One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting

by Marie Monville

  But our family’s farm-stand favorite was (and is to this day) sweet corn! Sold by the baker’s dozen (always thirteen ears, a trademark of this generous culture) and picked within a few hours of being placed on display. As you run your fingers along ribbed husks and fluffy tassels to make your selections, the ears are sometimes still dewy to the touch. And once the corn is boiled, just one bite reveals a milky sweetness that doesn’t compare to the corn sold in supermarkets. As a child I even enjoyed husking corn, a chore that turned competitive as I raced my siblings to see who could finish pulling the silk and husk off the most ears.

  There were (and still are) two Amish stores in Georgetown. Village Dry Goods sells fabric, books, housewares, hardware, and candy. Visiting was always a pleasure as I was growing up, whether I went to browse, to spend ten cents’ worth of hard-earned allowance on gummy fish, or to buy small gifts for my family. The second, King Grocery, is stocked with grocery and bulk items. Consider this: you can buy sugar and flour in 25, 50, and 100-pound sacks, cornmeal, meats and cheeses, herbs and spices, as well as produce fresh from their garden adjacent to the parking lot. You can find enough for a family of four or fourteen or for an entire Amish church meal, wedding dinner, or barn raising. It was the perfect place to pick up any item missing from our pantry when preparing a recipe and brought the convenience of a shopping mall to our small town. The King girls could provide everything we needed and more!

  Aside from the post office and two Amish stores, there weren’t many landmarks in our town. A small Amish harness shop sat quietly on Furnace Road right near Fisher’s Stone Yard. The only other defining feature was Bart Fire Hall. The sound of that fire whistle was unmistakable! Its loud-and-clear call was startling in the middle of the night or if it blared suddenly while we were outside. Once the siren sounded, a flurry of activity followed. Many responders were Amish men from the community who would come running or arrive on scooter (powered by foot, of course). I’ve never seen anyone as fast on a scooter as those men!

  As I grew older, I’d take long bike rides by myself, exploring all the winding country roads but never fearing any danger nor worrying my parents. I was among neighbors everywhere I turned. My grandma and grandpa lived just up the street, so I frequently rode by their home, having no idea that one day my husband, Charlie, and I would build our home on the empty lot next door and build our own little house upon it. The very house where, years later, I would get the call that pierced my heart.

  For all the differences, there was one great similarity between our lives and those of our Amish neighbors — the cows never took a day off. They needed to be milked twice a day, every day, with no regard for holidays and vacations. The milk at each farm needed to be picked up every other day, without fail, and there were enough farms to keep all of our family business’s trucks busy every day. The local farmers’ milk needed to be collected by my dad even on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and every other holiday. Sundays, at least, broke the routine a bit. Amish don’t allow trucks on their farms on Sunday, so every Amish farm’s milk must be picked up on Saturday and Monday instead, making Saturdays and Mondays the busiest of all.

  Our faith was as natural a part of our lives as eating and sleeping, with prayers at mealtime and bedtime, Bible stories often told, and the language of faith lived out daily by my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Mom took us to Sunday worship and Sunday school at Georgetown United Methodist, the picturesque little white steepled, stained-glass-windowed church just one house up from my grandparents’ home. Vacation Bible school every summer, church gatherings on many occasions, and home Bible studies were all a part of our family schedule.

  It was in church that my spirit was first touched by the power of music. The blend of voices singing hymns and praise songs stirred me deeply, transporting me heavenward. I remember as a little girl feeling lifted up, like I was soaring toward the sky on my swing, when the voices would swell in words and melodies of praise. I filled hours playing piano and listening to music, developing an appreciation for classical styles as well as the great hymns of faith I sang on Sundays. When no one in our family was playing music, Mom’s classical records filled our home with melody that settled and inspired me.

  Looking back now, I clearly see the idyllic quality of the country life of my childhood. But of course, since that was all I’d known, I wouldn’t realize for many years how sheltered and unique my childhood was compared to the childhoods of most children born in the 1970s. We watched little television in our home and seldom went to movies. We read instead. When we were young, Mom read to us daily, and as I grew I read voraciously. My school classmates, like me, lived in a spread-out rural community, and though I suppose many of them watched television more than I did, my elementary years were spent largely unaware of the “outside” world of cities and suburbs from which all the tourists came to gawk at our Amish neighbors.

  In every way, I was a child born and bred in the Garden Spot of America, as Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is called. I’d been planted in the middle of everything that would set the stage for who I would become. Until the morning of October 2, 2006, I’d been the milkman’s daughter who grew up to be what she always dreamed of being — a wife, a mother, a Christian woman in a Christian family, a woman who loved her husband, her kids, her God, her country, her life.

  Yet suddenly, in the space of that one morning in 2006, the warmly glowing pictures of my childhood — of Amish farms, Amish neighbors, Amish children — were torn from the safekeeping of my memories and violently shredded.

  Bart Fire Hall, the fire whistle, the scooter-riding Amish first responders, who were wearing straw hats, black pants, and solid-color shirts, were no longer held tenderly as part of my little-girl world in an idyllic country upbringing. After that morning, they screamed an ugly reality to this naive-girl-turned-woman who now bore the weight of being a murderer’s wife. The faces in my memory were no longer filled with innocent smiles and neighborly welcome. They were smeared with blood and twisted with terror and horrific grief.

  “Oh, God. Dear God. How could this happen? What can I do?” Thoughts like these spun through my mind as I sat in my parents’ family room. I gazed out the windows, past their backyard, to horses and goats grazing together in a farmer’s field. To the left, I could see one of the storage buildings that sat behind Bart Fire Hall. What was going on at the fire hall this very minute in response to Charlie’s actions today?

  Charlie. Already that morning I missed him. I hadn’t married a murderer! I had married Charlie Roberts, my sweetheart since my teen years.

  I was a teenager before I grasped how isolated our lives were from the cultural norms of most of the nation, and that awareness sprang more from my studies than from firsthand knowledge. Although I was shy, quiet, and unsure of my ability to become anyone of significance, I possessed an eagerness to excel. I was a good student, conscientious in my work and respectful of others, but rarely raised my hand in class. I was afraid of giving a wrong answer and exposing my mistake to others — early signs of my shaky self-confidence. I never liked to draw attention to myself.

  One event in eighth grade played a profound role in moving me beyond my comfort zone. We had changed churches when I was nine and were now attending High View Church of God. Our church sponsored a weeklong mission trip to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, and I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to sign up. The night before we left, I had knots in my stomach. At fourteen years old, I’d never been away from home without my parents before. But my mom soothed me, my dad encouraged me, and I knew I couldn’t pull out of the commitment I’d made.

  Once there, I felt extraordinary fulfillment in being used by God, and I saw myself in a new light — a bit more capable of speaking up and contributing positively to the lives of others than I’d imagined myself to be. At night, however, I was hit by waves of missing my parents, and more than once that week I was so homesick I wept.

  I stepped into high school academically eager bu
t socially reticent, joking at times that if we had labels under our names in the yearbook, mine would read “most likely to be forgotten.” I just wanted to blend in, believing it far better to be invisible than to be embarrassed by some awkward words or actions. In my own estimation, I was timid, insignificant, and incapable of meaningful creative expression. There was so much about myself I hadn’t yet discovered.

  Being a nurturer by nature, I babysat for several families in our neighborhood and provided child care at a local resort that primarily catered to tourists in the summer months. Caring for children came naturally and brought me real joy, so much so that I began to dream of the day I would be a wife and mother. I also began teaching Sunday school. Yet even there I wrestled with feelings of inadequacy, hoping I would not make some mistake or call attention to myself only to disappoint someone by my subpar performance.

  There was, however, one place where I felt confident and sure of my abilities — in my father’s milk truck. The heavy demands of the Saturday hauling were so significant that my dad and the other company truckers could not handle all the pickups themselves. While my dad had several cousins with the commercial drivers’ licenses required to drive the truck, they didn’t have the weigher-and-sampler license necessary to load the milk. Plus, they were unfamiliar with the locations of the farms on each route.

  Seeing an opportunity to contribute, I studied and took the test for a weigher-and-sampler license to help with the family business. I passed on my first try! Thereafter, I rode along with the cousins — they drove the trucks, and I did the rest. The routine I’d watched as a child from the cab — my dad unloading the hose from the back of the trailer, hooking it up to the farmer’s milk tank, measuring and converting the reading into pounds, sampling the milk, then disconnecting the hose, putting it away, and washing down the milk tank — was now my routine. I loved everything about this piece of my heritage; it was exciting to become a vital part of what I had enjoyed watching my dad do when I was a child.

  When I turned sixteen, I wanted to buy a car. So I found a job at the Maplehoffe Dairy Store near my school and worked there a few evenings a week. I saved my money and bought a bright yellow used car as old as I was. It wasn’t pretty or fancy, but it was mine, and I felt the satisfaction of knowing I’d worked hard for it.

  By my junior year of high school, I’d found my comfort zone in my small group of friends at school and moved with ease among my church friends. I sang in the church choir, taught Sunday school, and enjoyed my coworkers at the dairy. And of course, I loved my Saturday job of working in the family business.

  Then my comfort zone was unexpectedly invaded in a way that delighted and excited me. A woman from church invited a few others and me to her home for dinner. Seated at the table was her grandson, Charlie Roberts. I’d seen Charlie at church but had never talked to him. It was a casual evening with easy laughter, and I enjoyed getting to know Charlie. He was quiet but friendly and seemed a bit shy, a feeling I fully understood. The limited conversation between us felt comfortable and pleasant.

  When dinner was over and I was preparing to leave, Charlie asked, “Mind if I walk you to your car?”

  Taken by surprise, I felt myself blush. By this time I had saved up a bit more money and bought a gray Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to explain my old yellow clunker!

  “Did you buy it yourself?” he asked, circling it and nodding with approval.

  “Yes. It took me awhile to save up.” I opened the door but didn’t want to climb in and end the chance for conversation.

  “It was really nice to meet you tonight, Marie. Would you like to go on a date with me on Saturday night?”

  I’m sure my eyes got as big as saucers. My eyes met his. He was smiling shyly. I could hardly believe it. My very first date!

  I said yes and drove home with stars in my eyes.

  5

  the promise

  As far back as I can remember I had dreamed of being a wife and mother. Of course, there was that time in kindergarten when I aspired to be an astronaut (stirred, no doubt, by my time swinging toward the heavens on my swing set), but that was short-lived. My heart longed to sow love into children, and I dreamed of the day when my husband and I would have our own. I always assumed that I would meet a good man, fall in love, and get married, all in a seamless journey of sweet love.

  That is exactly what I did. Charlie was my first date and my first love. He was an “older man” by four years. I was in eleventh grade at our first meeting across his grandmother’s dinner table; he had already graduated and was working at a local home construction company. Though I can’t say it was love at first sight, it was a friendship that developed smoothly over time, growing from friendship to love within just a few seasons.

  Charlie’s early years had been spent in a small neighborhood near Lancaster. He’d moved as a teen to the countryside just south of Strasburg, a ten-minute drive from Georgetown. There his family lived next door to his grandparents, and they became acquainted with the beauty of Amish life. The Robertses had many Amish neighbors, including the girls from the Stoltzfoos farm down the street, who would ring their doorbell selling eggs, fruits, and vegetables during the summer months. Even if you didn’t need more asparagus, how could you say no to their sweet faces?

  Charlie fit in easily with my family. My dad recognized him as trustworthy, kind, and a hard worker. Although quiet and reserved initially, Charlie was soon comfortable talking with my family, laughing at stories about our family milk-hauling business, easing naturally from suitor to family member as our relationship deepened. He enjoyed evenings together with my family and liked being included when we’d all bake chocolate chip cookies together and play board games.

  The son of a policeman, Charlie and his family reflected many of the same deeply held values as my own family. He was respectful, had grown up in a Christian home, loved God, attended church, and valued being a responsible citizen of our community. He had three younger brothers and no sisters, so Charlie related easily to my dad and brother, while also enjoying the tasty treats from all the “girly” baking at our house.

  One of the reasons I fell in love with Charlie was the tenderhearted way he treated his cousins. He had a large, close-knit extended family so I often saw him playing with the kids and showing sensitivity toward the ones who lingered on the outside of the group. I admired his encouraging spirit and the way he loved and included outsiders. Watching him connect with children in this way prompted me to imagine how he would be as a dad. What games would he play with our kids? What memories would he make with them?

  I think my family first realized how serious we were getting when, the Thanksgiving of my junior year, Charlie went on a hunting trip with his dad. Charlie knew we wouldn’t have much communication while he was at the hunting cabin, and the thought of going an entire holiday weekend without talking with one another seemed too much to bear. This was before cell phones, of course. So before heading out of town, Charlie collected tons of change. Each evening, he deposited coins in the pay phone in the lodge at the hunting camp, and we talked for hours, with the operator joining us periodically with instructions to insert more coins. My family teased me mercilessly, claiming that he must have taken wheelbarrows full of nickels. I basked in the glow of feeling so special.

  Because of the long hours my dad worked, he often couldn’t make it home for dinner, so my mom would fill a plate for him, cover it, and set it in the refrigerator. Soon Charlie was so comfortable in our home that he’d raid the refrigerator and help himself to Dad’s plate. Mom didn’t mind a bit. She loved making Charlie feel at home, so she would gladly fix another plate for Dad.

  One thing, however, was clear to me from the beginning — Charlie lacked self-confidence, a struggle I knew all too well myself. I enjoyed encouraging him to recognize his own talent and potential. The evidence of his growth in confidence through my love had a positive effect on me as well.

  Then cam
e a glorious mid-October day for which Charlie had planned a picnic at a park in Lancaster. We met there after work. By this time I had left my job at the dairy store and worked after school as an assistant in the human resources department of a local healthcare company.

  “So what’s in the basket?” I asked, eager to see how he had managed in preparing dinner. I don’t know that he had ever packed a picnic basket before, but he’d insisted on packing tonight’s dinner for some reason.

  He neatly spread the picnic blanket, then began unpacking each item. “We have deli sandwiches, fresh fruit salad, deviled eggs, and some delicious chocolate chip cookies.” He announced each like a waiter presenting a five-course gourmet dinner. He arranged utensils, napkins, cups, and dessert plates with a flourish.

  “You thought of everything!” I said.

  “And this surprises you?” he teased. He had me there, but I made up for it by declaring everything I tasted to be delicious.

  After dinner we spent hours walking, talking, laughing, and sharing in the beauty of the evening. As the sun began to set, he led me from the path we’d been walking back to our picnic blanket. To my astonishment, he dropped to one knee and gently took my hand.

  “Marie, I love you with my whole heart. Will you marry me?”

  Hopes and dreams rushed over me, flooding my senses as everything I’d envisioned came one step closer to reality.

  “Yes, Charlie, I will,” I said in quiet gentleness, certain that our promises would abide forever. Deep in my heart, I was convinced that we would have a wonderful marriage. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that troubles would never touch us, but for me, this promise meant that my decisions and responses to life, no matter what the future held, would reflect my devotion to this union first and to my individuality second.