—LETTER FROM MOM
We arrived in Glasgow on Sunday, twenty-four hours after leaving Kalona. I had spent the journey in a peculiar state of tired anxiety.
Happy as I was to be on the outside, I was still being guided by Amish instincts, and I worried about the damage I had done to my reputation. Even though I knew I would not be returning to Kalona—at least not as an Amish person. Even though I knew there was nothing I could do to erase the tarnish.
Also hanging heavy in the back of my mind were the plaintive messages left on Ottie’s phone in Kalona. We had stopped overnight in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, and Ottie had checked his voice mail. My sister had called. A brother, too. Even several bishops. All of them on the precipice of panic, begging me to come back.
They knew what was at stake, and so did I. If I married Ottie, an adulterer in their eyes, then later chose to return to the Amish, I would never be able to marry again. I would become an old maid.
And on that score, I had changed my tune. I no longer wanted to be an old maid in lieu of taking a chance on marrying the wrong person. I was sure I had found the right one.
En route to Glasgow, Ottie and I discussed getting married quickly—for two reasons. The first is that it might discourage my family and their friends from coming after me. The second is that making our union official—and moral—was paramount if we were to be held in God’s good graces.
The contradiction of the latter point was more than apparent to me. We’d already made love, after all.
But I rationalized, as people often do. The night we gave ourselves to each other, I told myself, we did so because we thought it was the only opportunity we would have to share the ultimate human bond. Ottie would eventually leave, I would stay, and we would at least be left with the memory—and the comfort—of knowing we’d consummated our love.
Living together out of wedlock, on the other hand, was different. I had committed to Ottie and he to me, and there was only one choice.
We told Ottie’s father, Ottie Sr., and sister, Faye, about our plans when we got to Glasgow. His dad, a spare man in his seventies with an iron will that had allowed him to survive cancer and a heart bypass, was to have surgery Monday morning in Bowling Green for a benign stomach growth. We would visit him in the hospital that morning, then head for Tennessee with Faye’s daughter, Angela, and her husband, Chris, a professional wrestler in southern circuits. They would stand up for us at our wedding.
We would get our marriage license in Sevierville—between Knoxville and Dolly Parton’s Pigeon Forge—then slip into the Smokies and get married in a mountain chapel. All well and good, we thought. But something happened along the way.
Ottie called Faye in Glasgow after we’d gotten our license and learned some Amish had called Ottie’s most recent ex-wife in Indiana. My parent’s plan was to get a group together, travel to the Smokies, and try to convince me to return. How they knew where we were going is a matter of conjecture, but they were aware the Smoky Mountains was a favorite of ours.
Everything changed in the wink of an eye. Ottie told Faye to make arrangements for us to marry Tuesday morning in a little white, nondenominational chapel near Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Faye and her husband would meet us there.
None of this was how I had pictured it. In those rare moments growing up when I allowed myself to consider marriage, I thought of a large Amish wedding, usually on a Tuesday or Thursday. There would be a three-hour church service before the fifteen-minute ceremony. Three to four hundred people—including my mother—in the audience. A big dinner in the afternoon and socializing with the visitors, some of them from hundreds of miles away. And gifts for the bride and groom—tools and tack for him; towels, linens, and cookware for her.
Our marriage in Nashville took all of twenty minutes. There were six of my new family members in attendance: Ottie and myself, Faye and her husband, Angela (Angel for short) and her husband. The minister gave a brief sermon, we said our vows, kissed at the minister’s command, and walked out.
We didn’t have rings. Instead, we lit three white candles at the altar—one for Ottie, one for me, and one for our union. We didn’t even wear our wedding best. Ottie had on casual slacks and a navy blue short-sleeved shirt. I wore my head covering, leggings, and a baby blue dress I had made for our Florida trip. The dress was fancy by Amish standards, but conservative by anyone else’s.
Even in our free state, we were like fugitives on the run, making do with the final two thousand dollars Ottie had withdrawn from his bank, a stack of 1997 Amish calendars he had produced, the clothes on our backs (and a few to spare), the crystal swans in the van, God, and a yet unrealized dream of making a beautiful life together.
And one more thing. The love and support of Ottie’s family.
Since our arrival in Glasgow, they had given me numerous chances to back out. They knew of my fears and wanted me to know that if I desired to return to the Amish, they would take me back. They didn’t want me to feel trapped.
They showed their support in other ways, too. When we walked in the door at Ottie’s father’s house, the two men gave each other a bear hug. Then his father asked if he could give me one.
Silently, I thought, I don’t know how to do this. But I reached out tentatively, and he put his arms around me. Welcome home, Irene. Welcome home.
The first place we headed after our wedding was Sugarcreek, Ohio. With all of Ottie’s driving jobs gone, he wanted to pick up copies of a book he had compiled, Amish Communities Across America. The plan was to take ten thousand of them to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the heart of Amish country, and sell them.
Fortunately, we called before we got to Sugarcreek. The proprietor of the print shop was liberal New Order Amish, but Amish nonetheless. He therefore felt beholden to the wishes of the Amish community at large, and someone had gotten to him before we had.
“Hello,’’ Ottie said cheerfully after placing the call. “This is Ottie Garrett.”
“Yes,’’ said the proprietor, sounding strangely curt for a longtime friend.
“Well, you got my books ready?” Ottie said.
“No.”
“Is there something wrong?’’
“No.”
“Well, when are they going to be ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I guess there’s no reason for me to be coming down there, is there?”
“I guess not.”
Instinctively, Ottie knew something was wrong, said goodbye, and hung up.
We learned later that my family had driven to Sugarcreek and was listening on the other end of the line. I’m certain they had planned to ambush us at the print shop—where they would have an Amish audience—and create a scene of wailing, praying, kneeling, and raising their arms to shame me into coming home.
A friend later told us: “You sure dodged a bullet.”
But truthfully, we hadn’t. Within two weeks, the print shop owner told Ottie the Amish would never buy another of his calendars now that they knew what he had done. The owner threatened to participate in the boycott unless Ottie sold him the business for ten thousand dollars. It was a considerable loss, but Ottie had no other option. He was broke.
Ottie was also forced to sell the rights to Amish Communities Across America to a silent partner for fifteen thousand dollars for the same reason. A boycott.
We were newlyweds and we were losing everything. Our livelihood, my family—and soon our van.
Upon returning to Glasgow from our whirlwind wedding/brush with intervention, Ottie parked the van under a tree and left a trailer wire on the ground. Lightning hit the tree in the middle of the night, snaked to the wire, and fried the van.
Months later, when my family found out about our misfortune with the van, they said God was trying to tell us something.
“Yeah,” Ottie cracked dryly. “Don’t park under a tree during a lightning storm.”
Twelve
Since you left, our family has reunited in togethern
ess and there is nothing between mom and I anymore! We are very, very sorry if we were the cause for you to leave us. I ask you to forgive me in all areas where you feel I have wronged you or mom.
—LETTER FROM DAD
The letters began arriving shortly after we moved into a tiny, $200-a-month square of a house at a crossing in Uno, Kentucky, northeast of Horse Cave.
They would become a constant reminder of where I had come from and what I had done. They would—and still do—tug at my conscience, testing my will and my conviction.
The first was dated June 14, 1996, and it included remarks from every member of my family. My father began the missive and the rest followed:
To Ottie and our dear dear Irene:
Greeting in Jesus’ name.
We with broken hearts want to tell you we are very sorry for anything that would have caused you to leave our home, Irene.
Since you left, our family has reunited in togetherness and there is nothing between mom and I anymore! We are very, very sorry if we were the cause for you to leave us. I ask you to forgive me in all areas where you feel I have wronged you or mom.
Irene, you are always welcome in our home, and come before it is too late! Never think the Lord cannot forgive the sin of adultery.
There is forgiveness where there is true repentance!!!
Pray for your salvation and we and our church are all praying for you.
Your broken-hearted father,
Dad
My mother was next.
From your heart-broken mother:
Irene, this is the hardest thing in life I’ve had to face. Please, please forgive me for anything I’ve done or said that caused you to do this. Dad and I have made amends and the family, but it’s so lonely, dark, and empty without you. I don’t see how we can face people anymore.
The neighbors, relatives, and friends have come to comfort us. . . . It was very touching.
After church, the people didn’t eat much and were very quiet. At the singing, they sang mostly wake songs. Everything is so sad.
O Irene, you can still come back. People are all praying that you will. People are so concerned about you. Can’t you feel the prayers and the tears for you? . . . I feel so torn up, weak, and sad. I also have heart pains, so I don’t know if I’ll get to see you here again, but I will never cease praying for you as long as life permits. . . .
Then my sister.
My dear and only sister Irene:
It is so lonely here without you to go to bed with. . . . I’m sorry for all I did wrong. The song has left our house. The nieces and nephews don’t know what to do without you!
Please forgive me if I did anything wrong.
Your only broken-hearted sister,
Bertha
And my brothers.
Things are different, Irene. You can’t imagine it.
We hope we can all work together from now on and we hope and pray that someday you can be here to help us. We miss you!
Sincerely,
Wilbur
Dear Irene:
O Irene, please come home!
I just about can’t put it in words how I feel. Please, oh please, forgive me for what I have done wrong. Please give us another try before you go too far!
You can’t imagine how the days were spent Sat. eve, Sun., Mon., and Tues. Lots and lots of tears and many, many friends came to share their sympathy on Sun. and Mon.
O please come home, Irene!
From your brother full of faults,
Benedict
Dear Irene,
If words could only write the deep grief of my parents, how I would try to put on paper what they are going through. And I could find forgiveness if I had a part in you doing this. . . .
Please don’t feel anytime that you can’t face the ones at home because you are welcome.
Your brother wishing you were home,
Aaron
Dear Irene:
O please come home. Our home is so empty. We miss you very much.
From your brother,
Earl
O please Irene,
Please come home and try this reunited family. You cannot imagine the difference.
Hope to see you soon!!! We still love you greatly.
Elson
In all honesty, I couldn’t imagine the strife within my family had vanished between the day we left (June 8) and the postmark on the letter (June 14). It seemed inconceivable that my parents could patch up their differences in six days, or that my brothers and sister could forget all that had gone on before.
In time, I would discover my hunch was right. I learned that my father would preside over letters sent to me, dictating the content and context of the messages. Any appearance of unity, therefore, was rehearsed.
Most of the letters were also addressed to “Ruth Irene Miller,” or “Irene Miller,” or “Irene, c/o Ottie Garrett.’’ The latter was rare. More often than not, it was clear my family did not want to recognize Ottie’s place in my life, and perhaps even desired to drive a wedge between us.
Worse, I learned, when I’d send birthday and holiday cards to family members signed Irene and Ottie, the correspondence would often be burned.
Then there were the letters that can only be described as cruel, particularly one from my father after I’d tried to explain why our marriage was sound in God’s eyes:
We received your letter yesterday. . . . It broke our hearts again to see you try and use scripture to cover such an evil deed. Mom just cried and cried and finally she said if only you could have died when you fell out of the upstairs window. You wrote you have not died. We hope and hope you can repent before you’re spiritually without life.
The reference to the fall cut through me like a scythe.
I knew my mother couldn’t possibly have said it. And if she had, it almost certainly was at the prompting of my dad.
In any event, to tell a child you wished they had died—or wished they’d never been born or wished you’d never had them—has to be one of the harshest forms of mental abuse.
I could try to put an Amish spin on it and say the remark was similar to the one my father had made about my brother after little Tobias died. Tobias would never again be tempted by the devil. I would never again be tempted by the devil.
But I took it differently. I had so disgraced them by leaving the Amish that my death was preferable to my life.
I was about Tobias’s age, three or four, when I fell from the window. Summers, Bertha and I would move our bed next to the window so we could benefit from the nighttime breezes. One night, in my sleep, I rolled over against the screen and plunged two stories, headfirst, into a cement well at the edge of a flower bed. The force of the impact knocked me out.
When I came to, I walked around the house to the front porch, knocked on the door, and was let in by my parents. I told them what I thought had happened, but we didn’t seek immediate medical attention beyond visiting a chiropractor.
About a year later, I began having horrible headaches and stomach discomfort, and my parents took me to a hospital for tests, which proved inconclusive. When the symptoms continued, we consulted an Amish doctor and he concluded I had fractured my skull. The bone on one side of my head, he said, had developed a ridge at the break.
He put his hands firmly on my head and began pushing, trying to re-break the bone so it could set properly. The pain was excruciating and the recovery long. It would be several years before the headaches stopped.
My parents’ somewhat guarded attentiveness to my injury was common; the Amish would rather nature take its course than intervene. My mom broke her arm once and when the doctor told her to come back for checkups, my dad said, “Can’t you just let nature tell her if she has to come back or not?’’
Part of it was the reliance on nature, part of it was he didn’t want the medical bills to run up. In the end, the doctor gave in. My mother didn’t go back.
Sometimes, my father would seem to soften in his letters
, although they always sounded as if he was more concerned with himself than with others: “I would seriously long to see heaven when my life is over and I need peace with you,” he wrote.
Sometimes, he’d even tell me he loved me—something he’d never done when I was at home.
But I couldn’t escape the years of abuse or the years of suggesting a problem was someone else’s fault, not his.
If he could lay the blame elsewhere, it somehow absolved him of any wrongdoing. This was evident when Rick Farrant, my coauthor, visited his farm in the spring of 2000 to talk about the book.
My father opened the front door with a handshake and wide smile that turned to an icy stare when he learned the purpose of the visit.
“I don’t want any part of it,” he said. “I just wish you’d cancel the whole deal. That would be a blessing to me.”
“Why do you want the book canceled?” Rick asked.
“Because it’s wrong. It’s evil.”
“But it’s important to get both sides of a story. And you have a side.”
“I’ve said this before. I don’t want any part of it.”
He looked down and shook his head several times, a mannerism he would repeat often during the next fifty minutes of tortured conversation.
Then, as he leaned against the partitioned entrance to the living room, thumb and index finger fastened around a suspender strap, he asked if the discussion was being tape-recorded. It wasn’t at that moment. And now, it wouldn’t be. The record would be left to the author’s years of practiced recall; the kind that is jotted down the moment an interview is over.
Alvin talked about how he had tried to be a good father while at the same time upholding the strict rules of the Amish church.
“The scripture,” he said, “doesn’t bend to me. I’d like to think I bend to the scripture.”
He denied being abusive to his children, said that “of course” he loved them, and suggested that if Ottie hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have left.
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