My Amish Childhood

by Jerry S. Eicher

  From there they learned the routine quickly. First, you swore by the saints and the Holy Virgin that your husband had left you penniless and starving. Then, Bishop Monroe would smile and tell you when the first inspection would occur. An event easy enough to handle since you now knew when the gringos would be stopping by.

  On that weekend you made sure your husband, live-in boyfriend, or whatever, wasn’t present. And when the Amish became wise to your tricks and made surprise weekend inspections, you made sure that all your weekends were male free. During the week, of course, the Amish didn’t do inspections. They were too busy working.

  Worse perhaps was the local men’s attitude. There were documented cases of men leaving their wives for younger women because they were depending on the Amish safety net to ensure the first wife wouldn’t go hungry.

  One hard case played out right on the Sanson ranch. A lady by the name of Rosa Sanchez and her children were given free housing on Amish land. A worthy project indeed, and over time Rosa became good friends with Aunt Sarah and others of the community’s women. The problem was Rosa continued to bear children each year, when there was obviously no husband around. These continued pregnancies, while the woman was living right on their land, was the consternation of the Amish’s charitable minds. But the Amish women loved her, and the men were unable to drive her out into the cold, hard world again. So Rosa stayed and raised her brood in plain sight of everyone.

  The project received the occasional stimulus by actually helping a woman and her children who were in dire need. These were the real stories—eyewitness accounts of starving children with swollen stomachs living in squalor and filth that kept everyone encouraged and moving forward. At least they were helping some people, they told each other. And so the Poor Ladies Project was left to limp along, dodging around the mysteries of mankind that only God can solve.

  School began that fall—late as usual. Sometime in October, I think. And I entered the sixth grade. The church/schoolhouse building was a familiar fixture in our lives by then, sitting near the center of the community on the highest knoll around. Most of the people walked there on Sunday mornings, including the folks from La Granja, who lived the farthest away.

  In the center of the building was the church auditorium, which faced south. On either side were the school wings, with the lower grades on the west and the upper grades on the east. I spent only one year on the west side, starting my second year on the east side. I don’t remember who our teacher was. They kind of come and go in my mind.

  We had wooden shutters made of slats built all along the side of the schoolhouse. They didn’t swing sideways to open and shut, but folded in on top of each other, held in place by friction. These could be turned open in good weather and shut during bad weather. They were shut for overnight too.

  Someone arrived early one morning to find Harlan, Emil Helmuth’s oldest boy, hanging by the neck, suspended between the slats of the shutters. I hadn’t arrived yet, so I didn’t get to see the resuscitation efforts or the mad dash to bring his parents up to the school. But the news was on the lips of everyone when we arrived. Harlan was found hanging by his neck, but he would survive we were told.

  Harlan had come early to school and, finding no teacher there and the door locked, he took it upon himself to climb in through the slats. Things went well until his hold slipped and he fell back, catching his chin on the collapsing shutters. From there it was all downhill because his legs didn’t reach the ground. If someone hadn’t arrived in time, there would no doubt have been another grave on the hillside only yards from where he would have died.

  Sober warnings were given to us all that day, which were entirely unnecessary in my opinion. None of us had any plans to climb in through the wooden shutters anytime in the future.

  Sometime during that school year, my agony with the fairer sex began. This was an attraction to which I vigorously objected—which, I suppose, only made matters worse. I should have talked to the girl or at least tried. Our school desks sat only a foot apart. It should have been easy, but I just couldn’t. And I probably couldn’t have even if I hadn’t stuttered. My crush was severe and would remain so for years.

  The girl was older than I was by a year or so, but we were in the same grade. Before this, I hadn’t fantasized over girls or even dreamed of marriage. The whole thing caught me unaware. Surrounded by the constant talk of the Honduran men, I wasn’t ignorant of the ways of love. I just hadn’t expected this to happen to me. Strangely, I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t marry her. It just wasn’t to be. I never wavered or doubted about that. Yet there was no getting away from the torment. At home I could forget her. But at school was another matter.

  In the community I was a loner, a scarecrow that stalked the land. The thought of her returning my feelings didn’t even cross my mind. The whole thing was absurd. She was “up there,” and I was “down here”—way down here. I was alone, awash in my emotions. So I did stupid things. I tore up a few sheets of blank paper that slid off her desk. I handed the papers back to her in pieces silently, without saying a word.

  The other two girls in our class, who were seated around us, stared at me aghast. They comforted her at recess in whispered words. No doubt talking about the ogre who lived in their midst.

  I don’t think they had any idea the depth of my feelings and wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told them. It’s no wonder I had so few friends acting like I did. Yet looking back now, I think she understood. She never said an unkind word to me, even when I handed her the torn paper.

  Perhaps she felt the same pain, the impossibility of everything, knowing what could never be for reasons neither of us could understand.

  I know those memories are shrouded in the cloudy mist of youthful idealism. I also know that a man never forgets his first love. So although in many ways these memories are suspect, they have never left me. Life and living dull the senses and turn us into hardened skeptics. But in the beginning it isn’t so. We believe in goodness, in virtue that has no flaw. We look beyond the doors of our hearts and are made better persons by the sight. We all have someone who catches a glimpse of us lying behind the ugly, beyond the brazen. Who see the beauty in us present from before our forebears ate the apples in the garden. And it is that shadow we ought not to forget. That fleeting moment when love first calls. For then we see as we really ought to see.

  Chapter 21

  With school in session that fall, thoughts of the armed robbery earlier that year faded from everyone’s memory. I heard little talk about it at home, and we began to move about more freely after dark. Surely it had been only a onetime thing, we figured. And the petty thievery could be dealt with.

  Uncle Stephen’s family returned from an extended summer visit to Canada. He was a quiet man and not given to conflict. But his message delivered upon his arrival back in the community jarred many. It was spoken quietly to a few extended family members and was clear enough. His family would be returning to Canada once they sold their farm and set things in order.

  Uncle Stephen turned out to be the “canary in the mine.” But three years into the new settlement, no one quite knew how to handle it. Some thought his claims of liberalism in the community were simply preposterous. Bishop Monroe was, after all, well-loved, and he clearly had no intentions of leaving the Amish faith or leading anyone in that direction.

  The arguments were clinical back then, not yet fleshed out for all to see. And Uncle Stephen talked mostly in terms of keeping the ordnung. Or rather, he spoke of the slippage he saw from the ordnung while in Aylmer. These were both things few wanted to hear, especially when it came to the subject of the Aylmer ordnung.

  Plus there were more exciting things going on, such as saving souls and outreach—the throngs of locals who were interested in joining the church. Was that not what Christianity was about? And the reason we were here?

  I don’t know what could have been done if someone had really listened to Uncle Stephen. Perhaps that’s why no o
ne seemed to. The subject was difficult to address, let alone solve. How do you reconcile the preservation of the past with a vibrant Christian witness in the present?

  Stateside, the matter has been satisfactorily solved by a sort of unwritten truce between the two cultures. The Amish preserve their heritage without trying to push their beliefs on the Englisha people. And their beliefs are such that the general culture doesn’t attempt to emulate them anyway. Mostly those beliefs concern things of practical living, such as buggies, cape dresses, and nonviolence. All of these things are practiced while keeping the undergirding tenets of Protestant Christianity: faith in Christ, belief in the Trinity, and a multitude of similar doctrines that place a belief system firmly in the Christian family.

  The whole arrangement hangs on the Amish not wanting to be Englisha, and the Englisha not wanting to be Amish. Sure, each side can be influenced by the other, and a certain admiration can even exist. But there is a line that isn’t crossed. The Amish faith must always to some degree remain undesirable to the general culture or, if admired, be unattainable by the multitudes. On this hangs the balance.

  In the third world, this arrangement is set on its head. Half the local countryside wanted to be Amish it seemed. And what was difficult stateside—joining the Amish church—was now the easiest thing in the world. If you joined the church, you instantly had access to three times the living space you had before. Your mud hut floor became concrete or at least wood. You moved from eating beans and rice to eating cakes and potato casserole. The sale was not that hard to make.

  Even the black felt hats, which are staples of Amish piety and humility stateside, were now symbols of wealth and status in Honduras. The Amish had to abandon wearing them for that reason and, instead, switch to straw hats or no hats. Some did exactly that, including my family.

  It was the end of 1972 by that time, and I was eleven years old. I didn’t know what being Amish meant, nor would I have noticed the gradual changes occurring around me. Apparently neither did most of the adults.

  All around us questions were being asked that would have been unthinkable at home. “What good, really, are suspenders?”

  “Why wear hats at all?”

  “Why make clothing by hand?”

  Here the culture conspired to loosen the answers from their Amish traditional anchor. An anchor sunk in stateside religious dogma. Here it made no sense to wear suspenders to differentiate yourself from the world. The world stateside threatened us. Here the world didn’t threaten us. It wanted to be like us.

  And here a new convert could hardly afford his pants let alone a pair of suspenders. A pair of suspenders which, by the way, had to be imported from the north before it could be worn. And where would that money come from? So this added cost cast a whole new light on the issue of wearing suspenders.

  Here also the arguments for hats fled away. Stateside, Amish theology has long traversed the tricky waters of 1 Corinthians 11 with caution, having to dodge the icebergs. Because they know the admonitions on a woman’s head being covered are coupled with equal admonitions that a man’s head be uncovered, the dodge is made by calling the hat a weather garment, so it lies outside the principles of the Scripture passage:

  Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head…A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man…Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering (1 Corinthians 11:4-5, 7, 13-15).

  In Honduras, there was no weather to speak of other than balmy, pleasant conditions. So the hat wasn’t needed for weather, leaving the issue defenseless.

  I suppose someone could have brought up the real reason why the Amish men wear the hats stateside—as a method of cultural identification and as a barrier against the prevailing culture. But they were a spiritual bunch, so I doubt if anyone would have wished to trot out that argument. He would have been laughed out of the room if not openly scorned. Besides, the argument wouldn’t have worked. They already had a problem with being too identified as Amish, and making the matter worse by wearing hats wasn’t solving anything.

  Making clothing by hand soon became an even larger problem. No one among the locals had sewing machines. In Honduras you had to be rich to even have a floor in your shack. Where would money for a sewing machine come from? Or where would it sit if you had one? In the dirt? And with no lock on the door, how long would the thing stay in your house? Even your relatives would be tempted to temporarily change their convictions on stealing from family.

  These Amish cultural questions were not raised stateside, and even questioning them would be considered heresy there. Persecution over many centuries had resulted in a buffer being put in place between the Amish communities and the general culture. Here there were no walls, no agreements, and no persecutions. The Honduran “world” loved us. And we made contact with that world every day. Heresy couldn’t be far around the corner.

  In the meantime, the weather was wonderful. The mountains standing in the distance spoke of the majesty of the Lord. And the church house on the hilltop was full each Sunday. Marriages were taking place. Even several older men found mates for the first time. The place was alive with goodwill and enthusiasm. I doubt if anyone would have listened even if Uncle Stephen had shouted his message.

  But he didn’t shout. He simply faded away.

  The dam project was begun that fall. An ambitious undertaking for that country, but so was most everything else going on in the community. To the west of the children’s home lay a natural ravine that began just below David Peachey’s place.

  A dozer was hired. From where I have no idea, remembering that Dad had his basement dug by hand. But that was the contradiction of the country. Perhaps they couldn’t persuade an operator to travel a long distance without a large job once he arrived. Uncle Joe and most of the other uncles bought into the project, contributing a set amount of monies for future usage of the pond. Fishing was on the mind of the adults, but we children thought of swimming.

  The dozer arrived and set to work. When it was done, a dam had been thrown up spanning the ravine and running parallel to the mountain. Behind it lay an acre or so of potential water area. Not filled yet, it soon would be with the coming rainfall. A metal overflow pipe stuck out of the water, off the side of the dam a dozen feet or so. This proved adequate in the years to come. I never saw the dam overflow, even in hurricane weather.

  There was now a new road to Grandfather’s house that traveled across the ravine without having to walk through it, which opened up a quicker route for vehicles. The old road past David Peachey’s mill was nearly abandoned.

  I remember a lot of walking in those days, going to and from Grandfather’s place and to other points on the Sanson farm, which seems strange now considering we had riding horses. Perhaps it took too much effort to catch a horse and throw on the saddle. I do know that I considered any place on the La Granja ranch a long distance and normally didn’t walk there. Nowadays, when I visit, those distances don’t appear quite so far.

  My world revolved around the schoolhouse, walking to school on weekdays and to church on Sundays. In my off-hours, I was often riding horseback into Guaimaca on errands for Mom.

  I’m not sure when the monkey arrived at our new house, but it was sometime soon after we moved in. We set the monkey up with a belt strapped around his middle, and attached to a long, thin chain that ran on a steel bar. He had free range where his chain reached on the ground and in the trees on both sides. Don Gilbert, an Englisha farmer living twenty minutes toward Tegucigalpa, gave him to us. Perhaps the monkey was a gift or maybe Dad purchased him. Either is possible since Don Gilbert was well liked by Dad and others of the community
.

  Our monkey couldn’t do tricks or distinguish himself in any special way. He was just a monkey. He’d chatter at a high rate of speed when something startled him or when he was mad, which was often. Sitting on his haunches or hanging from his tail on a tree limb, he’d let the world know his displeasure.

  We children all made friends with him. We had to give him food to start off the relationship. He’d grab it out of our hands and rush up the tree, hanging by his tail while he munched away. Eventually he’d allow us closer until we could cuddle up to him while he was on the ground. We’d sit beside him, breathing in his musty smell, his hairs tickling our arms and faces. Occasionally he’d lay his head down in our laps or wrap his long, spindly arms around our neck.

  Brother John was the tease of the family, and he couldn’t resist pulling the monkey’s tail, as well as other tricks, such as yanking on the monkey’s chain. Things got so bad the monkey ran up the tree and gave off long, chattering scoldings whenever John came within sight. John always eventually made up with him.

  The monkey seemed to have flashes of bad memories. These arrived without warning in unprovoked moments. I’d be cuddled up to him, thinking the relationship was on solid ground, when he’d flare into a blinding rage, chattering and leaping away. As he grew older these took the form of occasional unprovoked bites, which we excused for awhile. But they grew increasingly worse, and one day he broke his chain and assaulted me viciously, leaving me bloody before Mom could pull him off. That was the end of the road, and our monkey was no more.

  Chapter 22

  Grandfather Stoll had given us a puppy when we first arrived in Honduras. I think its mother had been left on the place by the previous owner of Sanson. Clearly our puppy came from a source other than the standard local fare of mange-ridden dogs. We named her Jumper, and she developed into a highly intelligent and fiercely loyal animal.