Amish Confidential (14 page)

Yet even in my area, claping has been a factor for decades. In his terrific book
The Amish in Court
, Wayne Fisher writes of one such incident in Lancaster County in August of 1960, long before I was even born. “Four youths were riding around near Leacock, Pennsylvania, when they passed several Amish women walking
along the road. The youths stopped and turned around. One of them pulled a large stalk of corn from a nearby field and . . . two of the youths leaned out of the car and struck Mrs. Lydia L. Stoltzfus across the face with the root of the cornstalk. The strike broke her nose and shattered her glasses. When arrested and questioned about the incident, the youths said, ‘We just don’t like the Amish.’ ”

And it’s never really died down.

A series of barn arsons lit up Lancaster County in 2001 and 2002, striking fear into the hearts of many local farmers, both Amish and non-Amish. It also reminded many of what had happened just ten years earlier in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania.

One frightening night in March of 1992, an arsonist drove around the Amish settlement of Big Valley. In just two hours, he (or they) set fire to seven barns, killing one hundred and seventy-seven horses and cows, causing more than a million dollars in damage. What fascinated the news people wasn’t so much the scale of the destruction. Outside reporters were used to big tragedies. It was the way everyone, Amish and non-Amish, pitched in together to rebuild everything.

That was a spring of barn-raisings in Mifflin County. Nearly $700,000 was raised by the community and outsiders. The national reporters could barely believe their ears when they asked an Amish farmer if he wanted the arsonist caught and he replied with a shrug: “Only if he wants to do it again.”

Asked what penalty might be appropriate, another man said he’d like to have him to dinner, show him how they lived and ask why he did this to them.

L
ynn Rich and Kevin Rehm were the first to go on trial. The jury was assembled at the Adams County courthouse in downtown Decatur. Judge Herman Busse, who’d come in from Fort Wayne to handle the trial, took the bench. The courtroom was crowded with relatives and friends of the accused. No Amish were there.

Dan Sigler, the Adams County prosecutor, made his opening statement. He laid out what had happened on Tile Mill Road that night and gave a brief overview of all the evidence he had. It was a strong opening statement, everyone in the courtroom agreed. Then Sigler sat down, and it was time for the defense lawyers to speak. Instead, they asked the judge for a brief recess. The lawyers all went into a back room for a private conversation.

If the boys pleaded guilty, the defense lawyers asked Sigler, what kind of deal could they get? Would he reduce the charges? Would he recommend a lighter sentence? Would he say something nice about the boys to the judge?

No, no and no, Sigler said.

The best he could do, the prosecutor told the defense lawyers, was to make no recommendation about how long a sentence Judge Busse should impose. The boys’ fate would be left entirely in the judge’s hands.

It wasn’t much, but the defense lawyers knew it offered one big benefit: The prosecutor wouldn’t get to introduce all the evidence he had about all the claping Rich and Rehm had done—that night and earlier.

They had a deal.

The judge broke the news to the jurors. “You jurors don’t have
to divine this issue,” he told them. “The monkey is now on my back.”

He delayed the sentencing for a month, giving the county probation department time to write a pre-sentence report. It contained a lot of information that was favorable to the boys. It included letters from friends, employers—even their Sunday school teachers. It noted that the young men’s families had reimbursed the Schwartzes for their medical and funeral expenses. It added that the dead baby’s father, Levi, “held no malice.”

There was even a letter from an Amish bishop saying that the kids had done wrong but adding:

“We believe that the four boys have suffered and suffered heavily since the crime, and they have more than paid for what they did.” What the Amish community really wanted in this case, the bishop said, was “that it doesn’t happen again.”

Finally, sentencing day arrived. Under the charges the boys were facing, Indiana law said the judge could give them up to eight years in prison. Again, the courtroom was crowded with the boys’ friends and relatives—and no Amish at all.

Judge Busse said he knew the Amish. They were good people. He said more people should be like the Amish. They don’t believe in vengeance, he said. He said that in reaching a sentence, he was influenced by the spirit of the Amish.

Then he looked down from the bench at Rich and Rehm and their lawyers and handed the sentences down.

Five years in prison and $5,000 fines.

Then the judge suspended the prison term, meaning neither boy would have to spend a day in prison.

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. In a way, these stories never end.

Soon after the first sentencing, the other two boys pleaded guilty as well. Linn Burkhardt, who’d been driving and didn’t do any throwing that night, got three years’ probation and a $3,000 fine. Thomas Wilkins, who’d provided prosecutors with the most information, admitted to criminal recklessness, a lesser charge, and got a two-year suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine.

A pretty sweet deal all around for people who’d killed a baby, wouldn’t you say?

Levi talked to almost no one about how he felt about any of this. He did talk to one writer, Barry Siegel, who did an amazing piece about the case for
Rolling Stone
magazine. “A Quiet Killing in Adams County,” it was called. A lot of people read that story.

“Sometimes I do feel angry,” he said, “but I don’t like having that feeling against anyone. It is no way to live.”

He just wanted peace. That’s all, he said. “If I saw the boys that did it, I would talk good to them. I wouldn’t talk angry to them or want them to talk angry to me.”

The punishment, the father noted, wasn’t up to him or his family. He’d cooperated to some extent, he said. “I let them have an autopsy and gave them a long statement. I thought that was enough. I was just hoping it could be taken care of without me.”

If he’d had to testify at a trial, he added, “[he] would just feel [he] had an enemy.”

I guess I admire his forgiving nature, but when the hell are the Amish going to stick up for themselves?

CHAPTER 15

STITCHIN’ WITH A B

T
here’s a bishop who owns a hardware store just outside Intercourse. Bishop Gideon is his name. Late one October night, he was woken up by the sound of people banging around inside his store. The lights were off. It had to be burglars. But Bishop Gideon didn’t burst in shouting. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t grab his hunting rifle. He waited quietly in the shadows until he got a clear idea of what exactly was going on.

He could see two men in dark English clothing. Their pickup truck was parked out back. The tailgate was already open, ready for whatever merchandise the men were able to haul out of the store. The first thing they grabbed was a pile of stepladders.

That’s when the bishop slipped in behind them.

He too grabbed an armload of stepladders and carried them out to the truck.

“Let me help you gentlemen,” Bishop Gideon told the startled burglars. “If you want these so badly, you can have them.”

I think that scared the burglars more than calling the police ever would have. They glanced nervously at each other. They dropped
the stepladders they were carrying. They jumped into their pickup truck. Tires squealing, they sped into the night, not even bothering to shut the open tailgate. Bishop Gideon just stood there, staring at the stepladders on the ground in front of him and watching the pickup’s taillights disappear.

I
t was such a brief moment in time in a community where time has nearly stood still. One night at one store in one town in rural Pennsylvania. No one got famous. No one made a million dollars. No one got killed. The encounter had none of the elements that usually make a major story. The media never even showed up. Yet to me, what happened that night in Intercourse was profound.

“If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other,” Luke 6:29 famously urges. “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.” That idea is at the heart and soul of Amish teaching, and the bishop really lived it that night. What a powerful concept! It’s the kind of lesson that settles inside your head and plants little seeds in there. Who knows what might grow from that? Surely, it forces people to think.

I’m not certain how self-reflective those English burglars were. I’m guessing not very. But I’ll tell you this much without fear of contradiction: They won’t be returning to the bishop’s hardware store any time soon.

I know lots of other stories like that one. True stories. Meaningful stories. Little stories with giant lessons. Stories profound in their own quiet ways. Amish life is packed with these grand gestures and little kindnesses delivered without expectation of payback. Houses rebuilt after devastating fires. Livestock rounded up
after mass escapes. Meals carried to the sick and disabled before anyone even had time to ask. These are things that have happened to people I know personally, things that happened to me. My family remembers the outpouring after my father died. It isn’t phony generosity, it isn’t just for show. Many Amish people do this sort of thing even when no one’s looking, and they don’t brag about it next Sunday at church. Okay, sometimes they do, but not usually. A lot of Amish try to do what’s right because that is what they believe in and it’s what the church teaches them to do. It’s right there in 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Amen to that!

It’s just too bad the Amish can also be so mean!

Y
es, mean. Cruel. Harsh. Almost vicious sometimes. The Amish can be very judgmental and very unkind.

It’s one of the genuine riddles of Amish society: how these very same God-fearing Amish men and women—these selfless barn raisers, these gracious burglary victims, these loving churchgoers tending to the sick—are so quick to trash their own neighbors, relatives and friends. There’s no doubt about it: Those famous helping hands can become wagging fingers in a hurry. And that dual nature, which is almost never discussed in public, is one of the genuine unsolved mysteries of Amish life.

You think I’m exaggerating? Believe me, I’m not. It’s just that most people never get to see this side of the Amish, because the Amish save most of this cruelty for their own friends and family.

Lying, cheating and scapegoating are far too common when the Amish do business with other Amish. Amish businesspeople are notorious for skimming the wages of people who work for them and treating their employees unfairly.

One Amish construction contractor I know stubbornly refuses to pay his workers on time even though he is plenty rich. “Let them complain!” he says with a shrug, confident that old-fashioned Amish passivity will shield him most of the time. Eventually, he gets around to paying—unless he conveniently “forgets.”

Then he shows up for church on Sunday with holy devotion in his voice.

While I was younger, my brother Samuel and I went to work framing sheds for a man who owned a company near us. Our job was to frame each shed and shingle the roof. When we were done, the boss’s nephew and another guy were supposed to apply the siding and the trim. Sam and I were clipping along at a nice, rapid pace. The other two guys were mostly goofing off, but the owner wouldn’t blame his nephew for the backed-up production. He kept coming out and yelling at Samuel and me.

I was never good at holding my tongue, and this was seriously pissing me off. “Talk to your nephew,” I tried to tell him. “He and his friend are the ones slowing everything down.”

He wouldn’t listen. Despite how obvious it was, he wouldn’t believe the problem wasn’t us. He just kept coming out and complaining loudly, in language not fit for Sunday dinner, until Samuel and I decided we’d had more than enough.

The following day, he started in again. “You and your brother are slow and worthless. I don’t know why I’m paying you at all.”

That was it. I picked up the staple gun I’d been using to attach
the shingles. There must have been something in my eyes. When I looked over at Samuel, he seemed genuinely concerned. He should have been. I moved toward the boss with the staple gun in my right hand. He took a step back. I moved another couple of steps closer. He backed up again, stumbling on the gravel. That allowed me to gain on him.

I’ve never seen this guy or anyone else in his family move so fast. He righted himself and took off running toward his house. Believe me, Samuel and I didn’t have to wait to get our final paychecks.

So much for Amish patience and honesty. The boss was quick with the blame and slow to see the problem caused by own blessed kin.

I don’t know how long it took him to finish the shed without us. But it’s like the Amish proverb says: If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.

No one keeps statistics on the frequency of Amish harshness. If anyone did, you probably wouldn’t believe them anyway. The Amish are just so loath to share their business with outsiders that neither the abused nor the abusers would tend to tell the truth. But I’ve seen it, and all Amish people have. The Amish may sound like polite, perfect little angels when the tourists pass through town, but when we’re finally alone again, then it’s finger-pointing time.

T
he Bible says speak kindly and thoughtfully and otherwise hold your tongue. This keeps coming up, especially in the New Testament. Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Proverbs 16:28: “A dis
honest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.” James 4:11: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.”

And my favorite, Luke 6:31: “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Oh, really? Luke would have had a lot to say about Amish women and their legendary quilting bees. That’s where the trash talk begins, innocently enough, with a roomful of Amish women sitting together for the pleasure of one another’s company and the purpose of making beautiful quilts.

Amish women love to quilt. They are patient and talented quilters. There’s no denying that. Their quilts win prizes at major county fairs and high-class craft shows. Their products are bought and collected by people around the world. As little Amish girls, they sat for hours with their mothers and older sisters practicing the intricate techniques.
Match, sew, match, sew, match, sew, quilt. Match, sew, match, sew, match, sew, quilt.
They will keep on quilting for the rest of their lives. From what I’ve heard from my English friends, there aren’t many skills that are universally passed on like Amish quilting is. I’ve never known an Amish girl who can’t sew like a pro.

Any time an Amish girl is getting married, her mother summons a group of friends and female relatives to the family house. She serves unsweetened black coffee and dry molasses cookies. The women sit together and hand-sew for hours, creating lovely quilts and comforters and anything else the newlyweds could possibly plop on top of a mattress—besides themselves. Each quilt takes many,
many hours to finish. Quilting leaves lots of time to talk, and talk is what these Amish women do.

“Did you hear what Melvin’s youngest did?”

“Did you hear what Hannah said to Abram?”

“Did you hear that Sarah’s boy has a car now? He’s driving on Sunday too!”

I call it a stitch-and-bitch party. The ladies are stitchin’ and bitchin’ all day long. One of my friends who’s walked in on a few parties calls them sew-and-tell days. These quilting parties are one big gossip session, that’s what they are. And there’s never any chance the women will run out of comments about people’s lives or fresh rumors to share.

“I heard Eli left the Amish . . . I heard the Millers have a new tractor that isn’t allowed . . . I hear no one knows if Chester will ever have the nerve to show his face again in church. You heard what he did, right? There’s no good way to seek forgiveness for doing
that
!
Sleeping with a goat? Twice in the same night? After his wife warned him? I hear even the goat was disgusted!”

Ladies! Stop! Just stop!

All this stitchin’ and bitchin’ might sound harmless at first, just a few Amish women making quilts and sharing an ancient oral tradition. But from what I’ve seen, these “harmless” little get-togethers are the foundation of something much darker and more severe, the absolute, unbending refusal of the Amish to ever leave one another to their own business.

Truly, Amish women (and also men) will judge one another about
anything
. It could be something as hurtful as infidelity. Or it could be something as trivial as a hairstyle. A roomful of quilting women could just as easily devote an afternoon to either topic.

It’s a shame no one’s ever read the painted proverb plaque for sale at a local Amish store: “The person who sows seeds of kindness will have a perpetual harvest.”

“Did you hear?” I walked into a stitch-and-bitch party at my mother’s house to hear one of her friends exclaim. “Rebecca’s boy got a haircut,” meaning a
barbershop haircut
—without a bowl.

“That’s so terrible,” one of the other ladies said, commiserating. “I never thought he’d get a haircut. I feel just terrible for his mother. Unless she condoned it. You don’t think she condoned it, do you?”

“Well, I certainly hope not!” the first woman huffed.

All that, over a silly haircut! And what next for that mother? The woman certainly risks a social shunning. Could the ladies really be seen socializing with someone who allowed her son to get a barbershop haircut?

I’ve heard it all. Someone else skipped church with no good reason, or drank too much, or got caught kissing a girl . . . who wasn’t Amish . . . in the backseat of someone’s car. With each new revelation, the knife sinks deeper. “His poor mother! I don’t know how she’ll ever live this down!”

The rumor is that Amish families don’t have mirrors in their homes. Well, that’s just not true. Mirrors are fine for shaving. They just need to be small, never full-length and never used to admire oneself or to take pride in personal appearance. But honestly, it wouldn’t hurt for some of these gossips to look at themselves in a mirror before they prattle on about their neighbors’ real or imagined faults! Mark my words: Next year will come around and the lady who’s complaining this time will have a son who’s done just what she’s pointing fingers about now.

There truly is no end to this Amish busybodying. Trivial or important, half-true, might-be-true, someone-thought-they-heard-it, could-be-true-tomorrow—it’s all fair game in the culture of constant commentary about other peoples’ lives.

When I decided I wanted to get baptized in the New Order Amish Church, one of my older stepsisters was deeply offended. Lord only knows what she said behind my back, and she said plenty straight to me.

“That’s not how you were raised,” she yelled at me. “That’s just not right. You go pray about this, you hear me? You’re embarrassing the family.”

“Thank you for your opinion,” I told her as calmly as I was able.

Then I went and did what I thought was right for me.

And wouldn’t you know it? Now her son has decided to get baptized in a New Order Amish Church! As far as I know, she hasn’t said a single thing about it—certainly not to me!

I just bet the stitch-and-bitchers will have an opinion, though.

I
think I understand where some of this comes from. Our faith is packed with rules and regulations, and daily living is an exercise in do-this-don’t-do-that. The stakes could not be higher: heaven versus hell. And the inward-focused nature of Amish society creates a beehive effect in which we’re all buzzing around each other twenty-four hours a day.

Living like that for so many generations has had its effects. One of them is clearly a lack of personal privacy and no real concept of “shut your mouth and mind your business.” The Amish are famously meek and taciturn when visiting outside. Even the English burglars
are treated with concern and respect. But heaven help the Amish community member who becomes the subject of unflattering gossip. I know, because I’ve been on the receiving end more than once. So has my family, and I promise you it isn’t fun.