BlO—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 19,1984
WASHINGTON -> When William
Penn invited Anush and Mennomte
people to settle in his New World
colony more than 250 years ago,
there were, of course, no electric
lights, telephones, or automobiles.
Step into the Pennsylvania
homes of those who today most
faithfully cling to their European
religious roots, and it seems as if
these modern inventions still
haven’t happened. Their use is
forbidden.
Old Order Anush and the most
conservative Mennonites live the
plainest life. In their horse-and
buggy world, days are measured
out in planting and harvesting the
land, family activities, and church
worship.
Clustered in Lancaster County,
these plain people have been
blessed with some of the richest
soil in the country and an ideal
climate for farming. Rural Lan
caster, nestled in southeastern
Pennsylvania, is the most
productive agricultural county in
the East.
Follow Father’s
Footsteps
The driving ambition of most Old
Order farm boys is to follow in
their fathers’ footsteps and farm
the land.
Perhaps the most important
principle laid down by the 16th
century Dutch Anabaptist leader
Menno Simons, from whom the
Mennonites take their name, is one
calling for a spiritual community
living apart from the world and
close to the soil. Anabaptists
believe in adult baptism.
In the late 17th century, Jacob
Ammann took his followers, the
Amish, out of the Mennonite
church, primarily because it no
longer shunned nonconforming
members in daily life as Simons
had taught.
Both groups have remained
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Pennsylvania plain people lead horse-and-buggy life
close in spiritual beliefs, and
within both, those congregations
that have most resisted change in
worship and lifestyle are today
known as Old Order.
Among people for whom privacy
is part of religion, it is rare to get
an inside glimpse of Old Order
ways. Outsiders are called
“English.”
On the Old Order Amish farm of
the Stoltzfus family, reporters
found 6-year-old Samuel already
adept at steering a mule straight
down the furrows of the garden;
his 17-year-old cousin Lloyd was
guiding the harrow. Lloyd lives
and works on the farm as a “hired
boy.”
An arrangement used on many
farms, the hired-boy system
provides needed labor for the
farmer and work for boys old
enough to be out of school (formal
education ends after eighth
grade), but too young to farm or
get full-tune jobs. Wages are paid
directly to the boy’s parents.
Parents start bank accounts for
children when they are born and
turn the money over to them when
they come of age.
Rumspringa for
Teen-agers
When neighbors gather to
harvest wheat on an Amish farm,
‘the big ones pitch it up, the
middle ones stack it, and the little
guys ride,” a “middle one” ex
plained.
In the warmth of an Amish
kitchen, lighted only by a butane
lantern, a 16-year-old girl presses a
dress she made herself, using an
iron heated on a propane stove. At
her age she begins “rumspringa,”
or “running around,” the Amish
term for the freedom allowed teen
agers before they join the faith,
marry, and begin their life “in
church.”
On the family farm of a Wenger
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Mennonite, member of a con- family portraits. Many Old Order e y es °f others,
servative congregation, 13-year- People avoid posing for When a Reidenbach Mennonite
old Ella Shirk had never had her photographs because they might boy becomes 17, he starts going to
picture taken, except for formal seem proud rather than plain in the (Turn to Page B 12)
Astride the family mule at age 6, Samuel Stoltzfus is already old enough to do chores
on an Old Order Amish farm in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. His 17-year-old cousin
Lloyd guides the harrow. On Old Order farms tractors are not used for field work, and
boys are expected to follow in their fathers’ footsteps and farm the land.
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