Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [3]
Most Old Orders use buggies with steel-rimmed wheels, though a few allow rubber-covered rims. In most communities, the men wear suspenders, or “galluses,” to hold up their pants, but no communities allow belts. The size and shape of the women’s head coverings vary greatly from region to region. As do the length and fit of their dresses. And so on and on.
Most Old Orders today have running water in their houses; only the plainest groups reject indoor plumbing. And some practice strict shunning of former members, while others are more relaxed about those who leave.
Amish life is made up of a mishmash of confusing rules about what’s allowed and what’s forbidden. Most of them make little sense, especially to those on the outside. They don’t have to, as long as they make sense to the Amish themselves. Which, I suppose, they do.
Despite the differences, almost all Amish are considered Old Order as long as they don’t allow cars or electricity or phones in the house. I say almost all, because some groups, like the Swartzentruber Amish and the Nebraska Amish of Big Valley, Pennsylvania, reject the Old Order label. For them, Old Orders are too modern.
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I grew up in Aylmer, an Old Order community located about thirty miles southeast of London, Ontario. As Amish communities go, it was considered middle of the road, or somewhat moderate in its rules.
The Aylmer community was founded in 1953, after a small exploratory group, which included my father, traveled by Greyhound bus from Piketon, Ohio, to the Aylmer area to scout for suitable land to settle. Why they ever wandered into southern Ontario remains a mystery, at least to me. But they did. And for some reason—perhaps on a whim—they got off the bus in Aylmer, walked into the office of a local real estate agent, and asked if he knew of any farms for sale in the area.
After regaining his composure at the sight of the gaggle of plainly dressed, bearded men before him, he allowed they had come to the right place—and what do you know, it just so happened that he did know of a few farms for sale.
He squired them about the area for a few days. Was most gracious and attentive. Probably couldn’t believe the good fortune that had dropped out of the sky. Imagine it—a hapless pack of wayward Amish people emerging from the Greyhound and asking to buy land. An agent’s dream.
And the men were impressed. Their new buddy showed them several farms for sale, amazingly all within a two-mile range or so. They boarded the bus and returned to their families, singing the praises of this new land. In the following months, they returned and bought farms. The Aylmer Old Order Amish had arrived.
Most of the original Aylmer Amish settlers were young—in their thirties and forties—with young children. It was a rare and unusual thing back then to just up and move and establish a brand-new settlement, especially so far away, and in another country yet. A bold thing. Even a brazen thing. Who did they think they were?
But those concerns didn’t faze them. They were idealists, with their own progressive beliefs and newfangled ideas of how one should live. They were determined that this new settlement would be different from all the others. More pure. They would not tolerate the sinful habits and customs common in the older, larger settlements: smoking, drinking, or “bed courtship” among their youth. And their youth wouldn’t be allowed to “run around” wild, driving cars and partying. This they purposed firmly in their hearts. Dark and humorless, the men peered about suspiciously for the slightest hint of sin among them.
The Aylmer community considered itself an example for the lesser elements.
The perfect church.
The “shining city on a hill,” from which would come noble directives about how people should live. These