Growing up Amish

I had two years left of school, as a community there isn’t any more schooling after 8th grade. I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving school, and being home full-time baking, cooking, cleaning, and sewing. I am the ‘middle child’ with eight brothers and sisters, and we sell fruits, vegetables, jams, and baked goods from a small stand right on the corner of the first turn into town. As an Amish girl, I am expected to become just like my mother, this is fine by me — I really have no interest in the English-world. Our life is small, and the community is the foundation on which we stand. Every morning my sisters and I get up at 5am and begin grinding the wheat for our bread. This is all done by hand, as in our community under the leadership of our church we use no electricity, technology or running water.

Once the wheat is ground, we prepare the dough to rise. On average, we make 40 loaves of bread a day. Papa built us the largest wood burning stove, it helps have all the baked goods ready by 9am when we bring them to the stand. My brothers have been up since 4am harvesting — it is summer in Pennsylvania and the vegetables are ripe for the picking. I head down to the cellar and grab as many jars of jam that I can carry, my mama is famous for her jams. Raspberry, strawberry, and even peach — its so delicious. We can them every autumn and it takes us weeks to complete. Our cellar is stacked to the ceiling with them. Today I haul up 30 jars and put them in the buggy bed for papa to take to the stand.

Then I rush upstairs to brush my long blonde hair and whip it up into a bun, to hide it under my prayer covering. I pick from the line of solid-coloured dresses, all my clothes are dresses to the floor, in solid colours only, with a double layer across my torso for modesty and long sleeve. I grab my books and lunch, running off to school.

I don’t even check if my siblings are coming with me, I want the best seat by the window and up front near the teacher. I get the most attention by our teacher when I sit here, and I can save the seat next to me for my best friend Rachel. ‘Naomi, I got us seats — come sit with me,’ Rachel calls — she must have left home before me. When school finishes, I skip to the family produce stand and have to work there for two hours before I head home to do chores. I don’t mind working the stand, it lets me practise my English with the tourists or towneys from the English-world. My first language is German or more specifically Pennsylvania Dutch, but we learn some basics of English in school and here is the only time I get to practise it.

Tourists from all over the Eastern seaboard travel to visit us here in Lancaster County, they take pictures of our horse and buggies, and buy our faceless hand-crafted dolls. Although I know there is another world out there, I hardly obsess over it like they seem to obsess over our world. I finish work and ride back with Papa, he has work to do at home — leaving the stand to be attended by two of my brothers. By now my other sisters are hanging laundry, and mama is preparing dinner. I have two dresses to make, and butter to churn before dinner. That is my life, well, it was my life.

My new life started not long after I turned 15, and I was no longer in school but I still saw my best friend Rachel at the community events. I was now working full time at home and in the stand, I missed school but as I approached the age of 16, I was also more afraid of change. See, Rachel told me that Jacob took a liking to me, he was two years older than me and although I had seen him in at church, I hadn’t really spoke to him. He was in Rumspringa( the rite of passage), a time when Amish youth from ages 16 to 18 who were not baptised had the choice to live and participate in the English world without judgment or punishment. By the time they are 18, they must choose to come back and dedicate their lives to the Amish church and community or leave forever, turning their back on the church. If you leave the church, especially for us girls we are shunned, and our family will turn their back on us. You are alone in the English-world. I had already told mama that I would not be interested in rumspringa and would like to get baptised on my 16th birthday. I had no interest in the English-world, I wanted to make my parents proud. I also hoped that Jacob didn’t return from Rumspringa, and that maybe I would find someone better. I was not obligated to marry Jacob, but I also hadn’t taken a liking to any of the other young men. I thought if I baptised early, and showed my devotion I would be a more attractive prospect. That day, the day of my baptism was holy, it was a very special day for me. It was also the day that Jacob returned, he also got baptised. I found it strange, but it felt like providence. At the post baptism potluck, he finally made his move. I remember I was wearing my deep blue solid dress and was walking outside in the deep green coloured grass by the large oak tree when he asked me if I had made the pies for today’s potluck. I had made them all, which he knew as everyone knew I made the best pies in town — a skill I had developed over the years. And that was it, we began courting soon after. He was a handsome young man, he spoke differently than the rest of the boys and there was a spark in his eyes, almost a wild look.

It wasn’t long until my wedding came and went, we got married in November of my 18th year. Papa had spent the last week painting the house, and mama preparing a feast. The leaves on the trees were a fiery red, pungent orange and the sunniest yellow, I wore my deep maroon dress, with a white, white apron. Jacob wore a white shirt, black suspenders, black trousers and a black hat. The wedding was everything I thought it would be, but moving into a room with him, and leaving my sisters felt the strangest. We stayed with my parents for the next five months, Jacob didn’t seem to want to find a new home and I wasn’t sure why, until that night. ‘Let’s move to the English-world,’ he whispered to me as I braided my long hair before bed. I just looked at him, in shock. ‘Why — you got baptised, you returned and …why marry me if you want to leave?’

In my head, I am thinking what a huge mistake I had made. Divorce wasn’t allowed in our church, and here I was stuck with a husband who wants to leave the community, my family and my whole life. ‘I came back for you. I may not want to live here, but I want a wife that has my values and understanding of where we come from — but I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want to watch TV and go out on the weekends to play sports and have a beer with friends.’

‘You can sell your famous pies, sew clothes to sell and even tutor German. I will have no problem finding a job, as I have already worked out there and know some guys in Scranton who are happy to hire me.’ He continued to sell me the dream, of freedom and no rules. That I wouldn’t have to wake up so early and wear long dresses — cover my head or walk so far. That we would get a car and see the world. Although I had no desire to live in the English world, I wanted to keep my husband and make him happy. So, I kind of agreed, I guess.

I didn’t say goodbye, Jacob took me in the middle of the time. We caught a bus. My first bus, I had never left home, the community and I had never been in a vehicle. I felt afraid and held on to Jacob like a child. He laughed and told me not to worry, we would be fine. He had a little bit of money, from his time in rumspringa and got us a cheap motel room. He would work a couple of weeks, and then get us an apartment. It felt like 100 years in the English-world, I didn’t acclimate very well. I did start to make money; my pies were a hit and a local bakery hired me once they sampled my strawberry one. I found a way to get along with people and speak English better. But I couldn’t drive, as I had no license, so I walked and took the bus. People didn’t seem friendly, and Scranton had a lot of greyness — in people and the weather. Jacob, well he got along just fine. He was out all the time with friends, drinking and watching sports. I would prepare dinner and he sometimes wouldn’t even come home until after 11pm. I didn’t know why he wanted me here, he could have just found a wife that was better suited for this world. But then when I realised I made more money than him from selling pies on the side, and working at the bakery — I had a horrible feeling, it was my baking skills he liked more than me. I had this nagging feeling, after a year that Jacob or Jake as he went by now, was going to leave me. And he did, he had a new English girlfriend and he wanted to be able to bring her to ‘his house’. I came home from work one evening, and the locks were changed on the house. I could see them inside, from the dim light of the TV — he had never touched me like that. I was devastated. I had given up everything for him. Now the church had shunned me, my family won’t even talk to me, and my husband had kicked me out of my own home.

Luckily, I had heard from a woman at work of this Women’s shelter she volunteered at and often took expired goods from the bakery to each evening. I found the shelter, and they provided me a place to stay that night. I lay in the single cot with 20 other women in a room, and not even one tear ran down my face. I knew I was hurt; I knew I should be sad — but it is like there were no feelings. I knew I had brought this on myself. I didn’t want to marry him from the age of 16! Why did I allow this to happen? I gave up everything for a man that didn’t even love me. I was the idiot. I missed my home, my mama and all my siblings. That night I didn’t sleep, I looked around at this room of women and realised, I was not alone. There so many like me. I got up the next morning and went to find my own baked goods being served as breakfast. I started to learn some of the women’s stories, they told me how they came here. Some were still girls, they had babies at 15 and had no where to go. At that moment, I realised I had skills, and gifts to give them. I kept my job at the bakery, but part time. I began sewing some of the youngsters clothing, and in the evenings, I would help make dinner. I showed the women how to wash clothes without a washing machine, and I used the small salary I was getting to buy material for more clothes. The woman who ran the shelter, asked me to join her and help build a better and stronger community, that helped these women feel safe, but also secure a good future for them. I had all the tools to do that, and after my last lesson of giving up what I love for some dream my husband sold me- I knew that even though I was only 20 years old, divorced and family-less, I had a place. I had a new home. I had a new community. This was my new life, and it was good for me.

Years later, I became the Manager of the Women’s Shelter in Scranton — the largest community centre in the state fully funded by private donors. All the skills I acquired as a young Amish woman, I have taught these women and they have become more independent than the English-world ever taught them to be. Freedom is being able to take care of yourself, and what I never realised growing up — is that is exactly what we are taught to be, free. Free from politics, free from government. I just never understood it until I saw how bound the rest of the world is and that self-sufficiency isn’t taught in their English schools — even though they are in school for 20% of their life. I changed name of the shelter to Th Free Woman’s community centre, and my new husband, an accountant has launched one for young men in the city who are without work, or a home. We provide real life skills to anyone who needs help, and we have built our own community — one that will never shun you should you chose to leave.