When we lived back east, we used to go quite a bit to Lancaster and
surrounding areas to buy jam and bread from the Amish. We even understood each other speaking German (whereas their dialect is somewhat mixed with Dutch), and I still have an Amish cookbook they gave me to
bake my own bread (yeah, that never happened). I always was impressed by their way of life, especially when driving through the countryside and
seeing the Amish farms being run very efficiently without modern tools, and having an immaculate appearance to it as compared to the regular farms.
I remember them (Amish) being overly friendly but shy at the same time,
and I only can imagine what all the media frenzy has caused them. Seeing such utter disrespect always reminds me of Boell's "The lost honor of
Katharine Blum". It has gotten so much worse since then.....
Miller, its not our decision to ask whether they should forgive the murderer. They feel that, if they dont forgive, they compound the sin.
The fact that they attended his funeral was a lesson in living a religion. Could I forgive? hell no. , but Im forever amazed at how they get through with so much community support and shared values.
The task now is to raise enough money to pay for all the medical expenses (the Amish dont believe in Insurance). The commun ities will knit even closer as the Fire companies and churches and Amish Safety Committees hold barbeques and quilt sales and donate their efforts to raise money for the dead and wounded.(They include the murderers family in their planned money raising events). The weekend of Oct 13 , the Fire company at STrasburg will kick off its benefit by a huge quilt and craft sale. ALL the money goes to the families through the safety committee.
CJ, the dialect also contains a lot of "dutchified English" and some American Indian).
Like the word for turkey in german (as I learned it), was Truton, in Pa Dutch its Pohawn from a word in the Conestoga Indian dialect.
Thank you for giving us the url of a local paper, Farmerman.
It lets us add to the condolences thingy....a tiny thing...but somehow it felt a good thing to do.
I saw that and didn't at the time, but plan to now that you mention it, Dlowan..
I know they have (I read this somewhere) a set up to receive donations, an unusual situation because they heretofore have raised money themselves in the ways you mention, farmerman, but these bills will be out of that realm.
Thinking. It would be nice if they got an online sales of quilts going..
or would it. That would probably disturb their lives and pushf them into being quilt factories, which they aren't and would refuse to be. Factories in the larger sense, I mean.
I've been interested in crafts for quite a while - one of the books I read as a, what, nine or ten year old, was about Pa Dutch art, in my grade school library. I once fancied myself proposing a tv crafts/travel series, involving different cultures (oh, never mind).
I presuppose that their craft selling is very attuned to their local capacity to do handwork. It might be that an off shoot of the frank tragedy is that their handwork increases in value. I wonder how they would deal with that... and I'd like no one else to exploit them. (Thinking, faux hand made by Amish quilts, by the thousands...) They should work out some kind of verifying process. Possibly their own photo files... and list of materials, kept to themselves.
If I were an Amish parent, or even a non-Amish parent who had a child murdered in this brutal manner, I know I couldn't forgive anyone.
Adding, I know their own stitching, and so on, is an indicator, but things can be copied and multiplied. I suppose I'm being paranoid.. but also figure sources are distinguishable if they keep records.
Awhile back, wasn't there some suggestion of pedophila going on in the Amish community and not being reported to the Police?
Miller, not really paedophilia but an example of one Amish father in NY (an isolated community way up close to Ashtabula Ohio) The father was beating his children. He was arrested and charged and then the Amish community shunned him.
Osso, I hate to burst any bubbles but the Amish have, as part of their missions, brought over large numbers of Hmong families freom Vietnam. They have the Vietnamese women doing much of the quilting . You have to really watch, the traditional pattern quilts are still done by AMish but the applique patterns are more often than not, being done by Hmong women.
Not quite a burst bubble, sort of a confirmation of my antennae. Still, I'd like them to have control. Oh, and share it with the Hmong.
Er, do any of them still quilt? I am guessing so, but older generations..
Yes the Amish quilt, but inorder to get thoe quilts, you have to beware that what you seek are the signed and dated ones with the traditional patterns (block and bar, drunkards path, nine patch, log cabin, some contemporary themes on these styles) The Amish get bored doing the same old patterns without change. So theyve gotten into modifying the color patterns of the nine patch etc. The appliques, such as thge Lancaster Star, The Ohio STar, he NEw Jersey Star, bargello, "country love", Rose of Sharon, all have distinctive, almost oriental looks. One can, (even a guy like me) begin to pick out the Hmong crafted quilts by their birds and more crude looking ptterns as compared to the old Amish Appliques.
The Hmong are good craftsers but not good designers of things not of their culture. I think Itll take a few generations to copy a good Amish Applique design.
Back when I was chasing italian ceramics in the library --- not so long ago..
I read somewhere that it was the devil to get people to do all those tiles the same way...
People like you make me physically ill, especially in threads like
these....
Intrepid wrote:CalamityJane wrote:People like you make me physically ill, especially in threads like
these....
You are not alone
Not by a long shot. No pun intended. :wink:
