Growing up as an Amish Child

Growing Up As An Amish Child

Not many people actually know the story of my life as a child or that I grew up Amish until I was eleven years old. There are many ways to tell a story about your own life or even someone else’s. Telling my own story will probably be most difficult to put into words. Not that it was bad, because there were a lot of good things in my life, but there were some rough patches we as children went through together.

I come from a family of nine children; eight girls and one boy. My brother was the youngest and I was the oldest. There was a ten year difference between and my brother and I. What’s even more awesome is that it was surprise it was a boy AND he was born on April Fools Day. Definitely one of the greatest days of our lives. 

Big family equals no money

Growing up we were poor and I remember that we were always moving from one house to another until I was about 6 or 8 years old. The one that still sticks out in my mind is what we called the shack (once we were a bit older and understood more about such things). I think I was about 4-5 years old then, (My timeline sucks ) and we were “dirt” poor. It was a small gray rickety old house that was always so cold and drafty during the winter. My dad was a bit of a proud man so asking for help was considered charity, and we didn’t take charity. I remember once waking up to a box of food sitting on our doorstep with no idea who put it there, but we were happy to have it.

This is also the house my mom taught me how to bake, my favorite memory as a child. I learned how to bake cookies and mini pies; I was so proud of myself for those little pies too. My mom would then set me and my sisters up at the end of the driveway to sell these baked goods (this was 30 years ago at least, so it was a little safer then). The exciting part I remember was being able to keep the money from the goods I baked myself. My dad had this journal where he wrote down the dollar amounts in as I wouldn’t actually get this money until I was older. I was so proud of this little accomplishment even though I had no idea what money was yet. As a  child I didn’t know we were poor at all.

Growing our Own

We grew our own vegetables in a garden. If I remember correctly, weeding the garden was a favorite quiet time for my mom. After having nine kids, who wouldn’t need a little quiet time from all the chaos. As I got older this became a chore added to us oldest three girls. I think I complained about having to do it, but I also remember enjoying it too. It was amazing to watch the veggies grow. Eventually we also had some pear, peach, and apple trees, but they didn’t produce heavily or like we would have wanted. No, I never had to churn butter as a lot of people always wondered about. We bought our milk, cream, and butter from a farmer down the road usually. Now, I can’t speak for my mom, she may have had to churn butter in her younger days. I don’t ever remember seeing it.

These veggies from the garden were always great and fresh. A lot of them were then canned and stored in the basement for consumption as needed, especially during the winter time. Meats, such as chicken, we also canned for future uses as well. Summers were definitely our busiest times for baking, cooking, and canning.

We didn’t have electricity, so we always drove into town to the “ice box.” We would buy blocks of ice to store our dairy products in our basement. I’m a lacking a little in the details of this storing process as to how often we had to buy ice or what it was stored in. 

Winters were spent mostly sewing clothes for all of our growing bodies. There were definitely a lot of hand-me-downs available for the younger ones.

Animals

As far as animals, we seemed to always have chickens, dogs, and horses. At one time we had goats, and I think a cow here and there. My chore was feeding the chickens. We used to have this gray rooster that hated me, I was scared to death of him. This thing used to chase me around the chicken yard, I seemed to be a threat to him. All I was trying to do was feed them, and get the eggs of course. I don’t think I’ll ever forget him or the experiences I had with him.

When I got older I had to help with butchering and plucking these chickens. What a yucky experience, but honestly it’s something I miss as a grown up. The fresh eggs are so completely different than store bought.

Leaving The Amish

When I was 11 years old, my life seemed to take  a turn in different direction. Family, mostly cousins of my dad, (who were no longer Amish) would start visiting us more often. Then one of them moved to the house around the corner. He had a pool table that my dad loved. There were times my dad would go to this man’s house. He didn’t come home until the middle of the night.

As a child, I knew something was wrong, but not sure what exactly. Just that our happy little home just didn’t seem so happy anymore. Then one night my sisters and I found out we were leaving the Amish. We didn’t know exactly what this meant yet, just that things were changing. To this day, I still have no idea how or what happened to have this change come about. That would have to be a conversation with my mom. I just remember hanging clothes out on the line in the dark praying to God that it’ll all be ok. That this was an answer to fix whatever is wrong in our quiet little world.

Shunned by the Amish

That’s when the visits from the deacons in the church started. This is when the announcement was made that we were leaving the Amish and the Lifestyle. The biggest thing they kept talking about was how much we were losing by leaving. Mostly it was on how we would all go to “hell”, because being Amish was the only way. Then our Amish family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc) started visiting, mostly to tell us to stay. We wouldn’t ever be able to see them again because we are shunned. In other words, the “shunning” started.

During this time, other people started coming to visit. People who had left the Amish long before we did. Soon we started attending other churches and wow was the experience so completely different. The songs and messages were all in English and I could understand what they were saying. In an Amish church it was all in German and I can’t even explain the songs. Just some long drawn out sounds is the best way to explain it.

Everything was so different in all aspects and we were all so much happier. My dad stopped going out to play pool into all hours of the night. Music became a part of lives, such as the Old Hymns. My dad would play these hymns during our Sunday Drives through the country. Life seemed to calm down and we were becoming a happy little family again.