  Soon the news flashed through the community. Another of David Wagler’s evil boys had left. Now he had lost three of his children to the world. First Maggie, then Jesse, and now Stephen. Everyone clucked. Why, Stephen had been taking instructions for baptism, with such vile plans lurking in his heart. How fortunate that he had not been baptized.

  For my parents, it was one more embarrassing burden to bear. As it always is for Amish parents when a young son leaves. (Or a daughter, although daughters leave much less frequently.) Somehow, even though mostly unspoken, the feeling is that it reflects badly on the parents’ abilities. And their methods of raising children. Maybe if they had been stricter, it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if they had broken their son’s will way back when he was a child. Maybe this. Maybe that. The regrets, the mental guessing games never stop. When Stephen left, people in the Aylmer church offered sympathy, but who knows what they really thought? Or said among themselves.

  Stephen ended up settling in Welland, a small town about an hour east of Aylmer, where he found a job in a factory. He came home to visit now and then, but only when he knew my parents wouldn’t be around, and he vowed never to return home to stay—as long as we lived in Aylmer.

  Dad, meanwhile, was in a real bind. Stephen was gone. Titus would be next—he was certain of it. And even though I was only fourteen, he knew that eventually my turn would come. So he made a decision: We would all leave.

  Dad loved Aylmer. Of all the places he had ever lived, Aylmer was closest to his heart. Somehow, he connected with the place as he had connected with no other. Leaving was a hard and bitter pill for him, but eventually he gave in to the inevitable and did what he thought he needed to do to preserve his family. He decided to find another suitable community and move there.