Amish in the News
Idaho Amish family embraces modern ways
| January 30, 2012In many ways the Miller family is as Amish as the people they left back home in Wisconsin 10 years ago, carrying on the traditional ways.
Father Harley, 40, is a master carpenter who has constructed the sprawling, ski-lodge-style house the family now lives in. Mother JoAnna, 40, with the help of her nine children, ages 8 through 21, cooks, sews, tends a garden and the family's large flock of goats and teaches the younger children their school work.
But in so many other ways the Miller family is helping to define a new generation of Amish people who dress in regular clothes, work outside the home, use computers, cellphones and DVDs and drive cars.
Natural Amish Treatments and Remedies Impress Doctor
| January 26, 2012While Dr. Patrick Quillin cautions that his book Amish Folk Medicine is not intended to replace the personal care of a physician, he says he was simply looking for wisdom from people who historically have lived closer to nature and done well. He found that aboriginal groups kept record of helpful natural remedies out of the need for survival, and it obviously worked for them.
Bill would help Amish who reject reflective triangles on buggies
| January 24, 2012MAYFIELD, KY. — On Jacob Gingerich's farm in Western Kentucky, there is no phone or electricity for his family of 12 children. He even sees putting an orange safety triangle on their black horse-drawn buggy as as violation of the simple and pious life his Amish faith requires.
He and other Amish men in rural Graves County have become scofflaws for not using the reflective signs, ignoring state law, disobeying orders from a judge and even going to jail for not paying fines.
Horse left at Ohio Amish-area Wal-mart needs home
| January 8, 2012Wally the Walmart horse is looking for a new home. That's the nickname given to a 9-year-old standardbred horse that a humane society says was left at a northeast Ohio store by an Amish teenager more than two months ago.
Amish Youth Get Friendly On Facebook
| June 19, 2011Lancaster, Pennsylvania - Kate's like a lot of American teenagers. She likes country music. She lists her favorite TV shows as "One Tree Hill" and "Friday Night Lights." And she's on Facebook, with more than 200 Facebook "friends."
And yet, Kate differs considerably from most other American teenagers on Facebook in one key respect:
She is — or at least, by her mode of dress, appears to be — Amish.
And she's part of what appears to be a growing — and, inside the Amish community, a worrisome — trend.
Ex-Amish woman finding new life
| March 7, 2011HARLINGEN — Emma Gingerich reached the age of 15 without ever having used a computer or talking on a telephone.
She never studied history or geography; for her, the earth was still flat.
The life she faced, she said, would be simple: a minimal education, which stopped at eighth grade, and little contact with those outside her immediate community.
Her purpose in life, she said, would be to raise children and continue the static traditions that were passed down to her from previous generations in the Amish culture.
