Writing The Amish: The Worlds Of John A. Hostetler (Pennsylvania German History & Culture)

370 Pages·2005·2.57 MB·English

by  David L. Weaver-Zercher

Weaver-Zercher,Writingthe 3/24/05 11:51 AM Page i
WRITING
THE
AMISH
Weaver-Zercher,Writingthe 3/24/05 11:51 AM Page ii
Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.
Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series,
Number 5
Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society,
Volume 38 (2004)
Editor
Simon J. Bronner
The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg
Editorial Board
C. Richard Beam, Millersville University
Donald F. Durnbaugh, Juniata College
Aaron S. Fogleman, Northern Illinois University
Mark Häberlein, University of Bamberg, Germany
Donald B. Kraybill, Elizabethtown College
Kenneth McLaughlin, University of Waterloo, Canada
A. Gregg Roeber, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park
John D. Roth, Goshen College
Hans Schneider, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany
Denise A. Seachrist, Kent State University, Trumbull
Richard E. Wentz, Arizona State University
Marianne S. Wokeck, Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis
Don Yoder, University of Pennsylvania
Previous titles in the series
Margaret Reynolds, Plain Women: Gender and Ritual
in the Old Order River Brethren, edited by Simon J. Bronner
Steven M. Nolt, Foreigners in Their Own Land:
Pennsylvania Germans in the Early Republic
Jeff Bach, Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata
Corinne and Russell Earnest, To the Latest Posterity:
Pennsylvania-German Family Registers in the Fraktur Tradition
Weaver-Zercher,Writingthe 3/24/05 11:51 AM Page iii
EDITED BYDAVID L. WEAVER-ZERCHER
WRITING
THE
AMISH
The Worlds of
John A. Hostetler
the pennsylvania state university press
university park, pennsylvania
A Keystone Book
A Keystone Book is so designated to distinguish it from the typical scholarly monograph that
a university press publishes. It is a book intended to serve the citizens of Pennsylvania by
educating them and others, in an entertaining way, about aspects of the history, culture,
society, and environment of the state as part of the Middle Atlantic region.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Writing the Amish the worlds of John A. Hostetler / edited by David L. Weaver-Zercher.
p. cm.—(Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society ; v. 38.
Pennsylvania German History and Culture series, number 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-271-02686-3 (alk. paper)
1. Amish—United States-Historiography.
2. Hostetler, John Andrew, 1918– .
3. Historians—United States—Biography.
4. Ethnologists—United States—Biography.
5. Ethnology—United States.
6. Amish—United States—Social life and customs.
7. Amish—United States—Social conditions.
I. Weaver-Zercher, David, 1960– .
II. Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society (2001).
Pennsylvania German history and culture series ; no.5.
e184 .m45w75 2005
305.6'89773'0722—dc22
2005008352
Copyright © 2005 The Pennsylvania German Society
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press
is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock
satisfy the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48–1992.
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Contents
list of illustrations vii
foreword ix
Ann Hostetler
preface and acknowledgments xiii
David L. Weaver-Zercher
part i: perspectives on john a. hostetler 1
1. An Amish Beginning 5
John A. Hostetler, with Susan Fisher Miller
2. The Redemptive Community: An Island of Sanity
and Silence 36
Donald B. Kraybill
3. Plain Folk and Folk Society: John A. Hostetler’s Legacy
of the Little Community 56
Simon J. Bronner
4. An Uneasy Calling: John A. Hostetler and the Work
of Cultural Mediation 98
David L. Weaver-Zercher
part ii: writings of john a. hostetler 150
5. Letter to Amish Bishops Concerning Shunning (1944) 154
6. Toward a New Interpretation of Sectarian Life
in America (1951) 161
7. Excerpt from Amish Life(1952) 172
8. God Visits the Amish (1954) 182
9. Why Is Everybody Interested in the Pennsylvania
Dutch? (1955) 189
10. The Amish Use of Symbols and Their Function
in Bounding the Community (1964) 197
11. Persistence and Change Patterns in Amish Society (1964) 215
12. The Amish Way of Life Is at Stake (1966) 233
13. Old Order Amish Child Rearing and Schooling Practices:
A Summary Report (1970) 236
14. Folk Medicine and Sympathy Healing Among the Amish
(1976) 251
contents vi
15. The Amish and the Law: A Religious Minority and Its Legal
Encounters (1984) 262
16. Marketing the Amish Soul (1984) 280
17. A New Look at the Old Order (1987) 284
18. Toward Responsible Growth and Stewardship
of Lancaster County’s Landscape (1989) 300
the life of john a. hostetler: a chronology 317
the publications of john a. hostetler: a bibliography 321
contributors 343
index 345
Weaver-Zercher,Writingthe 3/24/05 11:51 AM Page vii
Illustrations
1.1 Four-year-old John A. Hostetler and his brother, Jacob 6
1.2 Neighbors beside the Hostetlers’ hip-roof barn in Pennsylvania 11
1.3 Students at Snake Hollow Elementary School in Iowa 13
1.4 Hostetler with wedding gift for his sister, Sylvia 22
1.5 Marlboro State Hospital in New Jersey 27
1.6 Hostetler and fellow CPS workers in Pinehurst, North Carolina 29
1.7 Hostetler with Goshen College peace advocacy team members 30
1.8 Penn State University sociologist William G. Mather 31
1.9 Penn State University anthropologist Maurice A. Mook 31
1.10 Hostetler and Amish men at a religious freedom symposium 34
2.1 Hostetler in conversation with Amish man 43
2.2 Longtime Hostetler collaborator, Gertrude Enders Huntington 49
2.3 Johns Hopkins University’s genetics research team 50
3.1 An Amish barn raising 66
4.1 The Kishacoquillas Valley, from the top of Jacks Mountain 102
4.2 Joseph Hostetler, John A. Hostetler, and Lee Kanagy 105
4.3 A. Monroe Aurand Jr.’s Little Known Facts about Bundling 118
4.4 John A. Hostetler’s first edition of Amish Life 119
4.5 Photograph of Amish girl (from first edition of Amish Life) 128
4.6 Ink drawing of Amish man (from first edition of Amish Life) 129
4.7 William B. Ball, John A. Hostetler, and William C. Lindholm 135
7.1 Photograph of Amish boy (from first edition of Amish Life) 174
7.2 Ink drawing of Amish man plowing field (from first edition of
Amish Life) 176
7.3 Photograph of horse and buggy (from first edition of Amish Life) 177
7.4 Ink drawing of Amish woman baking (from first edition of Amish
Life) 179
10.1 Contemporary Amish hairstyle (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 201
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list of illustrations viii
10.2 Instrument for making hooks-and-eyes (from “Amish Use
of Symbols”) 202
10.3 Amish broadfall trousers (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 203
10.4 Modern Lederhosen of Germany (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 204
10.5 Amish Kapp, Halsduch, and Läpple(from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 207
10.6 Kappworn by Palatine women (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 208
10.7 Halsduchof Palatine women (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 209
10.8 Palatine counterpart of the Amish Läpple(from “Amish Use
of Symbols”) 210
10.9 Eighteenth-century scoop hat (from “Amish Use of Symbols”) 211
Weaver-Zercher,Writingthe 3/24/05 11:51 AM Page ix
Foreword
Ann Hostetler
As an Amish-born scholar of the Amish people, John A. Hostetler embodied
the tensions of relating to both the Amish and academic worlds. As his daugh-
ter, I was privileged to observe the many ways in which he sought to integrate
his heritage and faith with his vocation as a “cultural worker.” Paradoxically,
my father’s decision as a young adult not to join the Amish church enabled him
to maintain close friendships among the Amish throughout his life. The Amish
do not shun all who leave the community, only those who take the vows of church
membership and then leave. Even though he traveled a wide social register, my
father always kept in close contact with his family of origin and made sure that
we, his children, felt connected to his brothers and sisters—through frequent
visits and a decades-old family circle letter, which continues to this day.
When I was growing up I spent a week every summer on the farm of my
father’s Old Order Amish sister and her husband in Pennsylvania’s Kishaco-
quillas (Big) Valley, my father’s birthplace. During these weeks I encountered
something of what my father valued so much in his culture of origin. Daily
routines centered on the agricultural rhythms of small farm life. Water flowed
from the mountain behind the house into the taps, so it was always plentiful,
cold, and clear. My sisters and I washed dishes, tended the garden, helped with
canning, and rode in the buggy to the store or the meat locker. We collected
ladybugs from the garden and built matchbox houses for them; on rainy days
we raced marbles on a handmade wooden marble roller or looked at slides of
exotic places through a View-Master. When my grown cousins and their fam-
ilies would gather at my Old Order aunt and uncle’s home, we would turn
homemade ice cream with whatever fruit was in season—strawberries or peaches
from the garden or market, blackberries and raspberries culled from the
mountainside—and gather around the kitchen table expanded with a half-
dozen extra boards. I didn’t realize it then, but not everyone in the family would
have been able to sit at this table.