An Amish Paradox

by Charles E. Hurst

  We also received support and comments from inside the academy. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Donald Kraybill for his wise counsel and useful suggestions at every stage of the process. Richard Stevick, Karen Johnson-Weiner, Larry Greksa, David Luthy, and David Weaver-Zercher, all important analysts of the Amish, made very helpful suggestions for different parts of our study. An anonymous reviewer provided thought-provoking and constructive comments. We are also indebted to Richard Moore, Elizabeth Cooksey, and Myra Katz for sharing their work on the Holmes County Amish with us. Our colleague Jennifer Graber clarified many of the nuances of religion among the Amish and how their views contrast with those of evangelical and other Protestant churches. Anne Nurse provided methodological assistance, and Heather Fitz Gibbon and Christa Craven critiqued our comments on gender. Catherine Grandgeorge and Mary Schantz gave invaluable assistance in constructing figures and maps. The following Amish individuals read drafts of all or parts of our book and/or provided helpful and detailed comments: Ed Kline, Marvin Wengerd, David Kline, Wayne Wengerd, Rob Schlabach, Ernie Hershberger, Monroe Beachy, and Jacob Beachy. Others providing assistance were Bruce Glick, David Wiesenberg, Owen and Pat McConnell, and Paul Hostetler. Any errors of fact or interpretation remain our own.

  Numerous students assisted in gathering literature and transcribing interviews, including Wil Burton, Megan Ammon, Andrea Brown, Julie Todd, Rachel Libben, Kate Matthews, Whitney Goodwin, Anne Richardson, Emily Sacher, and Amy Dupper. We are also grateful for the grants we received for our research from the Spencer Foundation of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation. In addition, financial support from the College of Wooster’s Faculty Development Fund and the Luce Fund for Distinguished Scholarship, as well as a generous sabbatical program, allowed us to attend several programs and conferences on the Amish and to finish our writing. We are extremely grateful to Lois Crum for her expert editorial assistance.

  Finally, it goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that we have been fortunate to have the full support and love of our spouses, Mary Ellen and Cathy. Their continued encouragement and patience have made our work much easier.

  An Amish Paradox

  CHAPTER 1

  Discovering the Holmes County Amish

  You can drive down any north-south road in the settlement and in a span of just a few miles you might pass Amish families from five or six different affiliations.

  —An Old Order Amish man

  Ohio’s Amish Country

  Just sixty miles south of Cleveland and seventy miles northeast of Columbus, in the center of the triangle formed by interstates 70, 71, and 77, lies the largest contiguous Amish community in the world. Over the past five years, we have driven thousands of miles crisscrossing this settlement as we gathered information for our study. Many times we had the good fortune to be accompanied by Amish friends and acquaintances who generously shared their intimate knowledge of the region’s social and physical terrain. We invite you to join us, in this chapter, for a journey through the Holmes County Settlement; we’ll explore a few of the places that have special meaning to the thirty thousand Amish who call it home.

  It’s a sunny day in early June 2007, and we begin our trip on the outskirts of Orrville, Ohio, heading south down Kansas Road. Just a stone’s throw to the west is the Wayne County Speedway, where Amish youth sometimes gather at night to sneak a glimpse of the local auto racing scene. Almost immediately we come to the new U.S. 30 bypass, running from Wooster to Canton, and on this day the big story is road construction. Kansas Road is temporarily closed because the Ohio Department of Transportation is building a bridge with a special buggy bypass over the highway to allow Amish families to travel safely to Orrville and other points north for health care and shopping. Partly because the area is home to the most conservative sect of Amish, the Swartzentrubers, who depend on buggy transport far more than do the other affiliations, the bridge was approved after extensive consultations between state and local officials and Amish residents.

  Having navigated the detour, we proceed south past Riceland Golf Course and several dozen non-Amish homes, their identity betrayed by the electrical wires from the grid and the vehicles in the driveways. Within minutes, however, we are in an area that is filled with historical significance for the Amish. It includes the site of the oldest continuously operating school in Ohio and the original location of a major schism in the settlement that created another conservative branch, the Andy Weaver affiliation. By the time we pass the intersection with Lautenschlager Road, gently rolling farmland stretches east and west and the telltale signs of Amish homes emerge: windmills that power the pumps for the water wells, white purple martin houses that look like tiny apartment complexes on a pole, dark-colored clothes drying on clotheslines, and mailboxes with names such as Miller, Raber, and Hershberger. Some houses are crowded up against the road on small lots, whereas others are set back, accessible only by a long lane. More than a few can accurately be called “self-contained estates,” since they include numerous outbuildings—a shop, a barn, an attached house for the elderly grandparents. Amish farms in this area generally range from 80 to 140 acres, with the land and buildings valued between three hundred thousand and a half million dollars.1

  Soon, however, we realize that farms are not the only businesses in the area. Dotting the roadside are small shops with names like Kidron Woodcraft, Y and M Chair, and Yoder Hardwood. Misty Ridge Woodcraft makes entertainment centers and computer furniture, items never used by the Amish. The number of shops specializing in wood products is especially noticeable, but on closer inspection, a surprising variety of occupational niches appear, such as the Kansas Road Tarp Shop, Hostetler Welding, and Chupp’s Powder Coating. We pass several Swartzentruber homesteads, identified by their dark red barns (white is considered too worldly) and dirt lanes, that sell products out of the house, advertised by handwritten signs, “Eggs for Sale” and “Hand-Woven Baskets.” Just before we cross U.S. 250, we pass Yoder’s Greenhouse, a large and tremendously successful Amish enterprise that involves extended family members—men, women, and children—in roles similar to life on the farm.

  Holmes County tour. The solid black line on this map shows the route of our cultural tour through the heart of the settlement, which spans six counties but is centered in Holmes County. Courtesy of Mary Schantz.

  Buggy traffic is fairly light at this midmorning hour, but we pass one buggy with a bright yellow Little Tykes slide tied onto its top, a new jungle gym in the making. Coming down the other side of the road is a boy no more than ten years old, gripping the reins earnestly as he drives a halflinger, a golden chestnut-colored horse with white flowing mane and tail that is known for its friendly temperament. The boy’s older sister appears to be coaching him from her side in the surrey. Three school-aged children play at the edge of a pond, enjoying their long summer recess. A middle-aged man emerges from one of the many phone shanties that dot the roadside, having checked his voicemail and perhaps placed a few calls. Many of the people we pass raise their hand in greeting, a common form of communication between those on foot, in buggies, and in vehicles on the less-traveled roads.

  During our drives through the settlement with Amish friends, it became apparent to us that the landscape is not only alive with relatives and personal acquaintances but is deeply etched with memories of past events, some of them tragic. We pass near the site of a horrific accident that occurred in 1994, when a speeding motorist swerved off the road, plowed into a group of Amish schoolchildren, and killed five as they were walking home in the late afternoon. Later, we pass the spot where Steven Keim, age twenty-three, a young man who grew up Amish, was shot and killed on September 1, 2003, by Marion Weaver, fifty-eight, the owner of a car that had been hit with tomatoes in a typical rumspringa prank.2 Returning with a shotgun late at night and firing into the cornfield in anger, Weaver accidentally killed the young man, with whom he had family ties. Such collective memories are vivid reminders of the ever-present dangers of m
aintaining a horse-and-buggy culture amid the unpredictable technologies and behaviors of non-Amish neighbors.

  After turning onto County Road 363 and heading south toward Maysville, we stop to buy two quarts of fresh strawberries from a Swartzentruber family alongside their parked buggy. Soon we pass two Amish private schools, one on each side of the road, a visible reminder of the accidental burning of a school in 2001 and the ensuing conflict between Swartzentruber and Old Order parents. When the groups were unable to agree on the size of the basement for the new school, the Swartzentrubers built their own school no more than three hundred yards away, with a more modest basement and with hooks and shelves instead of cubbies for coats and lunch pails. As we come into the community of Maysville, the increase in pedestrian traffic and activity level is noticeable. Several children, clasping handfuls of dandelions, enjoy a ride in a wagon pulled by their mother, while nearby an older man in suspenders and rubber boots pushes a power mower.

  Like many of their peers, this New Order Amish boy and girl have learned how to handle a pony cart at a very young age. Photograph by Doyle Yoder.

  At Salt Creek Road we turn sharply west and drive through a beautiful stretch of farmland, with the road crossing back and forth over the Salt Creek, before it passes the entrance to the Yoder Bargain Store on our right. Locals refer to this two-story shop adjacent to a house as the “Amish Wal-Mart” for its vast supply of goods that cater to the Amish—from clothing and housewares to books and children’s toys. Only here can one find an entire collection of rurally oriented board games with names such as Horsopoly (a version of Monopoly), Deer Hunter’s Challenge, Fish On, and Life on the Farm. As we pull into the sleepy town of Fredericksburg, passing the Village Car and Buggy Wash, we notice fliers advertising the upcoming Fourth of July parade, an event that brings Amish and non-Amish together to watch the parade, eat chicken barbecue, and play softball. As we pass the Horse and Harness Pub on our way out of town, we are reminded that although Prairie Township, which encompasses most of Fredericksburg, is dry, the local watering hole is conveniently located a few feet over the township line.

  Members of the Swartzentruber affiliation often sell fruits, vegetables, and hand-woven baskets on roadsides in the Holmes County Settlement. Photograph by Doyle Yoder.

  Heading toward Millersburg, we follow the route of Rails to Trails, a twelve-mile “path” from Fredericksburg to the Millersburg Wal-Mart. A coalition of Amish and non-Amish worked for years to bring more than $3 million in state and federal grants to the county to create a two-lane road—one lane asphalt for bicycles, rollerblades, wheelchairs, and hikers and one lane “chip and seal” for buggies and horseback riding. Former governor Bob Taft attended the Grand Opening in 2005, which included a buggy ride with local Amish author David Kline, who was then serving as chair of the nonprofit Rails to Trails Coalition. Arriving in Holmesville, we make a beeline south on U.S. 83 to the county seat, Millersburg, which is a place of some ambivalence in the Amish psyche. It is true that Millersburg welcomes many Amish shoppers and that Pomerene Hospital has added the Amish House to house family members tending the ill. But the courthouse in the center of town has been the scene of numerous legal cases that have angered and, in some instances, split the Amish community. To a lesser extent than Wooster to the north, which has a reputation among the Amish for snobbishness, Millersburg is seen as oriented more toward the descendants of its Scots-Irish and English settlers.

  Driving south out of Millersburg, we angle to the east on Route 39, and before we know it, the sights and sounds of the city disappear. Now the land breaks into a series of valleys and ridges, much of it planted in grass and hay rather than corn. It is the kind of hilly terrain that the Amish view as especially fit for their communities because it responds so well to hard work and loving care. Once in a while, however, we pass ornate non-Amish houses, occupied by city folk who want to escape or retire to the countryside. The area south of Route 39, mostly Old Order, is known and envied for having never experienced a church division, in contrast to the northern part of the settlement, where we began our tour. After angling west, we cut sharply east again as we turn onto a narrow gravel road and into the heart of Panther Hollow, a favorite spot for Amish birders seeking owls and rare species on the Millersburg Christmas Bird Count. This road can be dangerously icy in the winter.

  We emerge dramatically from the stand of hardwoods and find ourselves in the fertile Doughty Valley. This area was not originally settled by Amish, as evidenced by one imposing brick mansion, known as the old Conrad place, that was built from the bounty of the early farmland. Today, however, the valley is home to young Amish families who are moving back into dairy and crop farming, and doing so quite successfully—some even venturing into organic farming. As we loop around the valley and crest a ridge heading northeast, Amish farms and shops stretch to the horizon. We pass one home that only ten years ago marked the southernmost point in the settlement. This family knew that if they heard a horse and buggy coming down the lane, they were about to receive visitors. Now the southern frontier has moved ten miles farther south, in Coshocton and Tuscarawas counties, and is advancing at a rate of nearly one-half mile a year.

  Back roads throughout the area provide opportunities for recreational activities such as rollerblading and bicycling. Photograph by Doyle Yoder.

  Just before passing Flat Ridge Elementary School, a public school whose student body is 100 percent Amish, we stumble onto a funeral gathering. There are dozens of buggies and a few cars parked around an Amish home for the viewing and a message from the ministers; the procession to the cemetery will follow. Amish cemeteries typically occupy a small rectangular plot on a farm, and some of them hold clues to the first Amish settlers. Pulling into Yoder Nylon Works, a small harness shop, we get permission from the elderly proprietor to drive out through a field to the cemetery on his farm. The view is breathtaking, and we learn that ten generations of Amish are buried here, feet facing east, ready for the Resurrection. Their graves are marked by simple headstones. After some searching, we find the resting place of Christian Schlabach. The letters “IMM” are carved in the headstone to denote that he was an immigrant; born in Germany in 1751, he died in 1840 at the age of eighty-nine.

  Schlabach’s grave is of particular interest because he was implicated in an intriguing story that still circulates in the Amish community about the group’s earliest Holmes County ancestors from Somerset County, Pennsylvania. As the story goes, Henry Yoder had eyes for John Hochstetler’s hired girl, who was John’s wife’s sister. One day, she was cooking sugar water and left the house through the back door as Henry was approaching. Believing he had been spurned, Henry murdered John’s six-month-old baby, whom the girl had been caring for, smothering the child under the crib. But John’s brother Solomon, who was something of a maverick in the community, was blamed, because he had a red hunting coat similar to one the girl identified on a man she had seen earlier looking in the window. The evidence was circumstantial, and the case was ruled a mistrial, but the incident cast a pall over the family’s reputation. Solomon left the Amish church, still proclaiming his innocence, and near the end of his life was taken in and baptized on his word by “Big Mose” Miller at Walnut Creek Mennonite Church. At this gesture of kindness, Solomon reportedly wept like a baby. Eventually, Henry Yoder’s father approached his friend Christian Schlabach with a proposal: he would give 640 acres of land near Walnut Creek, the very farm on which we now stood, to Christian’s sons Jacob and Daniel if they would marry his two daughters (Henry Yoder’s sisters). They agreed to this proposal and moved to Ohio. Imagine everyone’s shock when, years later, Henry became ill and, thinking he was on his deathbed, confessed to the murder of the baby!3

  We then make our way into the heart of Walnut Creek, passing the original house of Jonas Stutzman, the first Amish settler in 1810. Stutzman believed so intently that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent that he prepared for the event by dressing in white every day and building a
large wooden chair to accommodate Jesus.4 At the intersection with U.S. 39, we pass Carlisle Printing, the publishing company that prints the nine-hundred-page Ohio Amish Directory every five years. It is a comprehensive snapshot of occupations, births, marriages, and deaths for every family in the settlement except for the Swartzentrubers, who do not participate. Here in Walnut Creek, we are in one of several New Order Amish church districts in this region. The buggies we pass have more amenities, such as sliding doors; and some of the homes, with stone facades and carefully manicured lawns, are hard to distinguish from those of the non-Amish.

  We are also in the heart of the settlement’s multi-million-dollar tourist industry, as the busloads of people eating at the popular Der Dutchman Restaurant attest. Proceeding quickly on U.S. 39 through Walnut Creek and heading toward Berlin, we pass countless shops and restaurants that market the Amish brand to tourists, a sign that they are probably not owned by Amish themselves. At Troyer’s Country Market, which specializes in Amish wedding foods, we turn north on County Road 77 and pass more Amish shops with names such as 77 Woodcraft, 77 Houseware, and Refrigerator 77. A pickup truck pulling a nondescript white trailer directly in front of us, one of the settlement’s ubiquitous “furniture haulers,” illustrates how the Ohio Amish country’s thriving furniture business is competing with Lenoir, North Carolina, for the title “furniture capital of the United States.” Approaching Bunker Hill, we pass the Amish-Mennonite Heritage Center, which houses a cyclorama 265 feet by 10 feet, a dramatic painting of Amish and Mennonite histories from their beginnings in Zurich to the present.