“Yes, Mem told me that Joe and Emma were buying the property from them for thirty thousand dollars, and that they are paying that into an account that will be disbursed to the rest of us for inheritance. But I have no idea whether Joe and Emma are keeping up with that, and also I think they have to take from this fund for expenses for Mem and Datt.”
“I suppose time will tell. Oh, by the way, did I tell you that one of the nurses asked Datt who his favorite child was?”
“No, you didn't. Why would someone ask such a question?”
“Maybe she figured if you can't ask that question now, you never can. We all do have our favorites, I suppose.”
“I don't think so. I could never choose which of my sons is my favorite.”
“Anyway, can you guess who he said was his favorite?”
I thought for a moment. “Most likely Sarah.”
“Yup. That was predictable, wasn't it?”
“It sure was. It confirms what we already knew, though.”
“Yes, it does. And I don't think it would have made any difference to him to know that Sarah often did things against his will as much as you and I did, but she was just much sneakier about it. Do you remember the time she climbed out the window?”
“What window?”
“The upstairs window. Do you remember how Datt would just decide we couldn't go out some nights? On this particular Saturday night, Sarah was all dressed up, ready to go out. She came downstairs, and Datt said to her, ‘Sarah, I don't want you going out tonight.’ So she said, ‘Okay’ and went back upstairs, where she opened up the window and climbed down the ladder she had put there for that purpose. The next morning when Datt said to Sarah, ‘Thank you for obeying last night,’ she casually said, ‘You're welcome.’”
“How sneaky!”
“I know. And do you know that when she and I recently talked about that, she actually defended her approach, and said we should have learned the same tactics to keep ourselves out of trouble?”
“She did? But where is the honesty in that? I guess she and I have a different idea of what's ethical. In Datt's eyes, Sarah could do no wrong, and the rest of us could do no right. I realize now that the reason you and I played such a tug-of-war with Sarah is that the only way we could get approval from Mem or Datt was through her. So that awful triangle we had going was our roundabout route to parental approval. I wish we could get to the point in our adult lives where we are all close. I think part of the present situation of you and me being closer, while we feel distant from Sarah, is that we've taken a different path from the one Sarah has chosen. We are both pursuing our education, and she is surrounding herself with young children, which doesn't lend itself to getting a formal education.”
“She claims she is happy, so I wish her the best,” Susan said.
“I do too. I just keep asking her when she is going to stop taking in foster children if she ends up adopting the children she takes in.”
“She is very sensitive about that.”
“I know. It certainly is her decision. I suppose she might say she doesn't see how our pursuits of education are meaningful. But it sure is meaningful to me. I worked long and hard to get to college, and Susan, this is better than I ever imagined. Every one of my classes is so wonderful, I cannot imagine this being better than it is!”
“I am so glad. And here I am at a rinky-dink community college–type place. I wish I could do what you're doing. If only my children were older . . .”
“Hey, at least you are going to school. When you become a lawyer and you find your dream job, the school you went to won't matter.”
“I do like my classes, even if this isn't a high-caliber school. But listen, I have to go. I need to get Grace to bed, and get off to bed myself. I have to clean two houses tomorrow.”
“Okay, I'll talk with you later. Let's stay in touch via email.”
“Good idea.”
I TALKED WITH DAVID every day. On this night, I called and he had just finished eating dinner. I asked him if it was strange living by himself.
“I'm getting used to it,” David said.
“I keep thinking how weird it is that in July, Paul, Tim, and I were all living there, and now you're all by yourself, slaving away to keep us all in school. Have you heard how Tim is doing at Johnson State College, by the way?”
“Yeah, he seems to be doing all right. He wants his mattress from his bed, because he says his is really uncomfortable.”
“You're not going to take it to him, are you?”
“Why not?”
“First of all, I don't want it ruined, and second of all, if the mattress is that bad, he should ask the school to provide him with a different one. But you are the sole parent in charge now that I'm away, and there is nothing I can do about it if you decide to bring his up there.”
David asked, “So, how are your classes going?” I hesitated. I recognized David's tendency to change the subject to distract me from disagreeing with him. But I'd also learned that trying to stick to a subject he didn't want to talk about was futile, so I answered his question.
“They're going well. I had my triple E class this morning.”
“What's your triple E class?”
“Ethics with Ernie at Eight.”
“Oh, you told me about that class. You're discussing Plato's Forms.”
“Yes. My classes are going well, but I seem to have a hard time concentrating on my homework, knowing what is going on with Datt. People keep asking me if I'm going to go see him before he dies,” I said.
“You have decided not to, right?”
“Yes. If I hadn't come to an understanding with him back when the boys were young, I might feel the need to, but I honestly feel I have accepted him for exactly who he is.”
“I agree. I don't think the rest of your siblings have this understanding. I think things are as they should be—the people who need to be there for your father are already there.”
“And I am where I need to be.”
“That's what I think. But I'm going to go watch a movie, and I bet you have studying to do.”
“Yes, I do. I miss you.”
“Already? You were just here yesterday.”
“Yes, already. The only thing wrong with this Smith education is that you and I can't live together.”
“That doesn't stop us from having fun on weekends, does it?”
“So far, no. Having our sex limited to the weekends doesn't make it any less intense,” I whispered.
“Can your roommates hear you say that?” David laughed.
“Maybe. Does that embarrass you somehow?”
“You're the one who should be embarrassed.”
“You think I should be? I'm not.”
“Okay, I better go. Otherwise you really are going to embarrass me.”
“I'm going to embarrass you even though you're all by yourself?”
“No, but I bet I will meet your housemates someday soon. Then I will be embarrassed.”
“Okay, good night. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
IN A PHONE CONVERSATION with Susan one night, she and I fantasized about taking a German class together, and then she broke into the language of our childhood. Susan could still converse and understand everything said in the Amish language, which is a dialect of German often known as Pennsylvania Dutch. This dialect originated in Europe, but as each new generation incorporated more English words in the United States, the dialect has become increasingly more of a mishmash of German and English. I understood what Susan was saying, but I could not answer her back, because I have lost much of my vocabulary over the years since I left. For many years, when I visited my home community, I could slip right back into the language. Then I didn't go back for nearly three years, so when I next visited Mem and Datt, I found it harder to converse in Amish. I have incrementally lost more of the dialect each year, to the point where I can understand most of it, but I cannot respond in kind. Susan noticed I was stumped and s
aid, “So, maybe there is something I am better at than you.”
“Of course, lots of things,” I said.
Later I thought about what Susan had said, and decided to write her an email. I pointed out that she is good at many things, and I didn't think it was productive to compare. I wrote, “In short, I hope you don't feel inferior to me. I accept that I have talents, including the ability to reason, which is what God gave us that He didn't give to the other animals. Part of the reason I am coming into my own is because I have come to accept myself for who I am. I no longer try to be like others, or envy who they are, because I like my life and who I am. I hope that you can also come to that place. The difference between you and me is like comparing an apple with a peach. One is not better than the other, but rather they are good in their own right. I love you for who you are, and I love myself for who I am, the same way I love both peaches and apples.”
That night I remembered how my relationship with Susan had been tumultuous all through our childhood and teenage years. Then, the competition was downright fierce between us because neither of us knew how to temper it—in fact, that ferocity often came out in physical fights. One of our fights happened on a Sunday morning, when we were both getting ready for church. I was combing my hair in front of the mirror in the bedroom we shared. There were three bedrooms and four sisters still living at home at the time. Lizzie had moved in with her friend Amanda when she turned twenty-one. I had a room by myself for a time at the far north end of the house, with a window facing the sugarhouse. One Saturday, when I came home from cleaning house for one of the “English” families I worked for, I found Susan had moved into my room. There had been no discussion, and she refused to discuss it now that she was already moved in. I wondered why, if she really hated me as much as she let on, she would even consider moving into my room.
On this Sunday morning, as I stood by the mirror, combing my hair, Susan came up and also stood in front of the mirror to comb her hair. I moved to the side, giving her half the space in front of the mirror and not an inch more. Our elbows kept clashing, but I stood my ground and ignored her. I thought I would be safe—Susan's style was to hold her own when a fight was about to start, and make the other person hit first. I was determined not to this time.
Suddenly, Susan shoved me hard and said, “Move over!” I was not ready for her shove, so it threw me off base and I landed on the floor, up against the bed. I stood up and shoved her back, hard. She landed on the floor behind the door. I saw the anger sparking in her eyes as she got up. She grabbed onto my hair and pulled as hard as she could. I pulled at her hair, I hit, and I scratched. In the end, when Mem came up to stop the fight, Susan had a whole handful of hair wound around her hand, and I had a round, bare spot on the top of my head. I had skin under my fingernails from her arm.
I thought I could use my bald spot as a reason for not going to church—at the time we looked for any excuses we could find to skip church—but Mem and Datt insisted I had to go. The burning and stinging from the spot where the hair had been pulled out by its roots lasted all day.
How appropriate that Susan and I had fought over space in front of the mirror, each claiming space for the kind of self-reflection denied to us by our family and community. Now I was grateful that she and I were coming to terms with who and what we were, leaving behind those nasty disputes of our childhood.
MY DAILY PATTERN of studying, having meals with the women in the house, and staying in touch with David and Susan became routine. So did the childhood memories as I lay down to sleep at night.
There was a time when the poverty was the keenest in my childhood, when Datt was in his worst depression and we still lived in the little tiny house that was bursting with eight people. This was before Katherine was born. I still don't know how Mem was able to feed and clothe a family of six children while also earning most of the money. She sewed suits for the Amish men in the community. With this money and the earnings from maple syrup in the spring and selling eggs from the farm, Mem somehow fed and clothed us.
Our chicken feed came in 100-pound cotton feedbags. Many people washed these and made kitchen towels out of them. The cotton was soft, and the towels were absorbent. When money was scarcest in the family, Mem sewed underwear for us from these cotton feedbags, and also dyed the cotton and made dresses.
As I became old enough to notice, I felt as though the dysfunction in our family was a public affair—everyone in the community knew about it, but they did little to help in any ongoing way. Perhaps they didn't know how, or perhaps they felt that because Mem was a responsible parent, the children wouldn't suffer. But most likely, our family didn't get the help it needed because the Amish aid system often does not apply to people who don't work hard to help themselves. At some point, I realized our family was serving a purpose within the community—we were used as an example of what could go wrong if one was lazy, didn't help oneself, or didn't properly adhere to the Amish ways. This allowed other families to be gut oh tzene (well regarded), while we provided the contrasting bad example. Any problems within these righteous families remained private because the focus stayed on what was going wrong within families such as our own.
I was never able to figure out precisely how each person's or family's standing in the community was determined, because it seemed so arbitrary—it had more to do with who a person was, rather than how that person behaved. Once a family has a bad reputation, it is extremely hard to improve it. And the reverse is also true—good reputations die hard.
I believe that Datt's standing would have been somewhat improved had the tragedy of his father's death not occurred when Datt was thirteen years old. Datt's father was gut oh tzene—a successful farmer with a beautiful matched team of horses, a kind man, and a responsible father. When he became ill with appendicitis, they called the local doctor to come to the house. This doctor had a reputation for being rough, and in this case, he lived up to his reputation. When he pushed on my grandfather's abdomen, my grandfather felt the appendix rupture. He was in excruciating pain for two days and then he died, leaving five children behind with another one on the way in the middle of the Depression. Datt was the oldest. He never accepted his father's death, most likely because he suffered so greatly from the consequences of it. He had to go live on a farm for his room and board when he was a mere thirteen years old. So not only was Datt considered simple, but he also missed out on any self-confidence and skills he might have gained from his father's continued guidance at an important stage in his development. In a closed community, this lack of self-confidence is seized upon—the people at the top stay there by putting others down. And the ones near the bottom see this and join in on the belittling, hoping they might improve their own standing.
When Datt was in his late teens, he worked on a potato farm. There was an Amish woman working there who, like Datt, was physically strong and more stubborn than intelligent. Her nickname was Queen. She and Datt disagreed one day in the potato house, where they were both supposed to be sorting potatoes, and she promptly hit him and knocked him out. The other Amish who worked on the farm teased him constantly, and this incident gave them fodder. Years later, Datt was unhappy with who Sister Sarah married, because he was the grandson of one of Datt's worst tormentors from that era. Datt had a long memory for the people who had wronged him.
There is another factor that determined one's place within the community, and that had to do with performance: ambitious people and hard workers gained respect, but anyone who was considered simple, lazy, or shifty didn't—regardless of mitigating factors such as depression or any other mental illness. The Amish way was to “shame” the person into working harder and helping himself—and likewise, if someone was simple, he should just “smarten up.” So instead of trying to help Datt improve his situation, the people in the community shamed him. He was still included in all the community events, but the Amish have a way of both including and isolating someone at the same time. This system of approval and disapproval often
works, forcing people to step into the prescribed and “normal” behavior expected within the community. Once in a while, a person cannot change in the ways the community requires. However, the pressure to conform never ceases, and so in this way, the person—a person like Datt—feels like an outsider within the community all his life.
As far as Mem's reputation was concerned, she made her mistake when she married Datt. It is still a mystery as to why she did marry him. The story goes that she was an “old maid” when Datt came to her to have his suit made. From putting the pieces together, I realize this took place when he was making his return to the community. Even after the suit was finished, he continued to visit her. They began dating, and eventually they set plans to get married. At some point in this relationship, Mem's father had a talk with her and warned her not to marry Datt. I often wonder if he was concerned about her standing and reputation in the community, for he and his family were gut oh tzene.
For whatever reason, Mem did end up marrying Datt. It seemed that our family's reputation was sealed before any of us children were even born. When we were growing up, the people in the community did not let us forget that we were just “Sim's children” (Datt's Amish name was Sim).
Even though the Amish people didn't help my family financially or in an ongoing way, they did help in customary ways, such as the “frolic” that helped lay the foundation for an addition to our house.
The house we lived in until I was five years old had four rooms in it—a kitchen and living room downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs. Then when Joe was seven, my uncle came and put a partition wall in the second bedroom, creating a tiny room for Joe to sleep in, making it three bedrooms upstairs. There were six children and two adults living in this little house. On those occasions when Mem would ask Datt what we were going to do about our tiny house, he would answer with “Ach, ich wess net” (Oh, I don't know).
Then one night at the supper table, the conversation turned from the abstract to the specific. While we were eating corn on the cob, and Mem was cutting Datt's corn off the cob, she said that Dodde (Grandfather) had stopped in at the Herrings and asked them about that old house on their property, and that they were willing to sell it for fifty dollars.
Why I Left the Amish Page 4