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.

Lucy

It came a time in my life, as I grew older, when I started thinking of looking for companionship. I knew that one of my best friends got married although he had hemophilia, so I figured I had a chance too, in spite of my frequent illnesses. I had been born and raised Mennonite but left the church for quite a number of years. Even so, I thought that I would find someone who was Mennonite or Amish. I lived in New Jersey at the time; just across the river from Philadelphia, PA.

But there were circumstances about my health that needed medical attention. I heard of Dr. Robert Jeffs in Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, so I wrote a lengthy letter outlining my health history and the need to find a solution for some ongoing problems. He answered the letter, inviting me to come down to Baltimore to discuss the options.

Since I had a problem with kidney stones, he suggested that they first be removed surgically, or with lithotripsy. He assigned Dr. Ballentine Carter to the task of removing the kidney stones. I spent a few weeks at the hospital and then was sent home to further recuperate.

My cousin called me and said she was going to write a get-well shower in the Budget, a Mennonite/Amish newspaper which is the communications medium to these conservative peoples, who are spread nationwide, and often related to one another, or at least know each other by previously being in the neighborhood.

Soon I got some letters of encouragement, 12 in all, and one in particular stood out. She was Amish, had polio as a child, presently had a bakery and lived alone, and she was 2 years younger than me. She also had to use crutches. She described her family of 10 brothers and sisters. And she included a $5 bill! There was no recourse but to answer the informative letter. In a subsequent letter she included her phone number. Since she had a bakery she had a telephone in the house. When her family visited, she would shut off the ringer and cover it up. Right away you could tell she was her own boss. She’s a Taurus, I’m a Pisces.

I must have waited a few weeks before I dared call her, and one boring Saturday I ventured to call her. We had a nice conversation. Her voice was pleasant and we agreed to stay in touch. She would call me around 6 p.m. almost every day or so. The following year I was to have the major surgery. When I was at the hospital, I called her and gave her my contact number. Every other day she would call and we would talk and talk…about cooking mostly. I was in a situation where I didn’t have food for weeks. Dr. Jeffs assigned his understudy, Dr. John Gearhart, to perform the surgery. He is a pediatric surgeon but he is familiar with the similar problems in adults so was assigned the task to augment the internal plumbing.

Finally, after a month in the hospital, I was sent home and in a few more weeks I would go back to work. I felt that I needed to get out, travel a bit, before going back to the daily toil of my job. Lucy invited me out to Ohio, and a good friend of mine, Elisabeth, volunteered to take me.

So on a holiday weekend, Elisabeth and I traveled to Ohio. Lucy and I did not know what each looked like. We only recognized each other’s voice. We pulled into the lane. Lucy was standing on the porch but hidden by an evergreen tree…until I rounded the tree and finally came face to face with the person I had talked with for months and months. We liked what we saw in each other.

Lucy had a horse and buggy so we went to visit her parents in Elisabeth’s car. Her Dad had a leather shop and he made leather flyswatters. He has quite a sense of humor. He showed me a small bird cage with a sign on it, “Florida Red Bats.” He encouraged me to look down inside. He burst out laughing when I saw that they were tiny red baseball bats. He told me someone from Florida had sent it to him.

We stayed for a couple days. When Lucy and I engaged in conversation, Elisabeth stayed away. She knew what would probably happen and she encouraged it. That evening Lucy asked me to read some verses of Scripture and offer a prayer. That happened each evening we where there.

When Elisabeth and I returned home, Lucy called at the usual 6 p.m. hour. She would like me to come out again. I told her I would have to wait for a three-day holiday weekend. I ended up flying out that weekend, from Philadelphia to Cleveland, and rented a red car to the 80 miles trip south.

I was traveling down Interstate 71 when I inadvertently passed the car in front of me before realizing that a car was almost beside me in passing position. She quickly backed off and I passed but it developed into a classic case of road rage. She tailgated me, so I took off at 90 miles an hour for several miles—and she caught up with me! It must have been the red car. At one point she passed me and I glanced at her. Her mouth was furiously chewing gum and she was hell bent on something. Suddenly I saw my exit, gunned the engine, and dove in front of her and off the freeway. If she intended to follow, it was too late.

I spent the weekend with Lucy. We had a nice time traveling around the neighborhood. We took a walk in Fowler Woods not far from her place. There was a boardwalk through the woods and we made our way, trying to avoid the damp spots on the boardwalk. Suddenly Lucy fell, which she very seldom did before. I’m not a strong guy and I was unable to lift her. For some reason, I went ahead to look for…something. That gave her the opportunity to get up gracefully by herself. When I returned she was up and walking. It happened once more. That set me thinking. Could I live with someone in this condition. I reasoned that I had my own conditions to deal with, why not have empathy for someone else. After all, she was a hard worker. She was able to accomplish a lot in spite of her limitations. She would be good for me.

A few days later I got a letter from her, deploring her situation and suggested that I would not want to see her again. But I did see her again. I started going to Ohio from New Jersey on regular weekends--all of 472 miles, one way. I would pack my car with travel belongings and after work head through Philadelphia on Interstate 76, into Ohio, through Akron, and on to Interstate 71 and south. I would get there by around 2 a.m. and sneak into the guest room and sleep until 11 a.m. and we spent the rest of the weekend visiting with some of her relatives.

In February, on my 50^th birthday, I waited until after 6 p.m. and then suggested that we could get married. She agreed. As I was driving home, I suddenly realized my mistake, “Ohmagod! I didn’t really do that right!” When I arrived home I called her up, and told her about my mistake and said, “Will you marry me?” It meant all the world to me when she said, “Yes.”

The next time I went to Ohio there was the Mast Homecoming that Sunday afternoon. Mast is her grandmother’s family name. While we were there we announced our engagement to the cousins who were there and they immediately started planning how they could help us out. Lucy knew that her brothers and sisters would probably not attend the wedding, let alone plan it. There were a few at the Homecoming who were Amish but the cousins who had left the Amish were more apt to help us out.

Sometime later Lucy called me and told me about a date to have the wedding, July 23, 1994. I was still working in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and I would soon have to make plans to move to Ohio.

I took a week off around the wedding. We invited various and sundry relatives and friends. I invited all six of my double cousins who were from Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. They said it was the first time in 15 years that they were all together as a family. Others of the church group I belonged to came to Ohio to witness the proceedings. It was a beautiful day and we had the wedding near Sugar Creek, Ohio, in Walnut Creek, at Light in the Valley Chapel. My parents, brothers and sisters where there, but Lucy’s family did not attend. I’m sure they would have liked to, since they loved their daughter and sister, but Amish protocol precludes mingling with the non-Amish under those circumstances. We did take some leftovers from the reception afterwards, which they appreciated. Lucy’s father had suggested that the Amish could marry us…if I would become Amish. At least it showed that they liked me. I declined. I’m not used to hard work, and they are hard workers. And I don’t know much of their language. I suggested that Lucy teach me, but her reasoning is, just open your mouth and talk. Huh-uh!

We got married in July. I didn’t move out until October 1. By October 10 I had a job at the News Journal in Mansfield. I worked at building ads. We were the department that made the money for the company. I worked there for 10 years and then my health took a dive again, and I’ve been on disability ever since. C’est la vie!

There's more to the story about my first contact with the Amish but that will have to wait until another day.

Amish in the City

It was sometime in 2004 when things started happening around our place in an exciting way. A couple of TV producers came with a TV camera and interviewed some prospects for the upcoming series, "Amish in the City." Some of our ex-Amish friends came to our house and were interviewed for a planned series surrounding Amish people. There were rumors about it for awhile to the effect that the Amish objected to such an exploitation. Local senators found out about but were unable to halt the project. The Amish understandably do not want their lives paraded in front of the world. They leave everyone alone; they want to also be left alone.

Ruth was one of the five participants in the project and some TV footage was shot which resulted in part of our house and barn being on national television during the introduction to each episode. The rest of it was in Hollywood, CA and wherever the entourage traveled.

You could call it a social experiment, putting a small group of seemingly uncultured, naive young people with a group of street-wise city young people. When I heard about it I thought it was a good idea. People could be greatly surprised.

The drama began when the city kids saw the approach of these young people dressed in Amish clothes. It wasn't fun for everyone; there were quite a few insulting remarks aimed at the Amish young people. But over the course of time, it was evident that they upstaged these street-wise young people because Amish culture is replete with a great work ethic, a solid traditional culture, even if they don't learn about all that is to know about the world.

Ruth, Jonas, Mose, Miriam and Randy did their part in just being themselves. Although so much was new to them, they were able to bring about a great series which helped to put the Amish cuture in a refreshing light. That was evident when pitted against the narrow view of the city kids regarding honesty, fair play, and social understanding, for want of a better description.

I don't know if there will be another series. Ruth went back to the Amish, and maybe others did. I met Ruth in August. She is married and the mother of one child. Whatever memories she has of her experience, they will have to be put it largely aside for her dedication to her present lifestyle in raising a family and blending into the Amish culture. More power to her.

An ABC TV crew was here at a birthday party on Saturday, June 30, 2007 and interviewed some young people for an upcoming documentary, maybe next year. Stay tuned.

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.