[PRCo] Re: Coatesville Arson

[Schneider Fred]

I hear you.

Even the Amish have changed a lot since we came here 50 years ago

I was told by an Amish bishop in the 1970s that there were about  
12,000 Old Order Amish in Lancaster County.  More recently I hear the  
number is 20,000 or 4 percent of the county population.   But there  
are now a lot of Beechy Amish who drive automobiles.   Those numbers  
may be inconsistent with the masses escaping to Ohio, Indiana, New  
York and other areas where farms are cheaper.  I cannot believe that  
the Amish share of the population in this county has increased from  
3.8 to 4.0 percent of the total at the same time that the total has  
grown by 56% mostly because of inmigration from other areas for jobs  
here (when the Amish are moving out searching for cheap farm land).    
The numbers that they are feeding us may be distorted.   I might  
believe that 4.0 of the county are German speaking Mennonites and  
Amish together.

And even the Old Order Amish don't listen to the Bishop as well as  
they might.   I remember Stan Imboden, when he was the "Priest" in  
our country Episcopal church telling me that he could not increase  
the size of the congregation much more because too many of the people  
in that part of the county were Amish and horse and buggy or other  
forms of Mennonite faiths.   Then one Christmas eve I turned around  
and there was a man named Stoltzfus with his wife and all his kids in  
the back row.  He is Amish but the bishop was on his case for using  
computers in his business.   I think his form of rebellion was to go  
to an Episcopal church on Christmas eve.    Then he was seen sinfully  
smoking a cigarette in front of our parish house.  My wife asked him  
if that was permitted.  He replied, "It's alright.  I roll my own."

I recall taking my cousin out to buy a quilt for his wife.   We  
bought it from a Amish farmer.   She was clearly violating the church  
rules.  She had gone far beyond the old rules of putting the  
telephone in the phone booth at the edge of the road.   Hers was  
actually in the store.   That was something that every Amish bishop  
ruled was against church doctrine 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.  Her  
response was simple ... she could either have the phone there to  
clear credit card sales or go out of business.   She chose to stay in  
business.   I also saw her use it to call her doctor while I was  
there.   Most of the Amish today carry cell phones ... their way  
around the church dictate that "you cannot be connected to the  
world."   There is no actual wire so you're not connected.

There used to be a church rule among the Amish that if your kids  
deserted the church or the father or mother did something wrong, the  
entire family was to shun them ... to have nothing to with that  
person from that day forward.   That had a marvelous way of keeping  
the order intact.   Dad was going to give you a farm but if you  
didn't join the church and marry within the church ... no farm, no  
family, no relatives, no contact with anyone you knew when you grew  
up.   It worked wonders.   I'm sensing that even that is falling  
apart.   If your children do not agree with the dictates of the Amish  
faith and move away from it, more and more often they still maintain  
contact with the family.   There is a man in our church who was  
raised Amish.   He decided it wasn't the way to go when he was beaten  
by his father because he wore a pair of pants with a zipper instead  
of buttons ... zippers are forbidden.   He told me that any church  
that was that restrictive wasn't for him.   He is in his 40s or 50s  
today.   I asked if he sees his family.   He claims he regularly sees  
everyone in the family and that he was never shunned.

The other day I picked up an Amish newspaper.   I was surprised to  
find it was in English and not their Palatinate German dialect.

But they all still speak German among themselves.   They are a group  
of people that somehow have remained totally bilingual.   For how  
long.  I don't know.  They've carried on this way for two  
centuries.   But they gradually change, always staying a few feet  
behind the rest of us.

But some things they do are marvelous.   I recall sitting in a local  
hospital waiting to have a blood test.   Two Amish men were in the  
same room waiting too.   They were conversing with each other in  
English.   I addressed them in German, asking why they were not  
speaking in German to each other.   At first they were surprised that  
I knew some German.   Then they explained that, "If we were speaking  
in German, you might think we were talking about you.   We would not  
wish to happen.   In public it is better to speak English."



On Feb 23, 2009, at 8:43 AM, John Swindler wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Be careful with absolutes.  There are still several farms that I  
> pass on the way to work that use horse drawn plows and wagons.  The  
> horse drawn 'honey wagons' should be making an appearance soon in  
> these fields.  Then again, the power lines from the Susquehanna  
> were not crossing these farms 40/50 years ago.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> John
>
>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Coatesville Arson
>> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:33:04 -0500
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>
>> And a Chinese restaurant too.
>>
>> On Feb 22, 2009, at 11:24 PM, Derrick J Brashear wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 22 Feb 2009, Schneider Fred wrote:
>>>
>>>> Look 20 minutes to either side of your home, John. None of this
>>>> world is what it was 40/50 years ago
>>>
>>> Isle of Man still has its horsecars.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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