Amish funeral

My wife Lucy’s Amish step-mother Emma passed away on Monday, August 13. This is a description of an Amish funeral which we attended on Thursday, August 16. You wouldn’t know the people I’m talking about beyond what I describe of them but here goes. It may have some cultural interest for you. The Ashland Amish which Lucy used to belong to are quite conservative. The ex-Amish who live here in our house are my wife Lucy, her niece Miriam, and her niece Minerva, who is married to Jason who is not Amish. (The picture above was taken after the funeral. Lucy can be seen approaching on her wheelchair on the far left.)

Thursday came and Miriam, Lucy and I left for the funeral. In the van, before we started, I prayed for God’s blessing of peace for the day. (We didn't know what to expect since Lucy is essentially banned from the Amish, unless she would return and rejoin them. Miriam was never a member of the Amish church). We arrived at the Yoder farm 16 miles away around 9:30 a.m. It was 8:30 Amish time. (The Amish don’t observe Daylight Saving Time.) It was a sunny day and there were scores of people congregating on the lawn in groups; women in white caps and black pleated dresses, and men in black trousers, black vests and long-sleeved white shirts. They started filing toward the barn, and up the barn hill to the second floor which was hay-strewn and supplied with wooden benches where the funeral service would be held.

There were rows of benches in the barn and the men filed in and I noticed they kept their hats on as they sat down. One Amish young man, Danny, motioned for me to follow him, and as we walked together he jokingly said he had a fly swatter in his pocket, he would make sure to keep me awake.

Jason and I sat in the row of all Amish with his son, four-year-old Nathan, between us. We waited as more and more people came. The middle portion of the audience was comprised of the women. Then one of the Amish men came and asked if I wouldn’t mind moving to another bench. “Me?” I asked. “Both of you,” he replied. He escorted us to the bench with other “English” (non-Amish). Joe and Esther were also sitting there, even though Esther is Emma’s daughter they chose to seat her in the audience since she was no longer Amish. Lucy sat in her wheelchair right at the coffin with her other Amish brothers and sisters, and no one told her to move, although later it was ascertained that a couple of Amish were tacitly critical of it.

You must understand that some Amish groups are quite quaint in their tradition and their social protocol is a bit stringent. I’m sure the Yoder family didn’t mind, but there were a lot of local Amish there who were more conscious of the social standing of the various people attending the funeral.

A young Amish woman brought in a jug of water and started pouring out glasses of water in front of us. I could see Nathan would like some water so I whispered to him to ask her for some. He was too shy so Jason asked her. The water was for anyone. It was not very hot yet and it was rather comfortable but the service would prove to last a couple of hours.

At around 10 a.m. (9 a.m. Amish time) one of the men at the entrance of the barn floor took off his hat and the whole audience of men followed suit. Then a minister started speaking in rather soft tones from the other end of the audience, in German—rather, a dialect of German, Pennsylvania Dutch, or Amish, as some call it. About a dozen people heard every word he said, and sometimes he thundered into oratory that everyone heard for a few seconds at a time. Sometimes he covered his eyes in thought as he droned on and on—I hardly understood a word. It was all in the Amish tongue.

He spoke for about 40 minutes. But the audience didn’t seem to let on to real boredom. Someone started passing around a container of home-made cookies for the children. Once in awhile a squalling youngster would be taken out by his mother. The mother in front of us allowed other Amish grandmothers to hold her baby in turn until it cried and it was passed back again. A lone kitten came to a corner of the loft above and looked down on the congregants, probably wondering what this was all about. Four-year-old Nathan, sitting between Jason and me, noticed the kitten. Soon we heard loud mewing for awhile where the kitten may have had a temporary siege of trouble of some sort. The preacher droned on.

I wondered about Lucy. I saw her a few rows ahead of me to my left. She was at the entrance to the barn floor with the barn door propped at an angle to keep the sun from shining on the audience. Still, I saw that Lucy seemed to be sitting in the sun and with her black dress, shawl, and black head scarf, she could be sweltering. I was tempted to take her a glass of water, or have Nathan take it, but a couple of custodians finally repositioned the barn door to shield the ever-moving sun’s rays. I prayed for relief for Lucy. Lucy told me later there was a nice breeze going and she was comfortable.

The preacher started reading from the Bible (in High German) and I knew he would be about finished. He finally faded out to a final whisper and sat down.

Then another preacher got up and spoke. He droned on and on, in an even more quiet manner. I could only hear snatches of oratory throughout the room. The kitten appeared at the corner of the loft again. Somewhere below us a horse or two whinnied once in awhile. And there were flies to keep us from feeling entirely comfortable. But at least a couple people apparently dozed off.

Another preacher got up and spoke for another 40 minutes or so. Toward the end he too read from the Scriptures and then sat down. Then a young man, I believe around 30 years old, got up and started talking. (I found out later he is the bishop.) He spoke softer yet. You had to strain to hear, if you could even hear. I figured it would be the last speaker and I had my pad and pen ready to take down the statistics of the deceased which he was sure to read off at the end. I lost track of the kitten, but once in awhile a horse would whinny softly. Once a cow mooed.

Finally, he pulled out a piece of paper and started reading…geboren…sterben…ein bruder und eine schwester… I 'm not fluent in German so I didn't understand very much. I'm going to have to ask him for the paper. When he finished, the whole audience knelt to pray…except me (I wasn’t about to aggravate my hip problem), and Jason who was holding sleeping two-year-old Nolan. I noticed a couple of older women stayed sitting. The prayer, being read, droned on and on.

Then came the time for everyone to file past the coffin. There is a certain protocol there too. Usually the young people are first to file past. It was rather picturesque to see them file past the coffin, which was right at the entrance of the barn floor, and the boys and men putting on their hats one by one as they stepped outside the barn.

Men arriving from outside would take their hat off as they entered, file toward the back of the room, turn left, and file back up to the coffin, and put their hat on again as they left the barn floor. Miriam later told me that the protocol is: young people, young marrieds without children, young marrieds with children, and then older people. The undertaker or one in charge would point out the rows to go next and they would file down the same row, turn left and file back past the coffin.

When he pointed out our row I got up, got my crutch, and gingerly made my way toward the end, turned left, and walked back to the barn entrance and the coffin, making sure not to trip over all that alfalfa hay strewn over the entire floor. When I reached the outside I stood near the row of men standing there and told one I would stay near my wife. He nodded.

A couple of times, when there was a gap in the line, I went to Lucy and asked if she wanted water. She said she was fine, and finally when all filed past except the family, I stood behind her wheelchair and waited as the family gathered around the coffin for maybe 10 minutes, some weeping, a couple of them shooing a fly away now and then. It was then that a nearby chicken chose to raise a fuss with her din of raucous chuk-chuk-chukAHH. No one seemed to notice. I did. It went on for over a minute.

I was about first in line with Lucy where the line of people gathered around the coffin filed out and down the barn hill. Joe and Esther (they are ex-Amish) stood to my left, and others down the line. We stood still as the other brothers and sisters of Lucy and Esther filed past us. Lucy's oldest brother, Melvin, was first to come along, and he reached out and shook Lucy’s and my hand. The rest of the family of Amish brothers and sisters, and their children followed, shaking our hand as they went past. I thought it was a noble gesture on their part because of the group’s tradition to keep Lucy and Esther and Joe in the ban.

When they all passed, Lucy carefully drove her wheelchair down the barn hill. I stayed in back of her for assurance. We went down the lane to the van and we loaded up and drove off before the dozens of horses and buggies would wend their way to the cemetery three or four miles away.

It was warmer at the cemetery and we waited in the sun for the procession of horses and buggies and the funeral wagon. Lucy didn’t know if she could go into the grass of the meadow with her power wheelchair but she was able to accomplish driving it through it all since it was short enough at most places to not impede her progress. She didn’t want to get stuck.

Lucy had a chance to meet other friends and family that she knew and hadn’t seen for years. Some young ladies came around and shook her hand and talked up a storm. They were very cordial. There were very few non-Amish at the gravesite.

Finally everyone gathered around and the bishop started talking. He started reading something, and then someone started singing and the rest of the singers chimed in. Then the bishop read something and then another couple lines of singing. At last he read a poem which was evidently in High German.

The singing sounded almost like a slow yodel. The vorsinger (the lead singer who starts the song) would start a syllable of the first word, and the rest of the singers would continue finishing the word and go to the next words. Sometimes a word would have several notes to complete it. It is from the early centuries when music like that was quite common. It was sung in unison—no harmony, but rather beautiful since it sounded over the surrounding meadows and reverberated from the trees across the meadow.

Four or five men lowered the coffin into the ground and shoveled dirt, filling the six-foot-deep grave. It was a solemn moment for all as the singing continued. It was quite an idyllic country scene although quite warm. I wandered over to the wooden fence to lean on it. I asked Lucy if she wanted to see them filling the grave, I could ask a couple ladies in front of her to move, but she said she was able to see enough.

After the grave was filled everyone stayed around for awhile talking. I walked over to Lydia Ann and Katie, two of Lucy’s sisters, and told them that I really had appreciated their mother and I had told her that the last time I saw her. Emma had been very cordial to me from the first day I met her years before.

Other people were talking with Lucy, glad to see her and catching her up on their activities, or whatever Amish say to each other when they get together—and they have a lot to talk about.

Although there was a bit of a breeze going it was sunny and quite warm and Lucy was soon ready to leave. We found a way back among the horses and buggies and people standing around, and Miriam soon followed. We ended up going back home but Lucy wanted to go back to the farm again and meet more people.

We went home and Lucy was able to change a bit, get refreshed, and insisted she would like to go back to the farm. Another option was to meet at Joe and Esther’s place afterward for a bite to eat.

Lucy and I went back to the Yoder Farm and Lucy disappeared into the crowd on her wheelchair. The lawn was full of groups talking amongst each other. Lucy was in her element while I tried to find mine. I spotted an Amishman I knew, Ray, and talked with him for awhile. Ray had had left the Amish for awhile and seemed to be uncomfortable in that situation since he was the oldest in his family. I had suggested that he return to his family and the Amish, which he eventually did. He is happily married and the father of four children, and makes windows for a living.

Then I spotted the bishop. I told him who I was, which may not have meant anything to him, but I told him I would be interested in the obituary. “Could I borrow it for a minute to copy it?” He told me he would give it to Milo (Lucy's brother) but he let me borrow it. I copied the essential details, which were all in German but understandable enough to me. I then gave it back to him. “Danke,” I said. “You’re welcome,” he replied, and put it back in his pocket. He apparently is not a conversationalist, not with me anyway.

I conversed with a couple more people I knew, but I’m not the kind of person to talk conversationally to strangers very often so I was soon getting antsy to go home. I finally found Lucy at the other end of the lawn, deep in conversation with an assortment of her friends and relatives she hadn’t seen for a long time. I asked if she was ready to go and she immediately shook her head. I had to only sigh, resigned to a session of waiting around, hoping to talk to anyone I knew in this lawn full of Amish who were from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.

It was about 3:30 when I looked at the clock, about 5:30 when I started to wonder if I’d ever get out of there. I was getting hungry and people were starting to come out of the house and sit down behind me, in front of me, feasting on their plates of food.

I was alone on a bench when Lucy’s niece Amanda, came with her little boy (I subsequently learned that when she told me since I couldn’t tell—he had a dress on which is customary for tots that small) and a small dish of baby-food and asked if she could sit down beside me. She then proceeded to feed her baby and talk to me. When I asked about her little boy she said that when they were trying to find a name to name him, her husband Danny suggested Wesley but they settled on Leon for a reason I don’t recall.

I started getting a little worried and I didn’t feel well, didn’t know if I would ever get anything to eat, didn’t know how long Lucy was going to stay around talking and talking. I had only a little breakfast in the morning and that sustenance had run out some time ago. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. But I was not about to just go into the house for food myself. I would rather be invited.

Then two shy little Amish girls, dressed in customary Amish attire, around the age of six or seven came over to me carefully carrying a glass of water, and handed it to me. “Danke,” I said. “Thank you very much.” They giggled and took off again. The water tasted good. I felt better. I noticed that Lucy was munching on a sandwich as she talked to her sister Lydiann.

Then Katie, Lucy’s sister, walked by and told me that someone would soon bring a tray of food for me. A few minutes later a smiling Amish teenage young lady came with a paper plate full of potato salad, baked beans and egg noodles. This was more than I had eaten at one time in over two weeks. The flies were in competition so I kept shooing them away, trying to keep the food for myself.

I wasn’t half finished when the same young lady came with another plate full of dessert: cantaloupe, fruit jello, watermelon, a sliver of chocolate pie, a sliver of custard pie, and a substantial wedge of cake with vanilla frosting. The flies dove for it and I alternated between mouthfuls of noodles and potato salad and keeping my hand fluttering protectively over the dessert. I ended up mixing the dessert with the entrée and feasting on it faster, alternating between the potato salad and the cantaloupe, the noodles and the watermelon, the baked beans and the cake with the vanilla frosting. I won the battle, and I did not suffer any consequences of eating more than I really wanted to. But I was still waiting for Lucy to get her fill of entertaining her friends, or they entertaining her. I would just have to be patient and keep waiting. I am a patient person...sometimes.

We finally left around 6:30 p.m. Lucy had talked to almost everyone she knew. She was treated cordially and I was glad she had the chance to catch up with her friends and relatives. The day had gone splendidly without any repercussions from cultural differences.

This story gives a little inkling of the Amish culture, and the non-Amish occasionally interacting with it. It is not to belittle anyone for quaint ways or seeming ignorance. The Amish have a keen sense of place within their tradition, and they have a genuine work ethic. I have said already that everyone should be Amish for the first 21 years of their life. Those who hear it disagree; it should be 17 years. That's when many Amish young people choose to explore the world before deciding to stay Amish and join the church and forget the world outside exists. But's that another interesting story.