Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [66]
26
Marvin and Rhoda’s wedding came in October, four months after Titus and Ruth were married. This time, the wedding was at our home. The service was held in our large machinery shed. Sarah and I were honored to be Nava Hocca. And that day, for me it truly was an honor—my best friend married my sister.
They bought a little trailer home and set it up on the hillside west of our house in the woods. And there they lived in contentment and quietness. A new, young Amish couple, starting up their own household, and soon their own family.
Dad, worn and tired, decided to divest from farming and spend more time writing. He offered to rent the farm to Marvin and me as partners. I was excited. If I was ever going to farm, it would be with my best friend. Maybe we could make it work, the two of us together.
And so Dad held a public auction to sell his stuff. Marvin and I were given full rein to purchase what we needed, all on credit. And boy, did we ever load up that day. We bought cows, machinery, horses, and equipment. Not everything Dad owned. Much was purchased by the public, outside buyers. But we bought what we thought we needed.
In his own unpolished way, Dad did want what was best for his children. Wanted to help us as he could. And he did, as he could. Gave generously, to a fault almost. But he would help only his children who remained within the boundaries of the Amish way and lifestyle. His assistance was entirely conditional upon the decisions his children made.
And so Marvin and I took over the operations on my home farm. The Wagler-Yutzy Farm, we called it. It sounded so professional, and it seemed as if it would work out. We labored long and hard in the fields. All was going as it should have, as the Amish formula of life foretold. It was also a time unlike any in my family’s history, before or since.
For my parents, it was the beginning of a golden age that would last for more than a decade. They were surrounded by their married children. Six of them. Titus and Ruth lived a few hundred yards down the lane. Halfway out to the road, my brother Joseph and his wife, Iva, had settled with their family. My sister Naomi and her husband, Alvin Yutzy, and their family lived a half mile south. Stephen and his wife, Wilma, and their family set up house a mile south. Rachel and her husband, Lester Yutzy, and their family were a mile west across the fields. And Rhoda and her husband, Marvin, lived in a trailer up the hill on the home farm.
In some small sense, it was my father’s empire. The Waglers were an influential force in Bloomfield, and he was the undisputed anchor of that force—the aging patriarch surrounded by his offspring, approaching the sunset of his years. There was no way he could have known that all too soon it would all be gone. Had he known, I suspect he would have treasured and appreciated those days far more than he did. Or maybe not.
My mother, too, could not have imagined what the future held in store. And just as well she did not and could not know. Surrounded and honored by her children and grandchildren, she glowed when her daughters came home to spend the day with her, sewing and canning and quilting, doing the things Amish mothers and daughters do. Those times, I believe, were among the happiest of her life.
The stage was set, or so it seemed. Set for the act in which I would soon play an important role. Where I would show that one could settle down after tasting of the world to the extent that I had. I was dating a lovely girl that I would one day marry. I was set up on the home farm with my best friend and brother-in-law. All that remained, all I had to do, was walk forward through that open door. Accept the path prepared for me. And live the life so many around me wanted me