Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

David and family have 14 horses, which includes buggy horses and draft horses. He told me most districts have a buggy maker. Each son gets a horse and buggy when they turn 17 and, like most people, they take pride in their new kind of transportation. A pleasure or workhorse costs from $1,200 to $1,500. The buggy costs about $2,300. A new buggy should last a lifetime. David said he has had the same buggy since he and Ada were married. They sometimes have to paint them and redo the wheels, but they should last 30 to 40 years.

Do you remember the controversy about the Amish using slow moving signs on the back of their buggies? That was not a factor for this family; they just do it for their own safety. They also have battery-powered lights on the back of their buggies and some reflector tape outlining the buggy. David says he pulls off the road if he can when a car is coming from the back.

We were looking out the window on a cloudy day and I suddenly thought about the yard. I asked how the yard was mowed. Of course…a hand push lawn mower. I looked past the bordered white fence down the dirt road and saw a black buggy coming. I could tell the buddy wasn’t traveling slowly. The mode of travel is faster than we think. The buggy turned in David’s driveway. I exclaimed, “Oh, I want to go for a ride! Who is coming,” I said. David said, “Its our neighbor.” Then, he excused himself and put on his coat and went outside to talk to the person.

One of the older girls had been sitting listening to us talk, so I asked her name. “Martha” she said. I asked if she liked school. “Yes, and I have one year left.” She told me she has friends and sometimes spend the night. I wanted to know if her hair was braided under her cap. It was and I found out her mother braids it for her. I asked her about the different colors of caps the girls wore. She said babies have a white cap until they are two-years-old, then they get a black cap until they get out of school, and then they again get a white hat. I asked Martha what she thought of us who live in a modern and mechanized world. She just shrugged her shoulders and had no comment.

Ada makes and sells sunbonnets to the Amish Market along the interstate at St. Charles, MN. When David came back into the house, he freely told me what the neighbor wanted: the children get one week of vacation in the fall for corn husking, and the neighbor wanted to know if it was okay if they postponed the vacation one week, because the corn wasn’t ready. David says they have no corn to husk, so they use this time to cut the winter firewood. They also so the manure spreading at this time and clean the chicken house. He stressed that every school day for children starts with prayer.

The Yoder live in a lovely home. It’s large and rectangular, has two stories, and is painted white. I commented on the big screened in front porch. David said that addition was just done this summer for the impending wedding of his daughter. The house has a hill to its back, and it’s front overlooks the fields below. Barns and buildings and a woodworking shop surround it. David took pride in showing me his clothesline on pulleys that stretch from the back door to the barn. Allowing Ada to only have to step outside, hang the clothes piece by piece and not have to take one step. All she has to do is use the pulley to push the clothes toward the barn and high in the air to blow freely in the breeze. Washday is on Monday and Thursday. This large house has six bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. There are two staircases. I was told this is in case of fire. There is a heating stove in the large living room, and the cook stove is used to heat too. David said they have remodeled this house. There are wind up clocks on the wall and Ada was happy to tell me about a clock she got on a sale for just $15, because the key was missing—they thought. When they picked it up, the key fell out of the back of the clock; a bargain it was. David said most of their furniture came from sales. The furniture is of Shaker style, and with David being in the woodworking business, he has been able to refinish each piece and make it look like new. David said when a girl gets married, they get a hutch and the son gets a desk. The kitchen has a countertop, except there is no sinkhole. Pans are used to do the dishes. Ada has china hutches full of pretty dishes, and all the dishes that sit in the open are washed every Saturday. The floors were pretty hardwood and shiny. I said, “do you sweep everyday?” Ada said on most days they are swept three times a day. Between the dining room and the living room hung a cage with a yellow canary in it, and that bit of living yellow added brightness to the area. There is no carpet in the house, just throw rugs. There are no curtains, just pull blinds. There are no wall decorations.

The Yoders take no photographs to have for the future. When I asked Ada about not having any pictures to remember what her children looked like as babies, she gave a good answer. “Guess I will just have to remember what they looked like.”

There were kerosene lamps on the walls and they are lit at dusk for a little while, but later the Yoders light the gaslights, which give out more light. Bedtime is from 9:30 p.m. to 10;00 p.m. There is a kerosene lamp for each bedroom and is used for only undressing and getting into bed. “Is it time to light the lamp?” I kept asking. “Pretty soon,” said David.

Gravity flows the water to the house and to a sink on the wall. There is a wringer washer that runs on a gas engine. There is a vat in the basement that is about 30 x30 inches, and is heated with wood for the wash and baths. There is a fiberglass bathtub in the basement, with a place to drain it in the floor of concrete.

All of David and Ada’s children were born at home, except the first one, which was born in the hospital. Ada had a midwife with her at each birth. Most Amish families have 12 to 14 children. According to David, the man is the head of the house, but he tells me he listens to Ada, because she might have a better idea than he does. He tells me the household buying and decorating is up to Ada. When I wanted to know how they kept milk and butter cold, I was told they have a cooler outside of the door that holds a block of ice, and when things need to be stored for longer they are taken to the icehouse. The family cuts ice from the ponds in the winter and it is stored in the icehouse.

The Amish women preserve food for the winter. Ada and her three married daughters canned 400 quarts of applesauce in a day this past summer. They hunt deer and mix it with a bit of pork and can the meat, as they do their beef. Ada thought they usually canned about 1,000 jars of preserved food a year. They raise and butcher about 300 chickens a year, and also sell some. They raised as many as 1,200 a year. They buy chicken fee. Ada has 30 laying hens to provide eggs. I asked if the read a newspaper, and they do. The family takes the local newspaper, and they took the newspaper of the larger surrounding towns for a while but David said it wasn’t good reading with all the bad reports so they don’t take them anymore. Farm and ranch magazines are also read. They also take a weekly Amish newspaper printed in Sugar Creek, Ohio called the Budget. Every district has a scribe who writes the news for their area, so each Amish family can read what is happening back home weekly. A plea might be noted in the paper if a person needs charity to pay a large hospital bill. David gave me two of these papers and I have enjoyed reading them. I feel like I am going back in time to a better place. I would like to have a subscription to this paper, it’s only $34.00 a year and anyone can subscribe. I’m thinking a lot of non-Amish people take The Budget.

I wanted to know what this family would do on Sunday if I weren’t with them? David said, “We read the Bible first thing in the morning. Breakfast is usually pancakes. There would be church every other Sunday afternoon. The children sometimes read from storybooks. We might sing songs, maybe to for a walk, or maybe take a Sunday nap. Our weekday supper is at 7:30 p.m. with a snack at 4:00p.m.” David says the big meal is at noon and they eat a lot of soup for the evening meal. Sunday supper is from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. today; Sunday supper will be chicken and noodles, salad and applesauce.

The Yoder family is slim and trim because of all the manual work they do. David and Ada looked very young and healthy. David is 48 years old and Ada is 46 years old. They are busy people with a high-energy lever. The Amish live on standard time, but David explained since they run a business and sometimes people would come to the woodshop at noon, they set their time one half hour into daylight time, so as not to disturb the family’s lunch hour.

I felt honored that David and Ada welcomed me into their home with such kindness, and I know that it isn’t everyone that gets to see how the Amish live from the inside out. I couldn’t thank them enough. I owe them the best my writing ability has to offer.

What wisdom can you find that is better than kindness? Jean Jacques Rousseau

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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