Growing Up Amish

by Ira Wagler

  The conversation lagged now and then, but I didn’t panic. Neither did she. We’d known each other now for years. We talked of what was going on in the community and in our lives, and soon enough the clock struck midnight. It was time for me to go.

  I wanted to ask her for another date. Some guys waited until the actual day, a few weeks later, to ask for the second date, but I didn’t want to wonder, unknowing, for two weeks. I got up and got my hat, and Sarah walked me to the screen door on the porch. Just before stepping out, I asked her.

  “Would you consider another date in two weeks?” I felt as if I stammered. The words seemed stuck in my throat, but amazingly, they came out okay. Steady. Confident. I stood there, almost frozen with tension. And she stood there looking up at me and smiled.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I think that would be all right.”

  I breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I said. “Good night.” And with that, I stepped out, closed the screen door, and walked out to where the Stud stood patiently at the hitching rail. I untied him, got into the buggy, and headed for home.

  The roads were dead, except for a few other flashing blinker lights like mine. Other Amish suitors, heading home from their respective courting ventures. The Stud clipped right along, and we were home in about half an hour. And that was my first date with Sarah.

  25

  The next day, the news flashed through the community like a lightning bolt: Ira and Sarah. Wow, isn’t he robbing the cradle a bit? She’s only seventeen. And so on and on. Most of the guys, at least the single ones, were just envious, I figured.

  Besides me—and presumably Sarah—no one was more thrilled about my date than my mother. Sarah’s mom may have had her doubts, and probably did, but not my mom. She literally beamed and beamed the next day, and throughout that whole week. She liked Sarah a lot. But mostly, I think, she was happy for me. Happy that I had now seemed to find myself. And that I had found a woman. Once a guy my age started dating, it was only a matter of time. Historically, it had always been so, and Mom held fast to the belief that it would be no different for her son.

  It carried so many implications, that first date. So much was accepted as fact and planted in people’s minds, like seed. So many conclusions. It was a huge step for me. It signaled that at last there was for me a place of calmness and rest. That I would now live the rest of my life as an Amish man. Settle down quietly. All the past, all that wandering, was now as if it had never been.

  Sure, people murmured to one another, “You can tell Ira has been around a bit, just from his bearing. The way he carries himself. The way he speaks.” But that just added to the mystique. The wildness, that untamable streak, had now been broken. Sarah would see that it stayed that way.

  I walked about that week in a bit of a daze. She had agreed to see me again, in two short weeks. Time flies on wings when you are in love.

  Then, late that first week, a letter arrived addressed to me with no name or return address, but written in a polished feminine hand. I tore it open and scanned the end for a signature. It was from Sarah. What now? I quickly read the words.

  She was very sorry. She had agreed to see me in two weeks, but she would have to postpone that date. Her father thought she was a bit young yet, so he had decreed that she could see me only once every four weeks—at least until she turned eighteen. She hoped I would understand that’s just how fathers are sometimes.

  I sighed, half in frustration and half in relief. A Dear John letter of sorts, but not really. She had wanted to see me sooner but was forced to put it off for a bit longer. Two weeks longer. Which was pretty long, when you think of it. But time flies on wings, and all that.

  The days slowly passed, the fourth week eventually arrived, and I took her home again. And again, four weeks after that. And that’s the way it went until her eighteenth birthday, which we both welcomed and celebrated. We were excited and relieved. Now, we could see each other every two weeks. Twice as often as before. And we did.

  And time went on. Titus and Ruth continued their relationship, and their plans firmed up. In June 1984 they were married at Ruth’s home. Bishop Henry Hochstedler officiated in a wedding ceremony unlike any seen before or since in Bloomfield. A bearded Amish groom in a wheelchair, his betrothed standing by his side. It was a long day, and a tiring one for Titus. But by that evening, he was a married man.

  At our home farm, north of West Grove, we had built a house for Titus and his bride, just south of Mom’s huge garden, between Joseph’s place and our home. It was a simple bungalow with ramps outside for wheelchair access and large decks in front and rear. Titus was very much involved with its design. It was his dream house for his new world—wider doorways, a small spare bedroom, a large pantry, and heavily insulated walls. Titus even designed bookshelves recessed into the walls of his living room to accommodate his rapidly expanding library.

  It was a neat little nest of a home, perfectly suited to their needs. And after their wedding, the two of them settled in.

  * * *

  I struggled on with the farming. My efforts were halfhearted and pitiful, really. Still, I soldiered on. No labor of love for me, just doing what needed to be done—planting crops, cultivating corn, hauling manure, milking cows, and grumbling at my raggedy, unkempt horses.

  But it was not altogether hopeless. Even as the farm slowly crumpled around me, it still produced. The crops grew. Hay was harvested, and the cows produced milk, which was shipped and sold.

  Whether or not you are a farmer, there is something magical about tilling the earth, seeding it, and watching the fruits of your labor sprouting from the earth. Something magical about turning the river bottom with a plow and seeing the dark rich ribbons of dirt flowing endlessly from the plowshare. Doing it the way it was done a hundred years ago, with jangling teams of steaming horses leaning into the harness. Hour after hour in the elements of sun and wind and clouds, day after endless day, the sweat and toil and tiredness of it all.

  And so the seeds were planted, and the days passed. The tilled earth rested there, silent. We watched for the first green shoots. And one day, as the sun beat down in the humid air, they magically appeared. Tiny corn plants, sprouting from the earth. Barely a wisp of green at first, impossibly fragile. Then suddenly shooting up like weeds. In the following days and weeks, the plants strengthened. And grew and grew.

  And in the muggy heat of summer, after the sun had set, we could look out across the river bottom and behold a sea of whitish green leaves, shimmering in the shadowy light of the full moon. If we listened closely, we could hear the crackling, faint and spooky but distinct, like muffled pistol shots. The sound of cornstalks growing in the night.

  I saw it, felt it, and heard it all that summer.

  And through it all, two bright spots blazed in the weary labor of my world. Two things to which I tightly clung for my own sanity. Every chance I had, I hung out with my English friends in West Grove. And there was Sarah.

  Almost daily, usually around midmorning or sometimes after lunch, I straddled Fry, our riding horse, and we jogged the two miles south to Chuck’s Café. Frankly, that’s one big reason the farming wasn’t going as well as it could have. I spent too much time hanging out at the café, loafing. In a sense, every minute I spent there was a wasted minute when it came to the farm. But I didn’t really care. I hungered for the social outlet the café provided.

  It was a tiny, classic, country place, boasting no more than six or seven tables and a small counter with four stools. I helped myself to a cup of steaming coffee and sat there and traded lies and tall tales with the locals. In time, I developed deep friendships with some of them. It was a world I treasured, without which I would probably have lost my mind.

  In retrospect, I believe the café meant so much to me because the people in that world accepted me as I was. I was Amish. Dressed in barn-door pants; a battered, old, black felt hat; and galluses. I was different, but those people didn’t care. I had nothing to prove t
o them. They had no boxes and drew no lines to hem me in. Neither did they expect me to leave my world for theirs. They seemed to genuinely enjoy my company, and I certainly enjoyed theirs. And for those reasons, I was inexorably drawn to them, to the point where I was more comfortable around them than among my own people.

  There is no question that the world at Chuck’s greatly hindered me from fully immersing myself back into the Amish world. My English friends were free. Free to make choices as they saw fit. Free to live, really live. Free to drive cars and battered four-wheel-drive pickups. They farmed with tractors, not with sweaty horses. They spoke of the movies they watched, the things they did that I could not do. I listened hungrily, and enviously, to their talk.

  Dad must have sensed my mental state, because he did his best to keep me from that world. He hated the café because it was pulling his son from his world into a dimension he could not control. From the first, he instinctively sensed the danger. And, in time, he grew increasingly alarmed at my obstinacy. He frowned darkly when I left to hang out. He tried to warn me. He scolded and lectured me to stay away.

  And then, of course, I saw Sarah. After she joined the church, we started going steady, seeing each other every Sunday night.

  Our relationship was the same as thousands of others before us in the Amish world, progressing naturally to the ultimate culmination—marriage. I was always excited and eager to see her. She was beautiful, bright, and well read. She spoke articulately and wrote well. And as our relationship progressed, she fell in love with me. And she told me so and gave her heart to me.

  And I fell in love with her, too. Enough so that I promised her my heart and my life. But strangely, at the very point where I should have been excited—anticipating our future together—some spark inside me rose in resistance and held me back. The doubts were small at first—the fear of committing to something as serious as marriage. And revulsion at the thought of becoming an Amish man, married, bearded, confined, and grim.

  In spite of my love for Sarah, the doubts and fears multiplied and took root. Sprouted in my head like the corn sprouting on our river bottom. And as the weeks and months passed, they slowly expanded into full-fledged plants, crackling, crackling, and growing in the night.

  And I subconsciously began to resist the path that should have been so clear for me. Unfortunately, resistance was followed by distancing, then by withdrawal.

  As Sarah and I proceeded to each new level, I felt the pressure knotted deeper in my chest. The box closing in. Tighter. And darker. I could not express to Sarah the doubts that rose like monsters in my mind. So I closed off emotionally instead and withdrew from the woman I had courted, the woman whose heart I had claimed. It was a strange and terrible thing.

  I was not honest enough to speak to her about it—where I was, and where I was going. She sensed it soon enough, though, my emotional distancing, and tried to communicate to me her fears, her insecurities, and the strength she so desperately needed from me. I refused, at that point, to admit to her the obvious. That she was losing me.

  Though I did not realize it at the time, the clouds were quietly gathering in the distance. Coming together to form a perfect storm. At first I had no intention of ever leaving her. I could not have even comprehended such a thing in my heart. I would not have allowed my mind to go that far. I stumbled along, silent and helpless, and continued seeing Sarah, week after week. It was all so very cruel and so very, very wrong. But it was what it was, and I can only tell it like it was.

  26

  Marvin and Rhoda’s wedding came in October, four months after Titus and Ruth were married. This time, the wedding was at our home. The service was held in our large machinery shed. Sarah and I were honored to be Nava Hocca. And that day, for me it truly was an honor—my best friend married my sister.

  They bought a little trailer home and set it up on the hillside west of our house in the woods. And there they lived in contentment and quietness. A new, young Amish couple, starting up their own household, and soon their own family.

  Dad, worn and tired, decided to divest from farming and spend more time writing. He offered to rent the farm to Marvin and me as partners. I was excited. If I was ever going to farm, it would be with my best friend. Maybe we could make it work, the two of us together.

  And so Dad held a public auction to sell his stuff. Marvin and I were given full rein to purchase what we needed, all on credit. And boy, did we ever load up that day. We bought cows, machinery, horses, and equipment. Not everything Dad owned. Much was purchased by the public, outside buyers. But we bought what we thought we needed.

  In his own unpolished way, Dad did want what was best for his children. Wanted to help us as he could. And he did, as he could. Gave generously, to a fault almost. But he would help only his children who remained within the boundaries of the Amish way and lifestyle. His assistance was entirely conditional upon the decisions his children made.

  And so Marvin and I took over the operations on my home farm. The Wagler-Yutzy Farm, we called it. It sounded so professional, and it seemed as if it would work out. We labored long and hard in the fields. All was going as it should have, as the Amish formula of life foretold. It was also a time unlike any in my family’s history, before or since.

  For my parents, it was the beginning of a golden age that would last for more than a decade. They were surrounded by their married children. Six of them. Titus and Ruth lived a few hundred yards down the lane. Halfway out to the road, my brother Joseph and his wife, Iva, had settled with their family. My sister Naomi and her husband, Alvin Yutzy, and their family lived a half mile south. Stephen and his wife, Wilma, and their family set up house a mile south. Rachel and her husband, Lester Yutzy, and their family were a mile west across the fields. And Rhoda and her husband, Marvin, lived in a trailer up the hill on the home farm.

  In some small sense, it was my father’s empire. The Waglers were an influential force in Bloomfield, and he was the undisputed anchor of that force—the aging patriarch surrounded by his offspring, approaching the sunset of his years. There was no way he could have known that all too soon it would all be gone. Had he known, I suspect he would have treasured and appreciated those days far more than he did. Or maybe not.

  My mother, too, could not have imagined what the future held in store. And just as well she did not and could not know. Surrounded and honored by her children and grandchildren, she glowed when her daughters came home to spend the day with her, sewing and canning and quilting, doing the things Amish mothers and daughters do. Those times, I believe, were among the happiest of her life.

  The stage was set, or so it seemed. Set for the act in which I would soon play an important role. Where I would show that one could settle down after tasting of the world to the extent that I had. I was dating a lovely girl that I would one day marry. I was set up on the home farm with my best friend and brother-in-law. All that remained, all I had to do, was walk forward through that open door. Accept the path prepared for me. And live the life so many around me wanted me to live. In quietness and confidence and contentment, and all that.

  And it went okay around the farm, at least at first. Marvin and I were busy setting up our little operation. We planned to farm as our fathers had before us. We milked a dozen or more cows by hand and kept a few sows to raise and sell market hogs. We planted crops on the rich, black river bottom and harvested hay from the northern hills. Our grain bins and barn lofts were filled to the brim with the fruits of our labor.

  And every Sunday night after the singing, I took Sarah home. We were a steady couple now. One of those things that just was. But I felt the pressure of the next step closing in. After dating “steady” for a certain period of time, a couple is expected to proceed to the next level.

  And one Sunday night, because I sensed the time was overdue for what was expected of me, I decided to do the right thing and ask the question.

  I was nervous when we arrived at her house. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Our talk of
little things ebbed and flowed. And there was a time of silence. I held her there, in my arms, looked outside into the night, and then down again into her face.

  “Sarah,” I whispered. She tensed and looked up at me intently.

  “Yes?” she whispered back.

  I fumbled for the words that were not in my heart. Words I knew I needed to say sooner or later. And it was already later. So I spoke what was expected, what she wanted me to say, what my entire cultural world craned to hear.

  “Will you marry me?” I asked.

  She smiled; her face glowed. She tightened her arms around me. Her blue eyes sparkled. Shone with joy.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Ira. Yes.”

  I held her, looked down into her face. Her eyes were closed. She was at rest in the arms of the man she loved, the man she trusted. She was betrothed. Safe. Protected.

  Except, of course, she was not. I was not the man she thought I was. I was not safe. I glanced out into the darkness through the shaded windows. There was nothing to see but the deep gloom of the night. No moon, no light, no stars. Nothing.

  I was trapped inside the box, and the lid was closing. There was nothing I could do. I was lost.

  That’s how I felt on the night I asked Sarah to marry me.

  Midnight arrived at last, and she saw me to the door and hugged me good night. I walked out to where the Stud waited patiently at the hitching rail, untied him, got into the buggy, and we rattled home through the night.

  It is always a secret thing when an Amish couple get engaged. They know, and the immediate families, but that’s it. There is no formal announcement. Plans are made furtively and secretively. And, of course, there are no rings. Gold and silver jewelry would reflect pride. The Amish have never worn wedding rings. The groom may give his betrothed a gift, maybe a fancy dish or some other trinket that might or might not actually be useful. I can’t remember that I gave Sarah anything. I may have, and probably did. I just don’t remember.