I grew up in Central Illinois, about 30 miles from an Amish community that was and is, for lack of a better way of describing it, tourist-facing. The community had a variety of shops and such selling Amish wares, there was (or is) even a little theme park of sorts (obviously not run by the Amish but definitely capitalizing on it).
Here in Missouri, where I live now, we’ve been rather thin on Amish people and the communities we have haven’t leaned into tourism the way the Central Illinois community has. However, about five years ago, a community set up down the road from me, just outside of Steelville. They’re not necessarily tourist-facing, but they did open up a market that sells veggies, baked goods, and other stuff (no meat or darily yet, but Jebediah tells me that they’re working on the meat and dairy infrastructure). Oddly enough, they also have tracts, which confuses the fuck out of me, since I thought the Amish didn’t prosyletize. Anyway, work takes me by there a couple of times per week and if I’m in the mood, I’ll stop by and see what catches my eye.
Do you ever encounter Amish and/or have any interaction with them?
I live just west of Indiana Amish country so I see them fairly often, particularly in summer when everyone is out and about. Always see them when I ride Amtrak which is mostly how I’m doing long-distance travel these days.
The tracts you mention makes me wonder if they’re actually Amish or one of the near-Amish groups out there, but since each Amish community runs under slightly different rules it might be their thing to do.
Plenty of times. Though, it’s often not clear which of the Pennsylvania Dutch we are seeing. More to the point, we are seeing Old Order people, in horse-drawn buggies.
There’s a farm 1.0 miles from my house that advertises they are Amish and sell various farm products. Several within about 5 miles.
Yesterday we did a long field trip to climb the “1000 Steps” in central Pennsylvania. We climbed 1330 feet, which I think might be a personal best. We probably had to get around 15 or so buggies on the way, or in some cases drive behind them until we got to a safe passing point.
I think I see Old Order buggies and/or farm workers most times I drive.
I live between Wilmington DE and Baltimore MD, 7 miles south of the Mason Dixon line.
Around Steelville they have the yellow warning signs with buggies, but I’ve only seen a buggy once. I see horse shit all the damn time on that road, though, so obviously they’re using it.
Other than heading out to rural areas, I’ve seen folks dressed in the Amish style at various museums and the like in town. Though it’s impossible to tell just from that whether they’re Amish, Mennonite, or some other related denomination. In one case I recall, it turned out that they were actually a Catholic semi-monastic group.
I commute to work on a train line that runs to Chicago Union Station, which is a big Amtrak hub. I see what I assume to be Anabaptists (Amish and/or Mennonites) at the station regularly; my understanding is that they take Amtrak to visit other communities of their orders.
Right, there are numerous groups who favor superficially similar styles of dress. Both the Amish and Mennonites are descendants of English Anabaptists, but the Amish are the fundamentalist sect and have split away in their beliefs. Mennonites vary considerably. I had a friend who called himself an urban Mennonite. You would have to know him for a long time to realize that all his outfits called for subdued colors because they were otherwise everyday store-boughten clothes. OTOH, there was also a local group whose women wore traditional caps and long calico dresses everywhere.
Go out into the Finger Lakes region of New York and buggies are common along roads. There are state road signs warning drivers to be careful.
Canadian here, I have a client who has their head office in St. Jacob’s, Ontario about 90 minutes outside of Toronto. The area has the largest population of Mennonites in Canada.
In Northwest Montana, where I live, we have Hutterites, which are Anabaptist like the Amish. The only time I usually see them is when they come into town and sell home-grown vegetables. At the local grocery store you can order a Thanksgiving Hutterite turkey which is “organically raised”, whatever that means. I have bought them in the past and they taste much better than your standard grocery store turkey IMO. They have trucks and cell phones so they don’t shun all technology.
I have never seen a full-blown Amish, but there is a small group of Mennonites in southern New Mexico, and a large group in northern Chihuahua. The men dress like normal farmers, in jeans, flannel shirts, and baseball caps. The women are more noticeable, in old-style dresses and headscarves. (And the Mennonite women wear a different style than the Mormon fundamentalist women.)
When listening to the Mexican Mennonites talk, I can never tell if they are speaking German with a Spanish accent, or Spanish with a German accent.
Born and raised in SoCal. Never seen any Amish etc. in the flesh. As it were.
I have relatives in Ohio, and I know they’ve seen/dealt with them. I visited a friend in Livonia MI who had a china cabinet made by the local Amish. That probably doesn’t count.
During genealogical research I found a 17th C relative that I though might be French (a new ethnicity to my tree). But he was a Swiss Anabaptist living in Alscace-Lorraine. TIL Anabaptists and Amish are related.
We don’t have many Amish groups in Arkansas. They’ve made attempts to settle the state a few times, but each time they’ve failed. We currently have a few in Fulton County, up near the Missouri border where my in-laws live, but I’ve never seen them. We do have Mennonites and you’ll see them once in a while with the women wearing those cape dresses and headcoverings. The men can often be a bit more difficult to spot since they don’t always look any different from other farmers in the area.
Not terribly often. I have seen them in Eastern Pennsylvania (although not in the Finger Lakes in NY, despite living there for several years)
Surprisingly enough, they occasionally show up here in the Boston area. They take trips and vacations, apparently. Back when my wife was still working, her boss looked out the window and saw an Amish family in their traditional garb and shouted
“Pilgrims!”
Needless to say, my wife, who is part Pennsylvania Dutch, contributed to his education that day.