Roman

I first met Roman Yoder in 1993 when I came from New Jersey to Ohio to visit with Lucy, his oldest daughter. She had sent me a get well card and letter over a year before. It was after a period of hospitalization and recovery that I just needed to stretch my wings and take a vacation before going back to work. Lucy invited me to visit with her. Elisabeth, a good friend, offered to take me. I had been in correspondence with Lucy for about a year and it was about time I met her in person.

Roman was in his leather shop patching leather harnesses and other leather goods, and making leather fly swatters for businesses that sell Amish-made goods. He was very cordial and showed me around the shop. He also showed me a bird cage sitting on one of the tables with a sign "Florida Red Bats" fastened on it. He told me to look in the cage. I was rather hesitant until I spotted the bats in the bottom of the cage—tiny red baseball bats. He was amused at my reaction. He said someone sent it from Florida some time ago. It's a good conversation piece.

It wasn't long before I was seeing Lucy on a regular basis, driving 475 miles from New Jersey to north central Ohio alone on a Friday after work, and heading back on Sunday, arriving home in time to get a good night's rest and going to work on Monday.

On Christmas weekend I met almost the entire family and that's when I took the opportunity to let Lucy's mother (step-mother) know who I was and what my background was. I was born and raised Mennonite and my parents spoke Pennsylvania German, and I was never married before. We lived in an area of Pennsylvania where most parents did not teach a second language to the next generation.

Over the course of a few months it was evident that we had a lasting interest in each other and we got engaged on February 27, my birthday. Of course, Lucy's Amish family heard about it but didn't seem to object, especially her parents. She was old enough to make her own decisions. One day when Roman and I were alone, he suggested we could get married in the Amish church. And there would be a lot of food to eat afterward . . . of course, if I become Amish. I politely declined. I didn't know the language that well. I was not a strong person and the Amish work pretty hard. And another reason I didn't voice; I could not give up my piano and accordion. The Amish can be musical but having a piano would be too much, especially for the more conservative Ashland, Ohio Amish. Beside vocal singing, harmonicas are about their limit in musical expression, mainly among the young people. But I didn't see that either.

It was also evident that Lucy would have to leave the Amish; she would be banned from returning unless she chose to rejoin the group. Roman was most likely trying to avoid the inevitable. Although I declined the invitation to join their ranks, it was evident that he liked me.

After we got married we still took liberties to visit with her parents, Roman and Emma. One day I took my accordion and played a few tunes for them. Another time we came in time for dinner (lunch) and they gave us each a plate of food. Lucy, respectfully adhering to the edict of not sitting at the same table with the church members when "you have departed from the faithful", sat on a chair away from the table. Roman obligingly invited her to sit at the table. There were no other Amish around to be critical of the arrangement. The gesture spoke of Roman's generosity and practicality.

Often when we visited, Roman was in his shop so I would take Lucy up to the house to visit with her mother, and then I'd visit with Roman. He'd often stop what he was doing and invite me to sit in the chair by his desk and we'd talk for an hour or more. The subjects? Current events, historical events, church history. I made it clear that Menno Simons (1496-1561) and Jacob Amman (1644-before 1730) were not contemporaries of each other. We discussed some Biblical events and I gave some of my more progressive views of my own experiences. He listened politely. Who's to say if he agreed with me. Some of what I said is written elsewhere in this blog.

One day I delivered a death notice of someone who had passed away. The Amish don't have ready access to a telephone so we have to deliver important messages in person. I talked about things afterward until another Amishman came into the shop. Roman immediately explained my presence; maybe to avoid criticism of associating with the "English" too much. Nonetheless, he ignored me and they talked their own language. It was a cue for me to leave and I went up to the house and visited with Lucy and Emma for awhile and then we soon went home.

On the early morning of June 30, 2007 I was sleeping on an armchair in the living room and, half asleep and half awake, I saw a group of black triangles appear up at the ceiling and group together into a larger triangle. Then the whole ceiling was decked in black squares like a checkerboard. Then on the wall there appeared a shape like a plaque and writing started to form. My thought at the time was that perhaps someone died or was in the process. I tried to read it, suspecting a name or something, but then the writing stopped, and reversed and then everything disappeared, and I fully woke up. What was it?

We had a party that day with quite a few ex-Amish young people. It was a birthday party for one of Lucy's nephews who had just left the Amish. A couple of ABC producers from New York were there with a TV camera to interview some of them for an upcoming documentary to be aired perhaps sometime during 2008. Lucy got a phone call to say that her father had a stroke or seizure of some kind. With what I had experienced that morning I ventured to tell her that he is OK. We visited with him a few days later and he didn't seem to be the worse for the experience, but there was something different about him.

As we were leaving he stood on the porch and watched us go. I waved and he waved back. It seems that he had the habit of seeing us off like that—a certain measure of respect for us. I'm sure he loved his daughter. He had spent a lot of time with her in her childhood, helping her recover from the effects of polio which overtook a lot of children in the 1950s. It was necessary to help her exercise to gain strength for her limbs after returning home from months in an Akron children's hospital.

In August 2007 Emma passed away. His first wife, Lizzie, Lucy's mother, had passed away in 1952 and now he was a widower again. He started to go downhill gradually, and in February 2008 he showed signs of deteriorating more. He became bedridden and his family came to his aid and made him as comfortable as possible, with advice from the family doctor. His son Melvin and wife, came from Wisconsin, and his other son Danny and wife, and his daughter Verba and husband came from southern Ohio to tend to him. Others of the family came to tend to him in turn. He evidently was not suffering but they kept him comfortable, putting him in a chair for awhile every day. A hospice nurse came to check on him now and then.

On Saturday, March 1, we visited with Roman and he had changed drastically; lost a lot of weight. They told us he wasn't eating anymore and they hardly could give him sips of water. They at least moistened his lips. We visited for a couple of hours and then Lucy approached him and told him we were leaving. It was evident that he understood but he never spoke; he just nodded his head. That was the last we saw of him alive.

The next day I was playing the piano at home with a beautiful tune, Light A Candle, Light the World, I had just learned. Lucy got the phone call from her brother-in-law Andy. Lucy's Dad had passed away Sunday around noon. The funeral would be on March 5.

On March 4 there was an ice storm but we went shopping, and Lucy had a doctor appointment. There was ice to scrape off at each stop but we got home before it rained even harder, and froze into sheets of ice. At 9:30 p.m. we lost our electricity and it stayed lost all night. In the morning we headed for the Roman Yoder farm to attend the funeral.

Lucy is on a power wheelchair but I was able to park right near the house and someone helped her into the house, which was full of Amish people, and a few ex-Amish and "English". I took a little longer to get out of the van and I walked with crutches, being careful not to slip on the ice. I had broken my leg in December and was still on the mend.

They led me to a room where other ex-Amish were placed. The Ashland Amish are quite conservative and they seem to take pains to keep the Amish separated from us English, although they are nice about it for the most part.

At 9 a.m. a preacher started talking but I didn't understand much of what he said. He was speaking Pennsylvania German, or Amish as some call it. He droned on for maybe 45 minutes. At one point he was speaking in a rather eloquent tone. I leaned over to my brother-in-law Joe and said, "I wish I knew what he just said." Joe whispered back, "If you knew that God was coming to your house, you would dress in your best clothes, gather your family around you, and wait." It was a good admonition for those who would be more spiritually minded but how many really believe such a sentiment.

We all had a chance to go by the coffin to pay last respects to the deceased. Then it was taken to the cemetery while others stayed behind and prepared for the noon meal. We didn't go to the cemetery due to the after-effects of the inclement experienced in the region the day before.

The next few hours were a bedlam of conversation among friends and strangers alike. An Amish pastime is talking. Many come from adjoining States and it was a mixture of catching up on the local news of familiar friends and relatives, to making new friends, although most of the Amish know each other. Lucy was in her element, talking to many whom she hadn't seen for a long time. They were cordial to her and she was able to catch up on the whatever the Amish talking about. I, meanwhile, sat and waited for people to talk to me. I'm not much of a conversation starter.

One man, Dan Miller, a former bishop, engaged in a conversation about his collection of purple martin houses which were soon going to be filled with migrating martins who come every year to his property. They fly to South America later in the year and in the spring they come back and often occupy the same house they were born in.

I met another Amishman whose wife recently had a kidney transplant. He talked about it to me since Lucy had told him that I was eligible for a kidney transplant.

I was eventually ready to go home—admittedly before Lucy was ready—but we went back home and had another get-together of ex-Amish who went through the same process; talking about old times, new events, and eating pizza, among other things.

I asked Lucy what her father was like when growing up. She said he was one who didn't mind being alone, and he usually was the last to come to the table, but was rather perturbed if he had to be kept waiting for anything. She said she doesn't remember him ever disciplining the children. He left that up to Mom. His kind-heartedness left a great legacy of a generous and kind man who will be missed for awhile.

Roman Yoder is missed but it is the honorable way of life to leave this world after a period of time and join back to where we came from in the first place, ready to evaluate the life we had experienced and continue with life in spirit . . . until the next round, if we so choose.