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Ask the Amish is a section in the Remnant’s Walk with reprint articles and letters from the Amish community from a publication called “Family Life”, which started back in 1967. Some original authors are listed in the publication, some are not. If there is an author listed, they would be listed at the end of the article with an original publishing date. Some Amish choose not to put their names on articles they write.

Farmers Not Needed

Recently I received a letter from an Amish brother in another community…

“Two young Amishmen in this community recently got married. The one bought a farm, since he came from a rich family and was able to pay for it. The other man was unable to get money to buy a farm, so he is working for an English farm operator, driving big combines, tractors and so on.

Some people are talking of working in factories. Most of the unmarried girls work in cities and towns around here. All this is beginning to show effects.

“I understand that within 20 years , four thousand young married couples will be looking for farms. The greater part of these cannot take place in their home communities. So those who do not want to become urbanized will have to settle elsewhere, either where there is cheaper land in the USA and Canada, or in other countries.”

This flocking to cities hasn’t caught the plain people yet, but another move in some communities is catching us more and more—the move of the cities into the country. Many of our settlements are not the quiet, rural areas they were ten or twenty years ago. Examples are Geauga and Stark Counties, Ohio, Lancaster County Pennsylvania, and parts of Elkhart, and LaGrange Counties, Indiana. Factories have sprung up, new houses are lined along the roads, and farmland has become expensive and hard to buy. Traffic on roads is heavier every day, and land is becoming crowded and noisy.

What effect does all this have on the plain churches? Are we riding the same train, going the same, but just in the caboose? Our concern should not be so much “Can we make a living off the farm?” as “Will our faith survive off the farm?” but of course the two go together.

There may be several solutions. One has been to move out of the larger, crowded settlements, to areas where farmland is lower priced. The last fifteen years have seen many new settlements in Missouri, Wisconsin, and other states and Ontario. Another answer is intensive farming, specializing in fruits and vegetables that require much labor, but fewer acres.

Surely there are lands that need hardworking farmers more than the United States does or Canada does. Shouldn’t we give our consideration to having some of our families that want to farm , and want to live their faith and raise their children away from the modern and rush, go as immigrants to countries with underdeveloped farms and hungry people? Meanwhile the USA is paying their farmers to quit farming and let their land lay idle, and the people are eating better than any people ate before. Where, do you suppose, does the farmer count the most?

(“Fireside Chats”, J. Stoll, 9-69)

What Troubled Linda

Linda was discouraged with teaching. It almost seemed to her that it was pointless to have parochial schools. What was the use of going to all that effort and expense to shield the children from harmful companions if later they associate freely with young people who seemed to undo all the good accomplished in school?

Surely it is good and right that we have our own schools. We seek to teach and train our children in what is good and upbuilding, and to shield them from the harmful company and environment of public schools. But it is too bad, if we are not concerned in providing an equally upbuilding environment later among young people. Are we concerned only about our little children and not our big children?

It seems that the greatest reason why not more is being done about this problem is simply that we don’t care enough. If we really cared, would we, or could we casually visit together about our crops and neighbors all Sunday afternoon? Meanwhile, in the room upstairs, our young people are keeping the air blue with smoke and playing cards and entertaining each other with off-color jokes. Would we as parents, if we really cared as we should, go ahead week after week, washing and ironing clothes for our young people, which they wear in disobedience to the church?

If we really cared, would we really let our young people go away in the evening without knowing where they are going, or what they will be doing, or with whom they will be spending their time? Would we go to bed on Saturday evening, with our daughters upstairs and the house unlocked so boys can enter and leave at will? This is a setup for evil that is shameful to mention. One can hardly imagine parents so unconcerned as to tolerate it.

It is time we look around and ask what kind of teachers our children have when they reach their teenage years. A teacher is anyone we learn from. Who will our children learn from more readily than the friends and companions they are with?

(“Views and Values”, E. Stoll, 8/9-72)

Generation Gap

One of the basic rules of life is that it takes time to build strong emotional ties. For strong ties of friendship to develop people need to spend a certain amount of time together.

No doubt our children spend more time in the company of their peers than any other generation before them. Our people have certainly been right to resist consistently any demands from the government to send our children to high school. It is already bad enough that they are away from their parents for eight school terms. Perhaps we have already gone too far with today’s educational system.

Three hundred years ago children were at home with the family during all of their growing years. We would not want to go back to that. In those days, few could read. At the same time, we should be aware of the danger in children being away from their parents too much, and in the company of their peers. We have our own schools and that is good. This is our way of guarding against bad company of our children. But perhaps it is time for us to see that even good company, if it detracts from the ties between parent and child, can also be a harmful thing.

The same is true beyond the level of school years. Yet even many of the most well-meaning parents, see no danger in young people being together too much. In fact, some parents call for more youth activity as a solution to the problems of our young people.

There is a motto that “the family that prays together stays together”. That says a lot in a few words, but it does not say enough. It is surely an oversimplification. A family needs to do more than pray together, it needs to work together, visit friends together, read together, plan things together, eat together, share joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments. In short, a family needs to live together.

It is true that young people need something to do. But parents should look harder for things they can do with the family that will serve to strengthen the ties between children and parents, rather than between children and their peers.

(“Views and Values,” 1-78)