My Amish Childhood

by Jerry S. Eicher

  “Es nube pasaero,” he shouted into his mike. [“It’s just a passing cloud.”]

  Most people stayed, more convinced by the bright sunshine off in the distance than the shouted optimism.

  When all was said and done, everyone was happy with the results. Especially the auctioneer, who made off with a considerable sum for his day’s work. And no one would ever doubt again whether auctions would work in Honduras.

  Chapter 30

  The year 1974 opened with Uncle Stephen’s leaving in February. His family quietly slipped away like ghosts into a mist. The mine canary had died, but we were too busy with our lives and too taken up with all the wonders of this land to notice.

  Dad now had full responsibility for the acres left behind. Cousin Ira had the grasslands up front under control with his goats, but beyond those lay a rich river bottom on the western border. I was called upon to work in Dad’s new venture: farming.

  I learned how to harness the Belgian horses, of which we only had a few left in the community at this point. The work of plowing was something I never did learn to like. It was just long days of driving back and forth, seeming to get nowhere.

  Dad kept a huge Belgian stallion in the pasture around Fausto’s shack. I don’t think I used him for plowing. He was kept for breeding purposes, and he was about as big a failure as the rest of the Belgian project was. For the most part, the stallion refused to mate with any Belgian mares. There was nothing wrong with his prowess. He loved the local mares, but his use as a stud was impractical at best since the larger colts he sired risked killing the females when they delivered.

  Potatoes were the real cash crop, and Dad was now able to give farming his full attention. True to his nature, he either invented or modified our horse-drawn machinery at the shop to aid in the effort. We turned the black soil along the river into long rows of mounds, into which the sliced potato seeds imported from Holland were placed. I don’t know how the other Amish planted their potatoes, but we were spared doing the arduous process by hand because of Dad’s inventiveness.

  The green potato plants soon sprouted. Pure gold in that culture where making a living wasn’t easy. Thievery being what it was, Fausto volunteered to keep our potato fields safe. We cultivated by day, and as the harvesttime approached, he guarded by night. At least Fausto claimed he did. Since I was around him more than anyone else, he told me he was sleeping down near the potato fields with his gun. We didn’t ask too many questions. Having an armed guard on our property would not have gone over well with the rest of the community. I doubted the story though. Fausto wasn’t a man given to sleeping outdoors at night. He was much too practical. He had other methods, I was certain. I could tell by the twinkle in his eye when he spoke on the matter. My guess is he dropped the word around Guaimaca at a few choice spots that he was guarding Don Samuel’s potato fields, and that he wouldn’t look kindly on any night visitors. From there he would stroll down once in a while to the river bottoms along about dusk, making sure that Dad saw him go past the house a few nights a week.

  He could then be back in his house, sound asleep, an hour later. We would never know the difference, nor did we wish to ask. Fausto was smart enough to figure that all out. Dad didn’t pay Fausto extra for these guarding favors. It would have been pushing things too far to pay for a guard and all, but Fausto did get to keep a few bags of potatoes, which must have been a small fortune in his world. He still worked for eighteen lempiras a week, and his family had grown to at least two children by then.

  Harvesttime was entered upon with a flourish. We worked long and late hours. It was one of the few times we stayed out after dark, something we didn’t normally do. I know Dad came under ridicule for his peculiar practice of getting inside the house soon after dusk. Not by the Stolls though. They had some of the same sentiments. But the Amish who came from Northern Indiana thought this practice the strangest thing—not burning the midnight oil as most of them did by working in the barn by gas lantern.

  Dad ignored the laughter, telling us children that it wasn’t how late you stayed up that mattered, but how much work you got done once you were awake. I never saw any reason to disagree with Dad since he worked us children hard all the years we worked for him. At least I thought it was hard, but then I suppose most children do. We are all still quite alive and know how to work hard to this day.

  Out in the fields we turned up the long rows of now-dying plants with our potato digger pulled by a single horse. If we didn’t keep the feathered blade deep enough in the ground, sliced potatoes were the result—a problem I struggled with. But after some practice, we didn’t have too many spoiled potatoes.

  Every hand was required to bag the scattered harvest. The entire family turned out for the event. We children left the filled bags lying in the rows for the adults to pick up in a wagon that would haul the load up to Uncle Stephen’s old barn. From there a truck came to take the potatoes into either Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula, wherever Dad had heard the market was best. Eventually I gathered enough courage to help with the loading, following the example of the adults by lifting the bags over my shoulder to walk up the ramps. This was no OSHA-approved weight either. No forty- or fifty-pound load—more like 120 pounds. Not the smartest thing in the world for a twelve-year-old to try, but I couldn’t resist. Plus I was tall for my age, so I probably looked like I could handle it. I felt manly—I know that.

  In the years we raised potatoes on Uncle Stephen’s river bottom, we never found any signs of potato digging besides our own. Whatever Fausto did while guarding our land, he was good at it.

  Danny and Sadie Stoltzfus arrived that April. They were an older couple to me, but in reality they were only in their early thirties. Childless, they came to take over the role of administrator at the children’s home and, hopefully, to adopt a local child. Soon after their arrival, they took on a boy they named Nathan.

  Danny would play a memorable role later in my life, one I don’t think he was ever fully aware of. It’s strange how these things happen. You dislike some people—intensely in this case—and they end up being the ones who touch your life the deepest.

  My relationship with Danny Stoltzfus grew out of my habit of roaming the neighborhood on weekends with my little pellet gun, which was about the only weapon left in the community the locals didn’t feel like stealing. I stalked the blackbirds and parrots that populated the community. They were regular pests at the vast orchard behind Grandmother Stoll’s place, so no one complained when I hunted there.

  Where I crossed paths with Danny was at the pond where we often swam. During our swims, I’d notice the local wildlife that gathered at this watering hole. Later I’d creep back alone to hunt the colorful diving ducks and kingfishers. Both would have been worthy opponents with a .22, let alone a pellet gun.

  The ducks I never succeeded in bagging. But I must have succeeded with the kingfishers because Danny got bent all out of shape over it. He confronted me and requested that I refrain from hunting on the pond. I told him Dad owned a major share, and that I would hunt there if I wanted to. Considering my stutter, I remember no difficulty in telling him this, which is a shame really. I could have used the restriction on my tongue at those times instead of the times I had justification for speaking up.

  Anyway, we parted on hostile terms—not having exchanged harsh words exactly, but having established a low opinion of the other on both sides. Why he didn’t speak with Dad, I don’t know. He certainly had every right to.

  Perhaps our personal quarrel wasn’t helped by Dad’s conflict with Danny. This conflict wasn’t about hunting, but about German singing on Sunday mornings. The liberal winds were blowing increasingly at our church, now manifesting by an attempt to introduce English singing on Sunday mornings. Stateside, English singing at the evening hymn singings is fine, but on Sunday mornings it’s a mortal sin. Here the change proposed came with the most logical of explanations. The local converts and visitors couldn’t make the least sense out of the great Ger
man hymns of the faith, so why not use English or Spanish songs, which would benefit everyone?

  Dad, of all people, was the most visible in opposing English singing on Sunday mornings. I shouldn’t have found his little tiff with Danny Stoltzfus funny, I suppose, but I did. We would sit in church on Sunday mornings after the first song had been sung, waiting for the next number to be given out. Amish tradition dictated that the second song always be Da Lob Lied. The old classic Praise Hymn. Whether Danny knew what he was doing or not, I don’t know. I suspect he did. Plus, he felt the need to sing a fitting song, and a fitting song for the occasion to Danny Stoltzfus was number thirty three: “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship.” (It has been a long time since those days, but if we sing that song in church today, it’s still Danny Stolzfus’s song to me.)

  Dad was sure Danny was up to no good. Certain that Danny was leading the charge to replace the sacred Da Lob Lied with an English impostor, Dad muttered about the matter at home. He lifted his voice in song out in the shop almost in vengeance, I think. And Dad was a great singer, his voice rising far above the noise of the machinery. That’s where I first learned to appreciate the style of the old German music and the sheer majesty of its passion. The depth of its expression is unequalled in most modern singing.

  Both men knew they couldn’t sing their songs every Sunday. This would be too obvious. So who would dare start their song today? That was the question. Danny, being more brash than Dad, won most of the time. But Dad didn’t fail to get in his licks. He’d lead forth in his high tenor, drawing out the notes in glorious triumph.

  For one Sunday at least, Da Lob Lied would reign, clothed again in the glory of the Amish fathers.

  Chapter 31

  The Amish church on the hilltop didn’t lack in enthusiasm that spring of 1974. Things were growing and moving, both in members and in mission opportunities. A call came in from San Marcos, a town beyond Guaimaca that lay near the mountains to the south. The locals wanted someone from our community to come and hold services.

  Bishop Monroe thought the opportunity should be pursued, and talk began on the logistics. The ride back to San Marcos was on a road in worse shape than the main one into Tegucigalpa, and it took about an hour and a half to traverse. Some people from the community began making the trip one night a month to hold services in one of the local people’s homes. Enough interest was shown at these meetings to warrant further investigation, so Bishop Monroe decided to move into the area himself for three months.

  Mom and Dad took us all for a visit not long after Bishop Monroe moved. I wasn’t impressed with the area, but then no one asked my opinion. The road didn’t help my mood, nor did the crossing of an immense river without a bridge, which our driver took at a fast clip, water spraying out on all sides of the truck.

  When we arrived at Bishop Monroe’s house, I found the area quite closed-in, as in not being able to see around. To me, that’s a big thing. I like a view of some sort. Here I could barely see the nearby mountains.

  Spiritually though, things were going well with the new church, at least according to Bishop Monroe. The locals were attending the services and appreciative of the help. Mom had packed a lunch large enough for both families, and we ate on the table set on the dirt floor of Bishop Monroe’s house. Not that I minded a dirt floor. I was used to eating in much worse conditions in Honduran huts.

  Some weeks later, Bishop Monroe’s boys would try to scale the peaks of the mountain behind the village. It wasn’t the first attempt at such a venture, but, like previous attempts, it was without success. This didn’t help my opinion of the mountain. It had a quite hostile attitude, I thought. Decidedly unfriendly.

  Bishop Monroe stayed his three months and returned with glowing reports on the progress of the new church he’d founded. Minister Richard soon felt the call to take on the new responsibility and moved to San Marcos permanently. He would keep the post even during the final tumultuous years at the main community and right through the eventual breakup of the Amish settlement. I always thought he was thankful for the distance and anonymity San Marcos provided him.

  In the meantime, at our house, plans were well underway to visit the States and Canada that year. I really didn’t care one way or the other. It had been almost five years since we’d moved, and life up there had grown a bit blurry, dimmed in my memory by the life in the tropics that I loved. Mom and Dad thought the trip necessary. I wasn’t told why. We were just going. So when the time came, we locked up the house and left the keys and the dog at Fausto’s shack. We made our way to Tegucigalpa on the early bus with our suitcases in tow.

  The airport ran several flights between both New Orleans and Miami back in those days, with stops in between, of course. These stops changed seemingly on the whim of the airlines. At one time or another in my travels to and from Honduras, I saw the outsides of the airports in San Salvador, British Honduras (now Belize), and San Pedro Sula. The planes originated stateside, landing around lunchtime, and made their way back home an hour or so later.

  Few things run on time in the third world, even stateside planes. We waited and waited until the afternoon had nearly dwindled away. The airline claimed the plane was late coming out of Miami. This wasn’t exactly a cheerful start to a three-month trip.

  Once in the air, there was a stop that day in British Honduras. Darkness had fallen by the time we were airborne again. We soon found out why there had been the delay earlier. We were flying into a fierce storm. We couldn’t see much out of the windows except thick banks of clouds illuminated when lightning flashed for a few moments. The seat-belt light stayed on the whole time, and we bounced around for almost the entire ride. I don’t think they even served us food. No one was in an eating mood anyway. We children clung to our seats and hoped to arrive without meeting our watery death far below.

  When we got to Miami, our connecting flight was already gone. Consulting the ticket agent, Dad leaned on the counter with his ever-present briefcase strapped over his shoulder. That was a habit learned in the third world, where thieves snatched anything loose. He came back and held a whispered conference with Mom. There was a night flight available into Kentucky, and from there we could take the Greyhound. I really didn’t care. But when we boarded the next plane, I perked up considerably. This was a Delta flight. An immense plane by my standards, with the seats set wide apart and the aisles roomy. Nothing like the cramped planes they flew into Honduras. I tilted my seat back, feeling like royalty as I watched the twinkle of city lights far below us. This was living indeed. And the flight attendant even brought us food—nice food. By then we were really hungry, so anything probably would have tasted good.

  We landed and went by taxi to the Greyhound station, which was followed by hours and hours of riding, the whine of the bus soon an almost-permanent buzz in my ears. I lost all the pleasant memories of the plane ride amidst the agony of the following day and night. Already Honduras was a faint memory, hardly recallable in this new world I found myself in.

  We eventually crossed the border into Canada and soon arrived in Aylmer. Everything still looked the same—and yet it didn’t. We drove down the gravel road past Bishop Yoder’s old store, where Susanna and I had made our winter trek scared stiff of wolves just to buy a kerosene lamp shade for Mom to keep the darkness at bay for another night. The silver dollar Mom had bribed me with was back in Honduras, safe among my prized possessions. The date on the coin was sometime late in the nineteenth century. I envisioned it bringing me great riches someday, once I found a coin collector who would realize its true value. (I ended up losing the coin somewhere and sometime in the passing years. And now have no idea whether there was value there much beyond a dollar or not.)

  We drove past the old, red Stoll mansion, standing empty at present. We drove on and, as I looked around, I saw nothing but stark emptiness. The charm of this land had flown away, driven to flight by the smells of mangoes and oranges in Grandmother Stoll’s orchard, scattered by the glorious visage of our mount
ain lying beyond the church house hill. This land was no longer where my heart resided.

  We drove past our old house. Here I had cut my toe off in the whirling blades of the push mower. And in the yard we’d watched the glow of Grandfather Stoll’s house burn in the distance. I looked long and hard at the houses as we drove by. It was hard to imagine I’d really lived here. I left as an eight-year-old boy, and now I was back as a thirteen-year-old. It felt as if a lifetime had passed. I was no longer who I once was.

  We drove past Uncle Johnny’s place—the uncle of maple syrup fame. No one was in the yard, but the farm still looked the same, the dark-green siding hanging limply on the house, the barn running parallel with the road still dim and dusty with doves flying everywhere. This was a Gascho specialty, and one of the reasons I’d loved the place. Slowly I began to feel the first stirrings of home.

  Driving past Pathway Publishers, we pulled into Grandfather Eicher’s place. The doors of the house burst open and my aunts appeared. They hadn’t seen us in five years, and their smiles stretched ear to ear. Nancy, Rosemary, and Martha enveloped us in hugs.

  Grandmother Eicher came out last, always a little shy even around family. But I could tell she was glad to see us. Grandfather Eicher came from the barn, his whole face shining.

  “So you’ve made it!” he called.

  Obviously we had; it wasn’t a question to be answered. He was welcoming us home. They all fussed over us and ushered us inside.

  Soon supper was served, spread out on the long table in the living room. I listened as Grandfather Eicher led out in prayer, the sound of his chant bringing back so many memories. These were my people, and I did belong here.