Amish Church

Amish church services were in German. They were very devout. They believe in the born again experience, the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), and they believe that every day is a holy day. Baptism is practices, at maturity. Footwashing is practices once a year. Every member participates, women separate from men. Then they stand to their feet after the ceremony and greet each other with a holy kiss. Sometimes it's just the preachers who greet each other that way. The Amish lived their religion.

There would be two or three preachers each service. Children were well-behaved, and smaller children (grade-school age) were in every service, which are held in homes. Families have a clean-up day to get ready - sometimes neighbors help. The day before they'll bake a batch of cookies to use in keeping the restless children quiet. You don't hear noise.

One church had a nice building. They don't have musical instruments. They sing in German, and the song service always includes The Love Song. One man leads the singing, others follow.

Preachers are chosen by lot. They have a special meeting, like a conference. Other preachers come to help select and get ready to cast lots. They would take several Bibles. The preachers and an elder or two decide who they feel would have the qualifications to be a preacher. Then they get the names of three men, put them in the Bible. After preachers have been in the church for a while, they ordain them as Bishops. My Uncle Sam was a Bishop.

Amish think of non-Amish as being English people. Not worse, just English.

The Amish want to keep their family together. Barn-raising gets the community together. Most Amish are farmers. In some places Amish work in factories. They make their own clothes.

Every spring, the Amish gather in a large congregation. They have a lot of young people, and when the young reach the age of accountability and feel like they want to join the church, the preacher and the elders talk to them and let them know what is involved: staying free from worldly amusements.

More Childhood Reminiscences

The father makes the children's toys.

When I was young I found some discarded gears and played with them, imitating a wagon or traction engine [a steam engine] like they used on the farm.

When I was living with my grandparents I didn't have anyone to play with. Two of my uncles, Levi and Sam, had boys my age.

My cousin Elmer had a sharp pocket knife. We'd cut sticks into horses. Once we were playing and I felt my horse wasn't as good as his. He did good work with wood. When he got a little older he made his own play wagon. Later on he became a carpenter.

Girls help with the housework, boys with farm work. I remember working in the field when I was too small to ride behind the harrow. They'd put a box on the harrow so I could drive the team of horses. I was probably eight or nine years old. I was too young to plow.

Goodbye Mississippi

But the mail carrier didn't know which way father had gone.

We went down the road to another town. The first place we came to was a filling station. We stopped and asked if he'd seen an Amish man.

He said, "Yes, but not lately."

On the way back to father's house, the mail carrier said there were some Amish "down this road."

We went and there were several Amish families, all living close to each other and all related. We asked if they'd seen Adam Hostetler today.

The said "no."

I told them why we'd come and they said they were glad to hear that, because they didn't like to see him living all alone. If they could do anything to help, let them know. I was glad to hear that.

We went on back to father's house. He wasn't there yet. We were hungry and tired.

I took the mail carrier home.

I went to sleep as soon as I got back.

I was awakened by my father's voice. He said "I knew you was here."

I said "How did you know it was me?"

We told him what we had in mind.

He said he couldn't leave all the stuff here.

I suggested a sale.

He couldn't figure out how we could have a sale quickly enough.

I went and told the Amish we were having a sale. They came over and I auctioned off some of the stuff.

When we got back to Kansas, he stayed with me more than all the other children combined. He could have gone to live with one of his brothers in Indiana, but he was quite satisfied.

I give mama the credit for that; she was so congenial, she could get along with anyone.



In the Descendants of David J. and Magdalena Hochstetler, Third Edition 1995 listing for Adam D. ("Davey's" father) is an interview from July 1994:

Adam's granddaughter Lucille (#298) remembers attending with her family the Hochstetler Homecoming in Indiana in 1928, which Adam also attended. Adam also spent some time in Indiana during the final months of his father David's life, and was there when he died in 1929. some time after that Adam was living in southern Mississippi all alone on a peanut farm near Picayune. [There was a small Amish settlement in that county from 1929-1936 but it is not known if that was the attraction for Adam to move there. It is known that Adam's brother Samuel visited Hancock co. in Jan. 1930 and preached for that Amish group. See Luthy, p. 230ff.] Lucille remembers that between Christmas 1930 and New Years their family went to Picayune in their big Nash car to bring Adam to Hutchinson to live with them. On this trip they stopped in Popular (sic) Bluff, MO to visit her Aunt Lydia's family. Adam died of a stroke and was found dead along the canal in Hutchinson where he had gone walking near son David's home on Christmas Day 1931. 

1930s:

We were planning on visiting east Missouri to see Lydia (my sister) and her family. They were moving farther east and we realized it'd be even harder to see them after they moved. By this time Vernon was about 13.

We went through Hutchinson so loaded up in the car that a policeman pulled us over.

When we were in Sikeston, Missiouri, we decided we ought to go see dad. He had moved to Mississippi and still have [sister] Fanny with him. She had reached "the age," where the children leave home, but was still helping dad.

When we decided to go to Mississippi we tried to get Lydia to go with us to try to get papa to come back. She joined us in the crowded car. Her husband gave us $25 for expenses.

I got so sleepy I started to fall asleep and ended up in the ditch. Neither the car nor its inhabitants were hurt.

When we got within 8 or 10 miles of papa's place I was wondering how we'd find him.

We went past a few buildings where a man was standing. I hollered for him to come and answer some question. I asked him if he knew where the Amish community was.

He said, "Oh, yes. I was a mail carrier."

So I asked him if he knew where a man named Adam Hostetler lived.

He said "Oh, yeah." He started to try to tell me how to get there. I thought the way the lay of the land was I might get lost, so I asked if he'd come along and show us how to get there, then I'd take him back.

When we got there the house was just a small house, one room with a small attic overhead. It was locked with a padlock, and I said "Are you sure?"

He said "I am sure." I unlocked the trunk, got a hammer, and hit the padlock with one lick to get it open.

I told the ladies to go in and make themselves at home.

We had stopped and picked up some groceries for all of us. I told the ladies to make them a meal and the man and I took off.

The man said "sometimes he goes and tries to sell peanuts at the grocery store."

We went to the grocery store and I told them I was Adam's son and we were trying to persuade him to come up where some relatives are.

He said "Well, I'm glad to hear that. We don't like to see him over there all alone. Not long ago there was an elderly man not very far from here who lived alone, with no one to see after him. Someone went to check on him and he was dead. Every evening before I go to bed I look over to see if he's got a light, 'cause then I figured he'd be okay."

From Single Man to Married with a Child - the 1910s

Herbert Shaw, the Captain's son, was my age and took an interest in me. They wanted to go the "open air" street meetings, so I carried the American flag.

One night, after meeting, I asked one of the young ladies if I could walk her home. She said "I guess so."

They had a porch to sit on, and we sat there with our feet hanging down. I couldn't think of anything to say and she couldn't either. I remember that I asked her three times how far it was to Main Street. When I left I felt really good that I finally had a girlfriend.

I walked her home for several weeks before I could carry on a conversation with her. Her name was Bessie. I eventually married her.

I told her that sometime I had a question I wanted to ask her. I don't know whether she said "I guess so" or what. We were engaged for several months. [And that's the extent of what we know about their courtship.]

We were married in a house by the same preacher who married her sister Cloy.

When they were moving from Colorado they had to sell the belongings they couldn't move with them. Lucy went to help them sell and move. The first place they went to was Hutchinson, Kansas, to our home. We'd only been married a year or so. Lucy saw that someone would be there to help with our first load. Instead of going west to her place, she stayed to help.

Before the baby was born I got a job on a farm. World War I was going on. I got notice to come to the draft board in Langdon. I went and the farmer I worked for had gotten a notarized statement to say I was needed to work on the farm. They didn't pay much attention to the paper, but told me to step on the scale.

Since I weighed only about 110 pounds I was too small to be drafted, and since my chest was all caved in they said I could go back to farming. I was 21 [in 1917].

The first time I voted, I remember everyone said that Wilson had kept us out of war and that he'd keep us our of war again if he was elected for a second term. So I voted for him. The war started anyhow, soon after he was re-elected.

Meeting an "Open Air" Meeting of The Salvation Army

When I worked for Charlie Miller, south of Ellis, one of his brothers had a suit of English clothes that just fit me. I bouth it for $5. A nice suit. I wore that suit even until I was west of Beloit [in north Kansas northwest of Salina and northeast of Hays] for the Olsens.

While I was working for them, I'd go to Sunday School with them in their nice, big limousine. Then I got started going to Sunday School within walking distance of where I was working in Solomon Rapids, several miles west of Beloit.

South of their farm was where they'd have church in a school house once a month, when a preacher from Beloit would come out.

I got a job in Hutchinson working at Swift Packing Company. I started eating at a little restaurant, Portland Coffee House. It was short order but I liked it. You could get a good meal for 15¢.

I got a room at 110 E. 8th St., the Rebard Annex Hotel.

One winter after I quit working at Swift (at Christmas) I took care of a sick man who needed help to get in and out of bed. Then I worked for Mrs. Richard Paine.

One Saturday at the Portland Coffee House one of the waitresses and I were talking about me getting a room and she suggested that the dishwasher, Dave Roberts, was looking for a roommate. I talked with him and when he got through with his job we went out together.

When we got outside, I heard some music, the beating of a drum and a cornet. I'd heard a Salvation Army "Open Air" meeting once before in Denver, so I said to Dave "Let's go see what that is."

It was outside the First National Bank. After having gone to the theater  I felt guilty, so I was drawn to the Salvation Army "Open Air." They announced there would be a meeting following. I tried to get Dave to go with me. He wouldn't go but I went anyway.

I felt right at home. They announced there'd be another meeting tomorrow. A man named Starkey was preaching.

I felt so much different I went back Sunday morning. They invited everyone back Sunday afternoon. I went then, too. I got to going regularly. One night I went to the altar; several others were there, too.

After a while, the officer felt it was time to enroll some of the young people as soldiers, to swear them in by reading the "Articles of War." One of the Articles, I've never forgotten, was "I pledge myself to live and die in the ranks of The Salvation Army."

I couldn't make up my mind to take that step. I didn't want to, but they kept calling me up so I went. And I still feel bad that I left the ranks, because it was so emphatic.

Ruth and Arriving in Hutchinson

Eventually Ruth wanted me to come and see her. She'd tell me about her boyfriend Bill and her cousin who was a good friend. She'd tell me about her and Bill going dancing on Saturday.

I'd write and tell her that it would be of no use for me to come, 'cause she had a boyfriend and he wanted her to dance, and I wanted to go to church and Sunday School.

She talked to her mother and her mother said that she would take care of Bill, while Ruth would entertain me.

So I took her at her word and quit my job and went to see Ruth. When I got off the train, there was Ruth, her mother, and her cousin. They took me way out in the country.

They entertained me well for a while.

On Thursday and Friday everything went well. On Saturday night, Bill showed up and wanted to go to the dance. When I said I didn't want to go to the dance, Ruth's mother made Ruth stay home.

After that, Ruth hardly spoke to me, and I wanted to get out of there. It was too far to walk, so I waited until someone headed into town to get a ride with them. I was pretty discouraged by the time I got a ride.

I knew I had a brother in Reno County, south of Hutchinson, so instead of going back to near Beloit I went to Hutchinson and got a job there and didn't have a girlfriend for a long time.

The first night in Hutchinson I went to the Home Theater, which was a vaudeville show. Some call them girly shows. I started thinking "What if one of those girls was my sister? Would I approve of her doing that type of thing?" So I didn't go back.

The next night I went to the City Amusement Park. They had different kinds of music there, but I still felt uncomfortable. That was a Friday night.

By Saturday I had gotten a roommate, a 17-year-old boy. I was 18 or 19.