Ever since we had start thinking about making a trip to Amish country in Ohio, we had a plan that we wanted to have some authentic cultural experiences. This county in Northeast Ohio has around 30,000 Amish residents. That is nearly 50% of the population in the county. There are many, many tourist opportunities of shopping and restaurants and touristy tours… But none of this was what we hoped to do.
Our day started with attending an auction that was in support of a charity which was an Amish charity taking care of children born with disabling conditions. This was a major charitable event in the Amish community and we figured maybe 3000 people gathered to raise money for this organization. The basic focus was on three or four different auction sessions happening at the same time auctioning off items such as household goods, lawn furniture, beautiful handmade solid wood furniture, and handmade quilts. People bid generously and raised a lot of money. We had only enjoyed watching the process of which probably nine out of 10 people at the auction were Amish. The people-watching was fantastic. We enjoyed seeing everything from newborn babies up to grandparents and everybody in between. Most people were wearing hand sewed modest clothing. Men in hats, women in white caps covering their hair. Many of the families had matching outfits. We tried our best to be honoring of the Amish reluctance for posed photographs, especially photos of adults faces. There’s more flexibility around photos of the children. But we both tried to be as discreet and non-interruptive as we could non-invasive as we could.
The quilts were wonderful. And inspired a lot of excitement. The furniture was also really, really lovely.
We also really enjoyed having some close-up opportunities to look at and photograph some of the buggies and horses. We were also very interested in noting that some of the Amish allowed their members to ride electric bicycles, while others drew the line and requested their members either ride traditional bicycles or buggies and carts drawn by horses.
Also as part of the fundraiser, the women had outdone themselves with cooking huge amounts of food. For a donation, we had a lunch that included a quarter or a half a chicken, fish sandwiches, homemade noodles, curly fries, yogurt parfaits, fresh fruit, drinks, homemade and homemade ice cream. We ate and ate and ate and even took some pie back for dinner. These Amish folks are great cooks. The food was simple, but tasty. It was frontier food in the 21st-century. So much of it was good Midwestern comfort food that Dick and Patti had grown up eating.
We left while the auction was going full bore, because we had other stops for the day. We made a stop at the Amish and Mennonite Cultural Center in a nearby community. There wasn’t enough time to take the special tour, so we committed to coming back. We were beginning to deepen our understanding of the historical part of how they’re got to be Amish and Mennonite people in the US.
The main event of the day was a private tour by farmer David Miller and his organic farm. We made an error in the time we were supposed to be there, but he was gracious in starting the tour when we arrived. For the next two hours we were with farmer David in a wonderful exchange of about our lives and his life as he was so open to talking about and explaining his community and his family. David, unlike most Amish, gave us permission to take as many photos as we liked of his fam and himself.We were delighted to start our tour with a ride in his buggy drawn by his horse named Tom. Dick was a little challenged getting in and out of the small buggy opening. We didn’t get very far down the road before our host started both peppering us with questions and us in turn asking him questions. It quickly became clear this was not going to be a canned tour with him giving scripted answers and us having no questions. It was a conversation together in a very intimate way. We had only learned a lot about his family and his farm, but also he generously helped us to understand some of the ways that leadership in the Amish community have had to balance traditional values and commitment to an agricultural simple lifestyle. They had to balance including needing to pay the bills and the taxes for their farm. Although the farm is not on the electric grid, they do have some generators which they use for certain functions such as milking machines and doing some of the harvesting.
We also had known that David besides being a farmer is a minister in his local church of approximately 20 family groups. We were really interested in understanding more of the workings of the church, such as how he was chosen to be their minister. He has been minister and leader of this congregation for nearly 30 years. We were really interested in hearing about some of the joys and challenges in leading such a community.
Although the Miller family lives on their farm and in this close surrounding area much of the time, they are also aware of the wider world and have been on trips to visit family in Montana and other far away places. David was also very aware of many of the current political issues and expressed his beliefs in some very traditional values. However, he was interested in hearing our opinions, and even commented that had he not been Amish He might have been interested in joining Dick as a college professor. He certainly enjoyed talking and teaching, and was very well-versed in theology and history especially. We were also very interested in hearing about the school system, consisting primarily of private schools that the Amish ran. And we also spoke about how Covid impacted their community, including some people becoming very sick, some people dying, and many people not being very impacted by it. It seems that most Amish are choosing not to be vaccinated.
Our last time with him was sitting at his dining room table. We were introduced to his wife, who brought us ice water and home baked cookies.
Our tour went on longer than we were scheduled for, but David finally made it to end it saying it was soon time to prepare to milk the cows. As we were leaving we all agreed it had been a very fine visit. David reported he had many tours, but really felt that the three of us had many like-minded things to talk about, and he wished we could spend several more hours talking into the evening. We would’ve liked that, too.
Feeling very full from our wonderful experience, we remembered we thought we would get back in time to hear the final tour of the day at the Amish Cultural Center. We arrived just as it was time to start, but had enough time to have some more interesting conversation with two of the staff people who worked there: an Amish man and a Mennonite woman. Then it was time for a half an hour review of the history of the Anabaptist movement, about the Amish and Mennonites, taking us from early times in Europe to current days. A traveling artist had become enamored with the story and spent over 10 years painting a huge mural that was displayed 360° around the room, about 295 feet in all. The mural was displayed in a darkened room with lights focusing on various parts. The program was called “The Besalt: The Story of the Anabaptist, Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites. Some of the story we were familiar with, as it’s part of the protestant reformation. There were lots of sad stories of martyrdom and persecution. William Penn put out the invitation for some of these persecuted Amish and Mennonite people to come to the colonies in Pennsylvania to find religious freedom. Many came then and in later years. The majority of Amish in the US live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, but they have spread throughout 48 states.
Following the show, Patti joined in a conversation out in the lobby area, while Dick stayed inside and was to contemplating the mural. He was joined by Ray Miller, one of the staff who worked at the center. Ray and Dick continued to have quite a wonderful conversation. They were especially talking about some of the frustration of people wanting to come and gawk at Amish people. Dick stated our intention was trying to figure out how to have respectful conversations and learn. As our time was finishing, Ray looked at us both and asked “What are you doing tomorrow?” which would be Sunday. We said we were having to leave the area. He said, “Well, I don’t know if this could work, but I’d like to invite do you to join my family for lunch tomorrow at our home.” We were both really touched by this invitation and said we would strongly consider it. We hoped to figure out if we could work out delaying our departure time and when we would arrive at Dick’s brother’s.
As we left driving back to our Airbnb, we both were so struck by what a generous offer this was and decided we needed to accept that invitation and drive there tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment