Facts About Amish People
My family vacationed near Lancaster, PA one year. I bought a postcard on which was a photograph of an Amish boy rollerblading. I couldn’t believe it - rollerblading! Wasn’t that too modern or technologically advanced for an Amish boy to be doing? Those were my thoughts at the time.
- Founded in Switzerland by Jakob Ammenn in the late 17th century, the Amish lifestyle is based in the Anabaptist Christian religion.
- The Amish came to PA in the early 18th century to escape the persecution they suffered abroad.
- Common ancestry is Swiss-German and the Amish still speak a German type of language.
- No Amish remain in Europe, but North America boasts a population of 227,000.
- They live simply, dress simply and avoid modern conveniences (rollerblading seems like such a convenience, does it not?).
- Amish people don’t call themselves “Amish people.” Instead, they refer to themselves as “plain folk.”
- The Amish don’t join the military, accept government assistance or participate in the whole social security nonsense. They don’t buy insurance either.
- Membership to the Amish church doesn’t begin until age 18-21, when the person is baptised (omg, I almost wrote naptised).
- Their society is governed by strict rules but teenagers are often not bound by such, as they’ve not yet been baptised and thus involve themselves in a period of “running around” called rumspringa (though not all church districts allow this).
- Believe it or not, only a small number of Amish kids choose not to remain Amish after the period of rumspringa comes to a close. (Isn’t rumspringa the name of a lame punk band or something?)
- Speaking of differences between different groups of Amish, some drive black automobiles and some are not allowed to; some have, for instance, less pleats in their bonnets than others or wear a different number of suspenders than those in another group. Seemingly inane discrepancies versus those that appear to make a bit more sense.
- Excommunication and shunning are different - if one is shunned, it is hoped that they’ll be shamed into repenting and rejoining the church. Excommunication is final.
- The Amish consider cigarettes “worldly” and though they can smoke tobacco, they cannot smoke it as a cigarette.
- Modern technology is not considered evil and bishops meet annually to discuss whether use of certain types may be permitted. Solar panels are an example of such.
- Neil Armstrong was Amish and returned to Lancaster after his trip to the moon - the reason he was allowed to engage in such a technological mission was because he was the smartest man in the United States when it came to space. Both the world and the Amish community realized that if they didn’t make that exception, progress would be stunted to the detriment of the world.
- I just read a paragraph about Amish dress. The word “cape” was used (as in, Amish girls wear capes) and my stomach turned because I got so excited.
- Amish children don’t wear shoes in the summer - not even to school!
- INTERESTING - men over 40 and those who are married grow beards. Mustaches are forbidden, as they are associated with militarism.
I’m sure it’s not as fun to be Amish as I imagine it to be (based, silly as it may sound, solely on the way they dress), but sometimes I think it seems cool to be Amish.
There aren’t that many great pictures of Amish people.
