On May 21st we traveled two hours to take a tour of the Amish and Mennonite community of Kelona, Iowa. We started with a man at the visitors center giving us some background on both of these related groups. Both started as a break-off of the Lutheran Church in Switzerland and Germany. They immigrated to the United States and first settled in Lancaster Pennsylvania. They have spread to many other productive farm lands. The Amish in Kelona has about 1,500 hundred members. Most of the local groups have about 150 members. They have no church buildings and meet in members homes or barns every other week for services. They have communion twice a year. The local lay-leader is selected by a lottery system of drawing a name from a hat. The services are held in German.
The Mennonite groups are more liberal. They have church buildings with a pastor. They tend to be more liberal with their day-to-day rules as well. The young men can own and drive a car until they are about 20 to 24 years old, when they decide to get baptized and commit to the church rules.
Both groups avoid most outside influences such as cars, phones, electricity, fancy clothes and having their picture taken (graven image). Each local group decides on what is to be allowed. Some groups hold to the old teaching of iron rims on the wooden tires for their buggies while others say it is okay to have rubber rims on fiberglass wheels. They have large families and live on farms with sometimes another business. They grow most of their food and are very self reliant. They take no government help and do not pay any social security payments. They operate their own schools as well.
Our guide for the day took us to visit a buggy making shop. On the way we saw several buggies drawn by a single horse. They get many of their buggy horses from through-bred race horses that were not fast enough to win races. The horses are very graceful as they pulled the buggies on the road. The roads are wide enough for a buggy path on each side of the road.
At the buggy making shop we met the owner who has two of his sons working for him. He also farms in addition to making buggies. He had several buggies in his shop under various stages of construction and one in for repair. All buggies are required to have a large reflector on the rear and battery powered lights for night operation. There are very few road accidents. The buggies have slide-down sides for winter use. The owner uses a diesel driven compressor to power his equipment. There are no electric machines in his shop. A new buggy can cost from $8,000 up to $13,000 depending on the options. Each buggy is custom made. This shop produces about one a month and has a backlog of twenty buggies.
 |
| A buggy in its first stage of construction |
 |
| A buggy in for repair. The horse kicked out the front panel |
 |
| A buggy chassis with rubber rims on fiberglass wheels |
 |
| A six passenger buggy |
We then drove to man's farm that specializes in grass-fed beef. He told us that grass fed beef matches the omega-3's of salmon and is much more healthy than regular grain fed beef. He was a very friendly person. He has nine children and is the local Amish group leader. I counted seven buggies that he owns. While we were there his son and daughter-in-law with their three children drove up in a buggy. Another son had a new buggy parked there with disc brakes and all the latest gadgets.
 |
| Three of his seven buggies |
 |
| Son's buggy with horse |
 |
| Buggy with barn in the background |
After visiting at the farm we went to an Amish home for lunch. The menu included a jello-tapioca salad, a green salad, corn and a home grown turkey. It was all good. This is another example of a family supplementing their farm income.
 |
| Lunch at a Amish farm house |
We then went back to Kelona to the visitors center for another presentation by a man who left the church when he and his wife where married. He spoke about how the people are competing with the larger mechanized farms by growing organic produce. The church grows by having large families and does not recruit new members. Not many people can abandon the worldly things required to embrace their faith.
 |
| A lady spinning wool for a new vest |
We then walked around the town and visited with several shops. Below you see a couple of the famous quilts that the Amish make by hand. While we were waiting for the other people in our group finish their shopping we noticed that several of the young people drove their buggies into town for a little shopping and an ice cream cone before they returned. The boys all had on knee pants and stocking caps on their heads. The girls all wore long dresses of plain colors and had their typical caps on their heads. Marge bought a bib apron.
 w |
| An Amish quilt |
 |
| Another Amish quilt |
w
Comments
Post a Comment