Seeing Pa. Amish Country Like Trip Back in Time
Amish Strictly Adhere to Faith, Mennonites Closer to Modern World
Oct 18, 2009
Most visitors to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania know it is a center of Amish life. But many who go may have less knowledge about some of the Amish traditions and differences between the Amish and Mennonites who also reside there.
Lancaster County is the oldest U.S. Amish community and the second-largest Amish settlement in the world. Other Amish communities are in Elkhart and LaGrange counties in Indiana and Holmes County, Ohio.
The history of the Amish in the area goes back to 1740, said Ada Fisher, an 83-year-old Amish-Mennonite tour guide with the Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster County. The first Mennonites came in the late 1600s. Some 28,000 Amish live within a 50-mile radius of Lancaster, she noted.
Split Between Mennonites and Amish Over Discipline and Direction of Church
The Amish and Mennonites parted paths over the Amish belief in a lack of overall discipline in Mennonite congregations, Fisher told a recent tour group. Mennonites, in turn, considered the Amish too strict. The historical origins of Mennonites are as 16th century Christian Anabaptists named for Dutch Anabaptist Menno Simons, a one-time Roman Catholic priest. They rejected the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement of Martin Luther. Simons thought the church and state should be separate, Fisher said.
Facing severe persecution, some Mennonites had joined the state church in Switzerland by the 17th century. The Mennonites who remained outside the state church became known as the Amish, after their founder Jakob Ammann, a Swiss German Mennonite bishop.
The Mennonites and Amish first came to the Philadelphia area to pursue freedom of religion and farming. But they later moved westward toward Lancaster County because of land issues and security concerns related to the French and Indian War.
Amish Maintain Separation From World, Mennonites More Contemporary in Practices
Today the Amish maintain a strict and plain style of clothing that emphasizes separation from the world. The Mennonites encourage modesty and simplicity but most dress in contemporary clothing. Amish-Mennonite is the group to which Fisher belongs although she was born and raised Amish.
She and her late husband choose to change their church membership from old order Amish to Amish-Mennonite which is more attuned to the modern world, Fisher said. That step resulted in their excommunication from the Amish faith and shunning. This is not as severe as some might think, she added. Shunning is not a complete break with the Amish community whose members can still try to convince Fisher where she has erred by leaving and to return to the faith.
The Amish adhere to centuries-old traditions that still do not permit electricity or telephones in Amish homes. Horse-drawn carriages, or buggies, are used for transportation and are often seen on the narrow roads of Lancaster. At gift shops adjoining some working farms, credit card machines to process transactions are operated by solar power.
At an Amish working farm, outsiders are permitted to take any photographs they wish except of Amish people, who object on religious grounds, and to go anywhere on the premises except inside the house. Of the growing tourism, John A. Hostetler, in his book “Amish Society,” wrote: “In all of this the Amish have not been a willing partner, and ironically, the harder they have tried to remain loyal to their faith, the more attractive they have become to the tourist.”
On many Pennsylvania Amish farms, mules are preferred over horses for farm work. Many other Amish believe donkeys and horse should not be mixed together on the basis of whether a mule really was a natural creation of God. On those occasions when tractors are allowed, they usually are for operating stationary equipment and not for field work. Their steel wheels ensure the tractors are not used on roads for transportation.
Formal Amish Education Limited to Eighth Grade but Extends Beyond Classroom
The Amish have limited formal education to the eighth grade. Most work as farmers, factory laborers, or constriction workers. (Some Amish farms grow tobacco which is tolerated in the Amish church.) Amish schools stress the practical: reading, writing, business math, and some geography. Science is not taught nor is any technology used in the Amish school. Amish teachers are Amish women who are the products of Amish schools. They are not certified and don’t receive training beyond their own education in Amish schools.
Amish education extends beyond the classroom and formal instruction. It entails watching and observing parents, other family members, and adults particularly on the farm and learning by watching and doing.
The youngest son inherits the home farm because when the older son gets married, the parents are not yet ready to retire, Fisher explained. But if a settlement hasn’t been determined while the father is still living, all inheritance is shared equally among the sons. All the sons must pay for what the father has bought them with no or at a low rate of interest.
Amish wedding services are conducted in high German, the German dialect known as Pennsylvania German or otherwise Pennsylvania Dutch, which initially referred to all German and Netherlandic languages. Pennsylvania German was the original language of German-American immigrants to the state. Some Amish communities speak Swiss German, a reflection of dialects spoken in Lancaster County.
Even with the area’s Amish-themed restaurants and establishments, bakeries and food shops are rarely Amish-owned, though most of the bakers and cooks are Amish. Amish do not offer horse and buggy rides as a commercial enterprise, Fisher pointed out. Nor would they operate a bed and breakfast in their home as a money making venture.
However, they sell their crafts and bake goods including Shoofly Pie, the most famous local Amish desert that features water, molasses, and baking soda in the pie shell, mixed with flour, sugar, shortening, and more baking soda. The name derives from the need to shoo flies off the pies.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
