My Amish Childhood

by Jerry S. Eicher

  Uncle Stephen, as the deacon, was never in running for the office of bishop. Some Amish communities include their deacons in the voting and others don’t. My feelings are that Aylmer didn’t. Or perhaps Uncle Stephen recused himself for personal reasons. In any case, they had only Ministers Richard and Vernon in the pool.

  In the end, the ordination of a bishop was postponed. This decision apparently had its appeal for all concerned. And later Ministers Richard and Vernon would still have their opportunity at drawing the lot for bishop. Not much is diminished in a two man draw versus a three.

  So Bishop Byler arrived with his wife, Mattie, flying into that primitive airport in Tegucigalpa. It’s still one of the shortest runways in the world used by commercial aircraft. You come in tight over the hills, making the circle to land in one long swoop, with the landing craft nearly dragging the tile rooftops. Grandfather met Bishop Byler and his wife outside customs and escorted them home across those four dusty hours on the bus.

  That Sunday we climbed the church house hill for our Amish service. No locals were invited, though if they came they weren’t turned away. We had our German singing and then ministers Richard and Vernon went through the story of the Old Testament, speaking completely from memory. The first speaker took the story up to the time of Noah. The second, all the way to the end of the Old Testament.

  At lunchtime we spilled out on the hillside. Families sat together eating their prepared lunches. Sandwiches, if I remember correctly, and a slice of pie for dessert, with water to drink from the spigot attached to the front of the schoolhouse. We spoke little, and then in soft tones. The women picked up the lunch leftovers, and everyone who needed to headed for the outhouses. These were down the hill a ways. The women’s closer to the church house and the men’s over the knoll. The line back inside started soon afterward. The afternoon service got underway by one-thirty or so.

  Bishop Byler had the floor to himself for the afternoon sermon. He told the story of Christ, beginning at the time of His birth and concluding with His crucifixion. All was told in great detail without notes and took close to three hours. Then the bread and the wine were served, followed by foot washing and the votes for the bishop ordination. During the vote, a peculiar stillness fell over the room. However the vote went, a man and his wife’s lives would be changed forever.

  It took three votes to get into the running. A few minutes later we were told the news. Three men had made it: Uncle Joe, Monroe Hochstetler, and David Peachey. And on such a thin thread hung the future of our church. David Peachey was probably considered most likely to be a liberal minister because of his caring spirit. I think service to mankind would have been his guiding light. Some Amish principles might have been viewed as injurious if they stood in the way of the cause of reaching out to people in Christ and helping them.

  Uncle Joe was the conservative candidate. He certainly would have held the line and stopped the drift that was going on. Likely his leadership would have split the church eventually, but he would have maintained the Amish heritage.

  The kind of minister Monroe Hochstetler would make didn’t have to be imagined because the piece of paper determining the outcome of the vote was found in his book. Bishop Byler took it out, stared at it for a moment, and then looked at Monroe. Sobs shook the candidate’s shoulders before a word was spoken. The other two men rose and walked back to their seats, their brief moment on the historical cliff withdrawn. The people bowed their heads in submission to the will of God. Bishop Byler ordained the young man, charging him to preach the Word of God in season and out of season.

  I would eventually grow to love Monroe Hochstetler as I have cared for few Amish ministers. Under his preaching years later God found me. I experienced His inexplicable love that defies understanding. I could have understood God’s love directed toward many of those around me, but toward me? That was baffling.

  Minister Monroe, later Bishop Monroe, didn’t make a good Amish church leader though. Not because he was corrupt or ever left the faith. The man had a heart of gold. He just didn’t have a clue regarding the politics of the leadership positions. He couldn’t find his way through the maze of Amish church relationships to save his life. He would lose his church eventually, but he reached my soul. I wonder which he would have chosen if he’d been given the choice? I’m quite sure he’d pick the soul over the church. Monroe Hochstetler was that kind of a man.

  Chapter 13

  My youngest sister, Sarah Mae, was born September of 1971. The cutest of the bunch. So we were now nine souls in that little wooden cottage. Dad started talking of building a new house across the road.

  Meanwhile Grandfather Stoll continued to regularly drive up and down the length of the Sanson ranch, bouncing by in his cart while his jolly face greeted one and all. The locals loved Grandfather. They apparently even loved him too much to steal his horse! But then one morning Silver turned up missing. Everyone was sure he was gone for good, taken as part of the petty thievery that occurred from time to time. Uncle Mark told us about the affair, shaking his head at Grandfather’s loss. Things would never be the same without Grandfather’s cart and Silver creeping along the ridge across from us while heading toward his store out by the main road.

  The next morning Silver was back! Standing there, calmly chewing grass in the pasture. He had distinct saddle marks on his back. Someone had apparently borrowed Silver and decided to return him—an occurrence unheard of in that culture. Grandfather smiled even more the next day.

  He continued to struggle with health problems. Everyone knew of his heart condition, but they assumed it was under control. Still, they said things like, “He’s lost a percentage of his heart usage,” “He has to take things easier,” and “But he should be okay.” Grandfather made frequent trips to see a doctor in Tegucigalpa, a Dr. Lazarus. And things were going as they should be, we were told.

  I was ten years old on the morning he died. I remember little about it other than the usual daily events that transpired like so many had before them. We awakened with the dawn, dumped our dreaded chamber pot, and had breakfast.

  We always were up by six o’clock. I don’t remember anyone sleeping in. Honduras was that way. Mornings were not a time for staying in bed. The whole country awakens, bathed in the sensual stroking of the dawn. Smells drift through the open windows heavy with the scent of fruits and all things growing. Blackbirds make a terrible racket. The males hang around on the trees outside, their long plumage wrapped in the leaves. A thousand soft murmurings and the breathing of small insects are everywhere. And even on early mornings, a pair or two of the larger parrots could fly by in straight lines toward their destination. They croak, filling the air with sweet sounds that speak of mysterious sights in the mountains that our eyes have never beheld. Later, their smaller cousins would be out. Great flocks of them whirling in the sky. They were everywhere in those days, and a curse to the cornfields. But we reveled in the sight of their united flight. They could blanket the whole tops of trees if they chose to land. We boys would creep up with our Honduran slingshots and fire blindly into trees.

  So it was in the midst of that regular morning that Mom disappeared around ten o’clock. Someone had arrived, had a short conversation, and she left. I can’t remember her saying much to us children. She was just gone—on up to Grandfather’s place. When she didn’t return by lunchtime, I took it upon myself to investigate. I think I stopped in at the shop just to confirm with Dad where Mom was. Yes, he said. She’d gone to Grandfather’s place. He didn’t offer any further information. I walked across the fields, using the shortcut to Grandfather’s house, walking on a little, winding pasture path.

  I arrived at the two-story house to find a huddle of people standing near the outside stairs. Their faces were drawn, shock written on them. Mom appeared and whispered to me that Grandfather Stoll had passed away. This was information I couldn’t quite absorb. He’d been well the last time I saw him. Mom led me upstairs and took me inside where more weeping peopl
e were standing and wiping their eyes with their handkerchiefs. No one said anything. Grandfather lay on the bed beside the window in the living room. He was on his back, his face blank. We stood there looking at him. Mom sobbed. “He just passed minutes ago,” Mom told me. “If you’d come earlier, you would have been here. He died with ‘Komm bald Herr Jesu’ [Come quickly, Lord Jesus] on his lips.”

  I felt no particular emotion about not being there earlier or, for that matter, about being there at that moment. It all seemed detached for some reason. As if this was something that wouldn’t affect me. And yet it would. It would affect all of us deeply. Grandfather was the center pin that held the life of the community together. With him gone, nothing would ever be the same.

  I found my way outside and down the stairs. My uncles walked around, not speaking to me. Young Joseph Peachey arrived on his horse, galloping down the lane on some unrelated errand. I told him what had happened, and he stayed on his horse, saying nothing. His mother was battling cancer by then. I remember wondering if he was thinking of her possible passing. His face revealed nothing.

  I stood aside while Joseph sat on his horse and conversed in whispers with the adults. Moments later he wheeled his horse about and dashed off. No doubt sent on an errand to spread the news.

  Uncle Alva came rushing in on the pasture path soon after Joseph Peachey left. He carried a small wrapped bottle under his arm. The alarm on his face changed to tears when they told him. He was too late, having been sent on a desperate errand to buy wine when Grandfather’s attack had begun earlier in the day. I have no idea what medical value they considered the wine to have, but no doubt Uncle Joe believed it did. And now Uncle Alva slowly made his way upstairs with his shoulders heaving, his sorrow evident and made worse for not having been there in the last moments of his father’s life.

  Mom and I soon left for home. As was the custom, nonfamily members from the community would come in for the funeral preparations the next day. Mom must have been back and forth after we were in bed that night, helping where she could.

  Telegrams were shot off to Aunt Mary in Canada, and phone calls were attempted. Everyone knew there was no way Aunt Mary could make it down in time for the funeral, even if they managed to place a call through to the phone in the Aylmer schoolhouse.

  This was Honduras, and Grandfather must be buried within twenty-four hours, a task that fell on several unrelated young Amish boys. They began their grave-digging duties early the next morning. I remember seeing them still at it when the service began at nine. The hillside below the church house was made of shale rock, and the grave-diggers were making little progress. I heard later they finished a short time before the conclusion of the service and were forced to resort to axes for the final foot.

  The little church house on the hill was filled to overflowing. Grandfather had made many friends among the locals. A great many of them came, pouring in to fill every nook and cranny of the building. I remember little of the actual service, but when we filed by to view the body, those images are etched in my memory. David Peachey was standing guard at the coffin, fanning Grandfather’s face to keep away the flies in the warm weather.

  Once through the viewing line, we spilled out on the hillside to wait, the grave down the grade finished now. The crowd swelled, moving with the simple wooden casket as it was carried out. I can’t remember who said the last words at the graveside. I remember only the multitude of people spread out in all directions, pressing in to get closer. They buried him facing toward the east, toward Jerusalem from where the morning will come.

  Death had come to claim its first victim in the community. And not a child, tragic as that would have been, or even Uncle Stephen when the tree fell on him. But Grandfather Stoll, the one we could least afford to lose. We bowed our heads and didn’t question the will of God, the One who makes no mistakes.

  Chapter 14

  No story better captures for me the essence of what Grandfather Stoll was than my own experiences with him. The incident I have in mind began one Saturday afternoon. Mom was spending time at Grandfather’s house like she often did. I was sent out with Grandfather to pick up fallen mangoes. We each carried a five-gallon bucket, filling them with the still-edible fruit that lay on the ground.

  Parrots were ever-present pests, as well as other birds, and if the fruit was too badly picked at, we left it. I remember Grandfather being withdrawn that afternoon—pensive—as we searched under the mango trees behind the house. I can’t remember what I did wrong to irritate him, but I suspect my attention wandered rather quickly from mango gathering to any number of more-attractive activities for boys. There were birds everywhere. And my slingshot was present to practice with.

  I remember him repeatedly snapping at me. It could have been for my selection of fruit or from my lack of progress in filling my bucket. I certainly didn’t fear the man. I was more puzzled than anything because this wasn’t his usual behavior. We muddled through the afternoon somehow and returned to the house. I thought no more about it, returning home with Mom when she was ready. Before we left I didn’t hear Grandfather complaining about me. Nor did I mention the incident on the way home. It just was what it was.

  The next morning we awoke and dressed for Sunday services, walking up the lane toward the church house. Reaching the bottom of the hill, we headed up. To my great surprise, Grandfather was waiting outside of the church house, his face sober. Some grave thing had happened, I figured, and he would be speaking with Mom and Dad. Instead he motioned for me to step aside.

  I listened in shocked astonishment as he apologized for his behavior the afternoon before.

  “I shouldn’t have acted like that,” he told me. “I’m sorry.”

  I nodded my head in acceptance, hoping to bring a quick end to the conversation. It seemed so out of place. My grandfather, the man we all looked up to, the man who talked with bishops, taking the time to tell me he was sorry? But that was how Grandfather was, a man of passions but always trying to become more like his Savior. I remember that day, not because I had my heart broken, but because when that day came I had seen a man I loved who cared. And because of that, I would be able to look on those who had injured me and continue believing that good people existed in this world. Would I be able to do that had I not seen the evidence with my own eyes? I’m not sure.

  Another story that illustrates my grandfather’s life is somewhat of an Amish parable. As it was told to me, there was once a gentleman who needed to hire a coachman for his frequent drives in his carriage. When the gentleman advertised for the job, three applicants showed up. After interviewing all three and looking at their references, there seemed to be little difference between them. The gentleman was at a loss as to what he should do.

  He soon stumbled on a plan. He would take each of the applicants with him in the coach. They would harness all six horses for the test drive, and how the applicants handled themselves driving the horses would settle the matter.

  The gentleman explained the plan to the three and showed them the lay of the land. Behind his house was a wicked hill with a very sharp curve. Here the test would be conducted. He would personally see how each man handled that turn on the hillside.

  The first driver got in the seat and followed the directions he was given. As he approached the hill, the driver sized up the grade and decided this was his chance to show his skill. Taking the carriage out close to the edge of the cliff, the driver expertly handled the horses so that everything stayed under control with the carriage wheels passing a mere two feet from the edge. Complimenting himself, the driver finished the test and, smiling all the while, handed over the reins to the second. His deed would not be easily topped, he figured.

  Grasping the reins the second driver took the seat, letting out the reins for a fast takeoff. They approached the dangerous curve again, with the second driver thinking the same thoughts as the first one had. He would need to make the most of this opportunity to demonstrate his skills. The face of the second driver
fell at the sight of the carriage wheel marks laid out a mere two feet from the cliff’s edge. This was not going to be easy. With his heart pounding, the second driver took the carriage even closer, to within a foot of the edge, the dashing horse’s hooves throwing rocks over the cliff.

  The second driver smiled smugly to himself. His skill could not be matched, he figured.

  The third driver climbed in the seat and they set off again. Arriving at the curve, the driver noticed the wheel marks plainly and wondered how he was to top such excellent driving.

  “This is hopeless,” he said to himself. “We might as well get this over with and go back.” So he slapped the reins, and plowed ahead, staying clear away from the cliff’s edge, far from the previous drivers’ wheel tracks.

  With a rattle of wheels they arrived back at the starting point, and the third driver brought the team to a halt with a long face.

  Now the gentleman stuck his head out the window of the carriage and looked up at the third driver. “You’re hired there, my good man.”

  Whereupon all the drivers looked at each other with astonishment.

  “What…what did he do?” the second driver stammered. “He couldn’t have driven any closer than I did.”

  “I didn’t want him to drive any closer,” the gentleman said. “I wanted all of you to stay away from that cliff’s edge.”

  The moral of the story in Amish country wasn’t that hard to figure out. You stayed away from anything questionable. And Grandfather Stoll always did try to drive well away from the edge of the cliff. Even with his passion for mission outreach and his hand in founding an Amish settlement on foreign soil, he believed both to lie well within the will and protection of God. And if he had lived he might have kept things from running over the edge.