Runaway Amish Girl

by Emma Gingerich

  I only stayed a month longer because I got accepted into college and I needed to now focus on school.

  §

  In the summer of 2007 I got my acceptance letter to attend Texas State Technical College in Harlingen, where I lived at the time. I signed up for classes for the fall semester. In order to pay for the classes, I filled out a Federal Student Aid application. Additionally, I had to provide four letters of recommendation because I did not have any of the required information from my parents. One was a personal letter from me, in which I had to explain my background, my plans for the future, and why my parents were not supporting me. I needed to provide those letters to get a financial aid override, so I did not need to have my parents’ income tax information. Actually, I did not know if they even paid income tax, but I knew it was pointless to ask because there was no way they would give me that information. In addition to applying for financial aid, I applied for scholarships and grants, and ended up getting enough aid to pay for all my classes and to live comfortably for a whole year. I was amazed at how things fell into place without having to worry myself to death.

  I went to my first day of classes; saying that I was nervous is definitely an understatement. I felt like I was an inch tall in a foreign country. I had studied for my GED at my own pace, and did most of my studying in a Literacy Center, so when I started college I had no clue what I was in for. Talk about drinking from a fire hose!

  I had no idea what homework was, or even worse, I did not know what quizzes were. Pop quizzes? Never heard of such a thing. Ask questions? No way! I would rather have died than to ask the teacher a question about something I did not understand. I knew if I started talking I would have to explain where I came from because of my bad English vocabulary and thick German accent. I did not want anyone to know I used to be Amish. Instead, I would go home and bust my brains out trying to figure out whether or not I was doing my homework right, and I would attempt to remember the important information I had to know for the next class period. I was all alone in my journey—no fellow ex-Amish people lived in my area to lean on for support, and the few people I did have in my life who I could trust could not understand how I felt. I was scared but excited to find out what I had gotten myself into.

  Chapter 8:

  A Change of Heart

  Sometimes your only transportation is

  a leap of faith.

  ~Margaret Shepard~

  While I sat in the recliner in my new home in Harlingen writing a letter to my mem, I wondered what I would be doing if I had stayed Amish. Before my escape, I had thought long and hard about what I wanted to do if I had remained Amish. I knew for sure I did not want to work for another Amish family again. I did not want to make baskets anymore. I did not want to be a schoolteacher. I did not want to get baptized, get married, and have children. Amish girls did not have much say in how they lived life back home. If I had stayed, I most likely would have been stuck at home the rest of my life raising children and doing housework. Ugh!

  Six months after I moved to Texas, I made plans to travel back home to visit for the first time since leaving. I felt more nervous about going back and facing everyone than the day I actually made the escape. I had received many letters during the last six months, and I feared the first visit would not be easy. I did not really expect it to be. I knew I needed to go back and try to explain why I had left rather than just write letters. Running away was not easy, but it would have been much easier if I could have just told my parents I was going to leave. It was very possible I would have been punished, though, for even talking about such behavior. I could not speak to them about anything that bothered me about the Amish rules, so informing my parents I planned to go “high” was out of reach. Being “high” was the phrase used when someone left the Amish. I had tried to give them hints I was not happy, but they either did not catch on or they did not care.

  Some of the letters I received before my first visit home confused me. One letter Jacob wrote said, “If you don’t make arrangements to stay at home then you shouldn’t even bother to come at all.”

  His statement hurt me, but I thought surely he could not be serious. The only way to find out was to take another leap of faith.

  Mem told me in another letter, “You have to wear Amish clothes because no one wants to see you with ‘English’ clothes when you come home to visit.”

  As I sat in the recliner finishing my letter, I thought about the dress I wore the day I left. It hung in the closet and I was not about to put it back on to go home. I knew Sarah and Amanda would not mind seeing me in jeans, or at least I hoped they would not.

  The Amish believed the Bible condemns those who do not honor their parents. I knew I had disobeyed my parents, but I also disobeyed them at home. I could not see the difference whether I stayed or not. Either way, according to the Amish, I stood condemned.

  After I was through re-reading the letter to my mem and reminiscing about the Amish way of condemning me, I continued to build up my courage to take that leap of faith and go visit.

  §

  My first visit home included my first plane ride to Kansas City. I could not help but feel vindicated that I was able to break another Amish rule—they believed in staying on the ground for any transportation. Slow, stinky horse poop kind of transportation at that. I got horribly sick on that flight, but it was still worth it.

  Virgil picked me up from the airport and we drove to his house in Jamesport, Missouri where I met Enos, my cousin who left the Amish shortly after I did. Enos then took me to my parents’ house about sixty miles away and dropped me off. I was scared not to have a getaway vehicle in case I needed it, but I rested assured that Enos was only a phone call away.

  After Enos dropped me off on that hot June day in 2006, I timidly walked to the front porch of the house where my young siblings sat and stared a hole in me. I did not see Mem or Datt, but I had a feeling they were hiding behind the windows in the house. Even the older siblings were nowhere to be seen. The farm seemed to be deserted. I sat down on the porch with my back turned against the door, not sure if I was welcome to go inside. I was almost in tears when Sarah and Amanda finally slipped outside to join me. I was relieved.

  I eventually made it inside where I faced Datt and Mem. Datt sat in his usual chair smoking his pipe; his face was white and his solemn blue eyes darted away from me as he said, “Vegates” (Hello).

  Mem sat in her rocking chair, her eyes red from crying. She managed to ask in a shaky voice, “Vee bischt du?” (How are you?)

  “I am doing good,” I replied softly.

  I sat meekly in a chair in the living room not knowing how to begin a conversation. The little girls followed me in the house and kept staring and occasionally grinning. Mem did not say much, but Datt got impatient and started stirring the pot.

  “You look like the world and you live like the world; how can you expect to be right with God?” he asked harshly.

  “I don’t think God judges me based on how I look, but rather what is in my heart,” I retorted.

  “And what exactly is in your heart?” He asked so sternly I was sure he thought I did not have a heart.

  “I am at ease with what I am doing now. I know that God is watching over me and I am trying to follow the path that he has chosen for me.”

  Not any calmer than before, Datt replied, “You are going the wrong way and you cannot convince me otherwise. You’ve been brainwashed and it’s scary.”

  I listened to him for a while longer. Sometimes I tried to put in my two cents, but it did not do any good. No matter what I said, I was always wrong. Datt made sure I knew I had committed a major sin and I was certainly going to hell. I used to think of myself as confined in a little cave. I would peek out a bit now and then and peer around like a mouse huddling in the shadows and looking at the big scary world outside. Deep down I knew if I stepped outside the cave I would speed down the highway to hell. I left the cave anyway, and soon after decided I was not heading to hell
for leaving my family. However, it was not so easy for my parents to understand.

  After a while, I left the room when there was a pause long enough to leave politely. My sisters followed me to the kitchen and they offered me a glass of water. I did not want to get mad on my first visit home, especially since Mem and my sisters had asked me to stay for the night. I wanted to keep the peace for their sake. With coaxing from Mem, I gave in and put on my Amish clothes. She gave me an ultimatum: either change clothes or sleep somewhere else. I was almost certain Datt had told her what to say to me before my arrival. I thought about it for a minute then decided I would do it out of respect, even though wearing a dress and head covering gave me dreaded flashbacks.

  It was worth it that night, though, when I got to spend some time with my sisters upstairs in my old bedroom. They were all a little unsure of how to talk to me, and they never asked what it was like living in the English world. I figured the reason they were not inquisitive was because they just could not comprehend I was now one of the outsiders. The saddest part was noticing the scared looks on some of my siblings’ faces. We ended the evening by just having good ol’ conversations about their lives in general, like school, work, and who was dating whom. Having conversations familiar to them seemed to break the ice and made it less stressful on everyone.

  The next morning, after breakfast, I helped wash the dishes, then afterward my siblings left me alone with Datt and Mem. We quietly sat in the basket shop when Mem finally asked, “What have we done to you that made you leave us?”

  I responded calmly: “I didn’t have a life here. All I did was make baskets or work for other families. But the biggest reason of all was the fear of having to join the church and then have the pressure to get married. The final decision to leave came after having balloons shot up my nose. It was enough to make any person want to get away from everything.”

  Datt said, “You didn’t have to get married.”

  “Then why did I have to date guys who were not even close to being my type. I remember how happy Mem was when she found out I was dating Norman and I could tell the sadness too, when I broke it off with him.”

  Datt soon wanted to change the subject. “I thought you were mad at us for taking you to the balloon doctor and that was the only reason you left.”

  “I was mad and it was ultimately the final trigger for me amongst all the other things that I didn’t like or could not understand. There are days where I still cry when I think about those awful treatments, and to think it was just a nervous breakdown I was going through.”

  Tears rolled down Mem’s cheeks. “I am so sorry we took you to that doctor,” she said. “If I had it all over to do again, I would change it.”

  “I accept your apology, Mem,” I replied, choking back tears.

  Datt looked at her and said, “I don’t think that the balloon doctor had anything to do with it. Emma is just being stubborn and wants to put the guilt on us.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that, Datt,” I chimed in. I could not stop the tears now.

  I was so furious with his comment I stood up and left the room before I started throwing things in his face. At that moment I realized he would never apologize for taking me to the balloon doctor. I walked from the shop to the house, and soon Mem followed. We sat in the living room and had a general conversation about everyday Amish life. No one brought up the dreadful conversation in the basket shop again.

  I stayed at the farm for three days without talking with Datt again. He just sat around the house silently, looking distraught. I felt sorry for him. I could tell it took a stressful toll on him when I left. In a way, I blamed his stress on himself, but I knew the Church and the whole community did not make it easy on him. I could just see a mental image of everyone judging him for the way he raised his daughter.

  When the time came for me to leave for Texas again, I was glad. I was more than ready to shed my Amish clothes and change back into something more comfortable—pants and a bright-colored shirt.

  A year later, in August of 2007, I visited home again, and this time things went downhill between Datt and me even worse than the first visit. He brought up the same conversation about everything I had done and was now doing wrong, and he preached on and on. I stood up for myself several times, which only made him angrier. Finally, I could not handle it anymore and I started crying and screaming uncontrollably. However, after the first day, everything calmed down again and Datt fell completely silent, just like he did during my first visit.

  I changed into my Amish clothes like before and stayed for several nights. I enjoyed visiting with the girls and Mem, except I had to be cautious what I said or did so I would not offend anyone. Everyone was very sensitive. And so was I. I tried to explain to them that I was going to be starting college soon after I got back to Texas. But that information rolled right over their noggins. In the letters I wrote to them I often mentioned the things I was doing, like studying for the GED exam and working at a Dollar General, but they never mentioned or asked me about it. Our conversations mostly stayed within their comfort zone: Amish life.

  The next year, in early 2008, after the third visit ended, I vowed to never go back home again. Every single time I visited, I stressed out so much that I almost broke out in shingles. Or it felt like I did. But I had to eat my words when I received an invitation to my brother Jacob’s wedding. I struggled with understanding why Jacob invited me when Datt still would not talk to me, but I decided to use the opportunity to show my family I still loved them. I just had to get past Datt’s rejection.

  §

  The letters started arriving a couple weeks before Jacob’s wedding, which happened to be scheduled during a busy semester at college for me. I still wondered why he would even invite me. Was it to make me feel guilty? If I did not go, he could make me out to be the bad sister, and if I did attend, he could make me feel uncomfortable and out of place. Either way, I lost. I did not know if he had invited me because he really wanted me to be there, or if his intention was to make me feel bad. I assumed the latter. I did not really want to go because I knew I would have to be Amish for a couple days, and I was not sure I was ready to handle it again after my last visit had caused so many nightmares.

  Jacob, the oldest child in our family, was eleven months older than me. He was a quiet man, but I was proud to have an older brother who was handsome and smart and handled himself with humility, like every Amish person was taught. His popularity helped me feel important on those Sunday mornings I rode with him to church.

  Although we did not talk about anything serious on those mornings, he could make me laugh with unexpected remarks about nothing in particular. He never opened up about what was going on in his life, and it did not seem right for me to ask him to share anything. He seemed to have his life together all the time, and I envied him. I cannot remember getting into a serious fight with him, and he was not the type to hurt any of his sisters, but there were days he would express some anger towards us if we did not listen to him.

  After I left the Amish, though, Jacob surprised me by trying to convince me to go back home by writing a letter designed to scare me. One night, while I was trying to go to sleep, I kept thinking about my brother and his upcoming wedding. I missed him dearly, but how could I summon the courage to go? I looked at the clock for the hundredth time, and at 1:30 A.M. I sat up in bed and turned on the light. I was annoyed with myself and I had no idea what to do to calm down.

  Finally, I climbed out of bed, walked to the closet, and pulled out a box of letters. Maybe reading some of Jacob’s old letters would help me decide whether to attend the wedding. I found some of them buried under hundreds of others I had received over the past two-and-a-half years. I had mixed emotions about reading them again. I could not remember exactly what he had written, but his letter was one of the first I had received after escaping. I had seen Jacob a few times since, and while it was not easy for him, he had started to accept me the way I was, albeit slowly. I sat
on the bedroom floor, my back against the wall, and removed three roughly-handwritten pages, scripted mostly in English mixed with a few German words.

  Hello Sister,

  Feb. 26, 06

  Greetings as always are being sent sadly from me to you. This is Sunday afternoon; I am trying to entertain myself, which is hard to do since you left. I decided to write a few lines your way to let you know what’s going on and what is going to happen. I just thought I would try and help you out of your nest that is getting deeper. God up above will hear and see everything you did and do. He will not forget at the end of the world or the end of your life. It is still time to make things right. It will make it much easier for you to face everyone if you give yourself up and come back home. You left a lot of good friends and relatives behind. I can’t see how you can enjoy yourself knowing you won’t get to see our aunts and uncles and a lot of cousins anymore.

  I am thinking you should straighten up because someone once told me that we can’t change parents, we just have to give ourselves up first. And I agree, because when I was younger, I had the same feelings you had. Then I gave myself up, Datt didn’t bother me anymore and all of a sudden I was happy all over again.

  You might be happy now, but think of the time when you are about to die and no relatives to visit with you. Do you think you would be wishing you had listened to Mem and Datt??? I am sure then, that you will cry many nights wishing to be Amish with your brothers and sisters, if not, let me know why? You are crazy for letting yourself go.

  If any of your brothers and sisters ever get married wouldn’t it shame you to not be at the weddings? And if you did come, do you think you could enjoy yourself as good because you are not Amish? Think about it!!