Growing Up Amish

by Ira Wagler

  The weeks rolled by, and I finally caved to the mental pressure. I decided to at least explore the idea of going back again to the Amish church. This time, I thought I might go to northern Indiana. There was a huge Amish community there, stretching from Ligonier in the southeast to Elkhart in the northwest, more than a hundred districts, total. Maybe even a couple hundred. Either way, it was a big place and a long-established settlement. I could try it there, I figured, without causing a lot of waves. They had seen about all there was to see when it came to wild youth. Besides, the place was so big, odds were nobody would even notice me or make a fuss.

  I wasn’t looking forward to the effort it would take to go back: moving again, getting rid of my truck, and forcing myself back into the mold. But a more powerful force was compelling me, pushing me forward—the force of fear. Not that I talked about it much to anyone, but it was there, a fear planted deep within me. The raw fear of hell and eternal damnation was the only thing that could ever have made me consider returning to any form of Amish life.

  We all long for inner peace. And I was simply following the only path I knew to try to reach it. Not that there were any guarantees. Only “hope.” No assurance of anything.

  I had a contact in the northern Indiana area, which is probably why the idea occurred to me at all. That contact was Phillip Wagler, one of my first cousins, who was born and raised in Aylmer. I’d known him all my life. A quiet guy a few years older than I was, he had married a local girl in the Ligonier area and settled on a farm. So I located his address and wrote him a short note. I told him what I was thinking and asked if they would consider providing a place for me to live. Of course, I’d expect to pay for my room and board, whatever they thought was fair. I hoped to find work in one of the many local factories that employed primarily Amish people.

  Phillip replied almost immediately, and I knew his response before even reading it. Phillip and his wife, Fannie, would be delighted to put me up and provide room and board. He was certain I’d be able to find work in the area, and he wanted me to know that he and his wife were eager to have me.

  I read the words he wrote. Absorbed them. I had taken the first step, the exploratory step. Now the offer lay there before me in black and white. The doors seemed to be opening for my return. All I had to do was walk through.

  Although that was just about the last thing I wanted to do, the invisible force of raw fear compelled me to seriously consider an option so repulsive. This was a chance to redeem myself. To return. If not to Bloomfield, then at least to the fold of the mother church. Return and make good.

  It wasn’t easy, considering going back. But it wasn’t easy, either, to consider the alternative, an eternity in hellfire. Pretty scary stuff. This was my last chance, I figured. I was twenty-five years old. If I didn’t make a decision soon, it would be too late. The desire to return would leave me. And like Cain, I would wander the earth alone. Lost. With no mark on my forehead for protection.

  I thought it through for a week or two. Or three. Then, in February, through sheer force of will, I made my decision. I would return, for one last try. One last attempt to make it as an Amish person. Strangely, my decision did little to relieve my inner tension. I wrote back to Phillip. I would move up in June, which somehow seemed like a safe distance. But I knew it would come soon enough. I told my friends of my decision. And Nathan. Of the choice I had made—again. He said little, but he supported me. If that’s what I wanted, then that’s what I should do. They all, I think, recognized instantly and instinctively that it would not work.

  I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the time I had left on the outside. June lurked out there in the distance like a Montana mountain storm, approaching slowly, relentlessly, soon to be unleashed with savage force.

  It was only a matter of time. From that point, the days passed at hyperspeed. Soon March rolled around, then April. I wanted to return to Alberta and help Ben Walters with the planting that spring, so I packed up and left Florida. Nathan wanted to settle in Daviess for a while, so I dropped him off on the way. After a few days of hanging out with the Wagler family and other friends, I headed for Alberta.

  On the way, I passed close to Bloomfield, so I stopped for a few days. I don’t know why, particularly. To see family, I guess. I told them of my plans to settle in northern Indiana and rejoin the Amish church there. I don’t know why they would have thought it would be any different this time, but they believed me. My parents smiled with joy. I was returning to the fold. That’s all that mattered. Whatever I had done in the past could be overlooked, forgiven, if only I returned.

  After a day or two, the Drifter and I headed into the Dakotas and then on into Canada. Ben and Donna welcomed me. By the next day, I was driving a four-wheel-drive tractor as big as a house, pulling an eighty-foot-wide harrow across the fields. For days and weeks on end, I tilled the vast fields of southern Alberta.

  All too soon, in late May, it was finished. And June approached. I fought the sinking feeling in my stomach, the dreaded thought of returning. But I held fast to the plan. There was no backing out. This was my last chance. It had to work this time. It simply had to. There was no other choice.

  I sold the Drifter in Lethbridge to one of my friends from the previous fall. After cashing out, I said good-bye to Ben and Donna and boarded a bus for the long trip back to Daviess, where Nathan would meet me. I’d stay with him a few days; then he would take me to Ligonier, Indiana, for my final return to the Amish church. One way or another.

  31

  After an exhausting three-day trek, my bus finally reached Daviess. Nathan was there, waiting for me, grinning. He was doing well. He had rented a small house in Odon, bought an old T-Bird, and made friends. He was getting established in the area.

  I hung out with him until the weekend. Then, on Saturday, we loaded all my stuff into his car and drove north. Four hours—the amount of time it took to reach the new land where I would try it all over again. I was running on pure adrenaline, fighting the rising panic inside me, focusing only on this final brutal sprint.

  Looking back, I don’t know how I did it. Given my history, this attempt was doomed to fail. I had left the Amish four times over the years. Each time brought its own degree of serious trauma, and there was not a single time I had returned with joy. Not one. Mostly it had been homesickness and nostalgia that lured me back. Or economic stressors. And after each return I realized almost immediately that I did not want to be there.

  But I was stubborn. Something of my father’s blood stirred in me. Unwilling to admit defeat, still trapped inside that box in my head, I would do what needed to be done. The Amish way provided my only chance at salvation, of this I was convinced. I knew it in my heart, and no one could tell me otherwise.

  I wonder now if my father would have been proud, had he known how deeply his influence and his teachings had invaded my soul. How strongly his presence and the craving for his approval and his love haunted me. Despite all I had experienced through the years, I was returning one more time.

  Nathan’s old T-Bird pulsed along, heading north around Indianapolis toward Ligonier. Closer and closer. Our conversation was muted and terse. Nathan could not understand what I was doing or why, but he would do what it took to get me there.

  And then, way too soon, we were pulling up to the farm. Phillip and Fannie walked out to greet us, smiling in welcome. Their farm was a tidy little place with a rather ramshackle farmhouse. They were childless, so there was plenty of space in their house, and they very much looked forward to having me around.

  Nathan helped me carry my bags inside and upstairs to my room, then politely declined Fannie’s invitation to stay for supper. After visiting for a bit, he turned toward the door, ready to leave.

  I fought back wave after wave of panic. After Nathan left, I would be stuck here on this little farm, with no way to get around. Trapped in a strange land, where I knew no one but my cousin and his wife.

  I walked Nathan to his car, sh
ook his hand, and thanked him. He got in, started the engine, and shifted into gear. The car slowly pulled out, tires crunching on the gravel lane. I watched as he turned onto the paved road and then was gone, heading back to his world in Daviess.

  I turned back to the house, where Phillip and Fannie stood smiling. I walked toward them, smiling in return, but my heart was sinking. In that desperate moment, I was as lost as I’d ever been.

  * * *

  The days and weeks that followed are blurred in my mind, as are some of the things that happened while I struggled to settle into this strange new place. It was Amish, but it was vastly different from Bloomfield—or Aylmer, for that matter. I had always lived in small communities of one or two districts. This settlement was massive, stretching many miles in all directions. These people had been here for many generations. Some of their habits and customs seemed strange to me. Small things, probably indiscernible to anyone from the outside. Differences in dress. The area is one of the few where galluses are optional for men in many districts. Distinctive head coverings for the women. Even the cadence of their talk seemed odd. Other than that, I can’t put my finger on exactly what was different. It just was, the entire area, I mean.

  I settled in uneasily, always aware of my surroundings, always aware of my status in this place. I was a stranger here, in a strange land.

  The first order of business was to get myself some means of transportation. In northern Indiana, the Amish are allowed to ride bicycles. In fact, the roads are practically clogged with Amish bikers, and after trekking to a local Amish cycle shop, I joined their ranks. I chose a brand-new, bright blue twelve-speed, with collapsible baskets mounted over the rear wheels. It was the first bicycle I had ever owned. And that was my transportation, except on Sundays when I drove to church in an old buggy Phillip owned.

  I knew no one. People were friendly enough, and they did their best to visit with and include me, but it was tough. I was an older single guy, and I didn’t exactly fit in anywhere, under any circumstances. That was bad enough. But then almost immediately, I walked smack into a serious roadblock as the Amish bishop in the Ligonier District, a harsh, screeching man who will remain unnamed, rose like a specter to confront me.

  After my last desperate flight from Bloomfield, I had been excommunicated from the Amish church. As was the custom, immediately following services one Sunday, good Bishop Henry Hochstedler had stood before his flock, sadly proclaimed me a heathen, and formally cast me over to Satan, to be shunned as an outcast. There were tears in his eyes, I was told, as he officiated over that somber little ceremony. I was also told that Mom was “sick” that day and stayed home, so she wouldn’t have to endure the pain of hearing the bishop’s words. I was her son. I would always be her son, excommunicated or not.

  Now, after moving to Ligonier, I planned on performing my official penance there and doing whatever it took to be reinstated and have the excommunication lifted. It wasn’t that unusual, what I was planning. Those who left and were consequently excommunicated were known to rejoin somewhere else in another area, for a fresh start and all. It happened, here and there, and the preachers usually understood and did what they could to ease the journey back.

  On my new bright-blue bike, I cycled over to see the bishop on his farm one fine summer afternoon. He was outside, puttering around the barn. He was a short, dark hulk of a man with a large, untrimmed, red-black beard. Not that old, really, probably in his midforties, but he seemed old to me back then. He saw me approaching and paused, almost as if he were irritated at being interrupted in his work. He grimaced with what barely passed as a smile.

  I introduced myself and his “smile” disappeared. He glared at me suspiciously.

  “I’m here,” I stammered, “to see if I can rejoin the Amish here in your church, be taken in as a full member.”

  I explained how it had gone in Bloomfield, the people I had hurt when I left, and how I had been excommunicated. I really didn’t want to have to go back there, to rejoin, I explained. I would also save face rejoining here, I thought, but that fact remained unspoken. We both knew the real reason.

  The bishop did not seem receptive, or even cordial. He stared at me grimly, unsmiling and hostile. I could feel his spirit, thick as smoke. Then he spoke, his rasping voice echoing across the barnyard.

  “No,” he said. “You will need to return to Bloomfield and make things right there. After they take you back as a full member, you are welcome to move here and transfer your membership to my church. But not before.”

  I tried to reason with him. “You don’t understand,” I said. “I really don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back. There’s just too much there, too much bad blood.”

  I may as well have choked on my words, for all it mattered. He listened to me speak, but he refused to hear. Nothing would sway him. He was every bit as dense as he appeared. Denser, even. Obtuse. And hard inside, like a rock.

  “I won’t lift your excommunication. I will not do it. So you can decide,” he thundered. “Go back and make things right, where it happened, or don’t.” His dark face reddened. At least the part I could see, what with his beard and large black hat and all. He was way too stirred up. He was flat out raving mad, as in crazy. And also as in angry. Every definition of mad there was. It was no use. I would get nowhere arguing with him.

  What a nut, I thought. But I said nothing. Instead, I mumbled something under my breath, turned, mounted my bike, and fled from the mad bishop of Ligonier, Indiana.

  Most Amish preachers and bishops are not bad men at heart, not when you dig down deep. Most want to do what they can to help a person. Somewhere, down below that somber facade, a kind heart beats. In most of them, at least. But that particular bishop, the absolute dictator of the Amish church district in Ligonier in 1987, holds the dubious distinction of being one of the meanest, flat-out nastiest men it has been my misfortune to meet. Ever. In all my wanderings, Amish or otherwise. There was no joy in him or kindness. Only rage and vindictiveness.

  I should have given up right then. Wrapped up my scant affairs, left, and returned to Daviess. And I seriously considered that option. But ultimately, I could not do it. I felt stuck. I had made too much of an effort already, come too far. What would people say? I’d been in northern Indiana only a week or so. I could almost hear the snickers. Besides, that’s what the mad bishop expected, what he wanted me to do. He was sure I was a fraud and that I’d give up and go away and stop bothering him. If I did that, it would only prove him right. He’d probably even smile for real, something he likely hadn’t done in years.

  But I refused to give him that satisfaction. Furious, I was determined to prove him wrong.

  Back at the farm, I sadly told Phillip and Fannie what the mad bishop had decreed. That I would have to humble myself. Crawl. And after being restored as a member in Bloomfield, I could return. They sat there in utter shock. In all surrounding districts, my request would have been honored. Every other bishop would have fallen all over himself to assist me on my difficult journey. The mad bishop was the lone exception in all the land. But now that he had spoken, he would be supported by the others. Church politics and all. The others would be forced to back him up in his irrational decision. There was nothing to be done except obey. Quietly, carefully, Phillip and Fannie told me these truths. I would have to do as the mad bishop had instructed: return to the source of so much pain and sadness.

  It was unfathomable that I would have to walk right back into the lions’ den. Bloomfield. The place swarming with so many dark memories, where they knew me inside and out, all my history. They would not make it easy. It would be a tough road. But my course was set. I would do what I had to do. I had no other choice. At least none that I could see.

  The following week I boarded the train in Elkhart and settled in for the journey west. The train clacked along to my connection in Chicago, and from there, the final sprint toward Bloomfield.

  As the miles flowed by, I sat, unmoving. Inside, I fe
lt almost nothing. I could not even think of what awaited me. What I would experience back in the community I had fled a year ago. I could focus only on doing what needed to be done and on getting back to Indiana in one piece.

  An English driver met me at the train station in Ottumwa. I boarded the van, and we were off.

  Home still looked the same. Everyone greeted me eagerly. Marvin and Rhoda. Titus and Ruth. Mom and Dad. They all seemed happy to see me, especially now that I had returned to rejoin the church. That’s all that was important, even though everyone knew I would not stay in Bloomfield. That was fine with them. As long as I remained Amish, it did not matter where.

  The week passed slowly. On Sunday, Bishop Henry and the preachers would await me. In their defense, I know they were all genuinely happy that I had decided to return and right past wrongs, to come home and face the music. The Amish always welcome returning sinners. Always. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done. Erring members who left in disgrace, those who have been excommunicated and shunned, they are always welcome to return to the fold. Of course, if they return, certain requirements are made. Repentance must be shown. Abject submission is absolutely required.

  Bishop Henry and the preachers would see to it that I walked through fire and groveled in the dust, that there was no remaining shred of rebellion in me. They would hector me until I was witless, half-mad with stress. And I would submit, utterly, basely, to their satisfaction before they would restore my membership and lift the excommunication. I was trapped, completely at their mercy.

  Even so, I was welcomed that first Sunday morning as we stood around outside before the service. People shook my hand and smiled. I walked inside and sat with my peers in my normal spot. Feeling a bit like a lamb walking to slaughter, I got up during the first song and followed the preachers to their Obrote, or conference, as I had done years before during baptismal classes. But this time I was the only one. There was no baptismal class. Just me. I followed the preachers into the side room and shut the door.