An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World's Largest Amish Community

Chapter 1 Discovering the Holmes County Amish

a฀฀chapter 1฀฀a Discovering the Holmes County Amish You can drive down any north-south road in the settlement and in a span of just a few miles you might pass Amish families from five or six different affiliations. —An Old Order Amish man Ohio’s Amish Country Just sixty miles south of Cleveland and seventy miles northeast of Columbus, in the center of the triangle formed by interstates 70, 71, and 77, lies the largest contiguous Amish community in the world. Over the past five years, we have driven thousands of miles crisscrossing this settlement as we gathered information for our study. Many times we had the good fortune to be accompanied by Amish friends and acquaintances who generously shared their intimate knowledge of the region’s social and physical terrain. We invite you to join us, in this chapter, for a journey through the Holmes County Settlement; we’ll explore a few of the places that have special meaning to the thirty thousand Amish who call it home. It’s a sunny day in early June 2007, and we begin our trip on the outskirts of Orrville, Ohio, heading south down Kansas Road. Just a stone’s throw to the west is the Wayne County Speedway, where Amish youth sometimes gather at night to sneak a glimpse of the local auto racing scene. Almost immediately we come to the new U.S. 30 bypass, running from Wooster to Canton, and on this day the big story is road construction. 2฀ a฀an amish paradox a฀ Kansas Road is temporarily closed because the Ohio Department of Transportation is building a bridge with a special buggy bypass over the highway to allow Amish families to travel safely to Orrville and other points north for health care and shopping. Partly because the area is home to the most conservative sect of Amish, the Swartzentrubers, who depend on buggy transport far more than do the other affiliations, the bridge was approved after extensive consultations between state and local officials and Amish residents. Having navigated the detour, we proceed south past Riceland Golf Course and several dozen non-Amish homes, their identity betrayed by the electrical wires from the grid and the vehicles in the driveways. Within minutes, however, we are in an area that is filled with historical significance for the Amish. It includes the site of the oldest continuously operating school in Ohio and the original location of a major schism in the settlement that created another conservative branch, the Andy Weaver affiliation . By the time we pass the intersection with Lautenschlager Road, gently rolling farmland stretches east and west and the telltale signs of Amish homes emerge: windmills that power the pumps for the water wells, white purple martin houses that look like tiny apartment complexes on a pole, dark-colored clothes drying on clotheslines, and mailboxes with names such as Miller, Raber, and Hershberger. Some houses are crowded up against the road on small lots, whereas others are set back, accessible only by a long lane. More than a few can accurately be called “self-contained estates,” since they include numerous outbuildings—a shop, a barn, an attached house for the elderly grandparents. Amish farms in this area generally range from 80 to 140 acres, with the land and buildings valued between three hundred thousand and a half million dollars.1 Soon, however, we realize that farms are not the only businesses in the area. Dotting the roadside are small shops with names like Kidron Woodcraft, Y and M Chair, and Yoder Hardwood. Misty Ridge Woodcraft makes entertainment centers and computer furniture, items never used by the Amish. The number of shops specializing in wood products is especially noticeable, but on closer inspection, a surprising variety of occupational niches appear, such as the Kansas Road Tarp Shop, Hostetler Welding, and Chupp’s Powder Coating. We pass several Swartzentruber homesteads, identified by their dark red barns (white is considered too worldly) and dirt lanes, that sell products out of the house, advertised by Holmes County tour. The solid black line on this map shows the route of our cultural tour through the heart of the settlement, which spans six counties but is centered in Holmes County. Courtesy of Mary Schantz. 4฀ a฀an amish paradox a฀ handwritten signs, “Eggs for Sale” and “Hand-Woven Baskets.” Just before we cross U.S. 250, we pass Yoder’s Greenhouse...