P. L. Gaus’s Ohio Amish Journal

The civil war monument on courthouse square in Millersburg, Ohio, is mentioned often in my Amish-Country Mysteries, not because it has ever played an important role in one of the stories, but because it stands outside the north office window of Sheriff Bruce Robertson.  Many times, my characters have gazed upon it while contemplating one case or another.  As you can see, it is very much like other such monuments sprinkled in small towns throughout the country, and if you’ve driven much over the so-called blue highways of America, passing through small, rural towns, you know you’ve reached the center of town because one of these monuments is often there, especially in county seats, marking a place of memory and honor, of valor, sacrifice, and devotion to duty.  This one in Millersburg anchors the northwest corner of courthouse square, in front of the courthouse itself, and Robertson’s red brick jail is out of the picture, off to the right.  So, I thought you’d like to see it.  I’ll probably mention it again, when Professor Branden or Pastor Troyer stand looking out of Robertson’s north window, arguing as friends will, about their next case.

It took a while, but I finally was able to finish constructing my author’s website, and perhaps those of you who have been following my blog will find it interesting.  The launch of my website is timed to precede the release of the new Plume (a division of Penguin Group USA) editions of my stories, which are all going to be re-published as trade paperbacks, beginning on September 28, 2010.  Details of the publication dates are available on my new website.  These Plume editions have been edited lightly to remove a few intemperate words and passages, making them considerably more appropriate for the Christian book market.  The essence of the original stories is all still perfectly intact, so I was pleased with the opportunity to improve the writing.  At any rate, check out the new website at www.plgaus.com, and if you are inclined, use the email link listed under contact information to let me know what you think of it.

 The wheat and barely harvests in Holmes County are well underway, again, and on most farms, one finds a field like this one, where the shocks are out to dry.  It’s quite an amazing thing to watch a family bring in the crop.  Everybody works at it, from grandparents and parents, down to the toddlers.  First, a sheaf is made by laying a bundle of stalks lengthwise, and then tying it in the middle.  One group works at this task.  Then behind them, others gather the sheaves and stand them to make a shock, something like seven to twelve sheaves stood up together.  Father comes last, spreading the last sheaf out over the top to make a cover.  The shocks will stand like that for several weeks, so that the grain can dry and cure in the open air, and a field like this is a common sight this time of summer.  Mostly it is wheat that is done this way, but other grains are also shocked, as is the feed corn in the fall. 

 Such a field plainly marks this farm as Amish, and this one is typical of those in Holmes County, Ohio.  There is a windmill to pump water, and several outbuildings for hay and livestock.  There is also a Daadihaus for the grandparents.  Then, the roofline sports two chimneys, one at the back for the wood stove in the kitchen, and one in the center, for wood stoves, probably on each floor of the house.  But other things mark this as an Amish farm, too.  First, there are no cars and no wires.  There is no TV antenna and no cable service.  It’s hard to see in this photo, but there are several clotheslines near the house, and on the back side of the house, there is the typical shade porch running the full length of the dwelling.  It is all very plain, old-fashioned, and simple, like an Amish farm should be, but to my way of thinking, wheat fields like this one give Holmes County an exotic flavor, in a curiously old-world sort of way.  I never grow tired of seeing it, but I guess you could have predicted that by the fact that I’ve blogged about it before.  It just seems to me that some scenes are worthy of repetition.

On the Mt. Hope road, south of U.S. Route 250 in Wayne County, Ohio, just north of the Holmes County border, there is a small and unpretentious hand-lettered sign announcing “Hand Made Baskets” at a secondary driveway into an Old Order Amish residence, and if you park at the edge of the peach grove and honk your car horn, Mose Gingerich will meet you on his little porch at the back of the house, rolling his wheel chair out through the screen door so that he can wave you on back to his basket room.  He has a strong handshake and a ready smile, and he will be happy to sell you any of a variety of his baskets, from the simple $4.00 pencil holders up to the larger $35.00 fruit baskets with looping leather handles.  While you sort through his offerings, he’ll probably keep his hands busy with a new one, and if you seem undecided about your purchase, he’ll point out that he also makes fishing lures.

That’s what he was working on at his bench under the window the day I took my sister’s family there.  It was hot, and the windows of his little room were all closed, so he asked if I wouldn’t open a few of them for him, because from his chair, he really can’t reach them himself.  Mose was born with spina bifida, and his legs are short and bent, and his head is misshapen.  But his face is round and happy, and his fingers are nimble and quick.  He has barrels of reed stock sorted by colors, stacked in the corner behind the door, and he has fishing line and feathers laid out on the shelves beside his bench.  As we sorted through baskets, he cut line, tied feathers to a hook, cinched off a knot, and dropped another lure into his tray, asking if I had a fishing hole I liked to go to, telling me about two of them on his property that he can reach with his hand-cranked tricycle.

As we were leaving, a party of six English souls packed into an SUV big enough for five, three of the Gingerich kids eased up to the edge of the peach grove and watched us load our baskets, appraising us with practiced eyes, unwilling to speak to the chattering English strangers, seeming to think us curious for the way we were dressed, and maybe for the way we talked.  They were maybe eight, nine, and ten years old, and Amish kids that age won’t say much to you, even if you ask them something as simple as their names.  But they waved well, smiling broadly as we left, probably wondering how much money Uncle Mose made that day from the tourists who stopped because of his sign-lure out by the road.  It couldn’t have been more effective if he had hung a basket on the hook.

Mose ought to have been happy with his day.  He probably lightened us by about ninety-five tax-free dollars, and I am sure he was shaking his head, wondering how my sister would get all that handicraft loaded onto a plane for Atlanta.  Amish folk like the Gingeriches don’t have much contact with the English.  They keep to themselves as much as possible.  But that little sign out by the road must draw a few of us English fish in, from time to time, and when it does, there’ll sit Mose Gingerich, knotting a new lure at his bench, or stitching a basket together in his lap, with a smile as wide as a pie plate, and a handshake as friendly as a neighbor.  It may be that simple, hand-lettered sign that brings you in for a look, but it’ll be Mose who sets the hook.

When the winter hits hard in Ohio and Indiana, between fall harvests and spring plantings, Amish folk think of Pinecraft, Florida, and the enterprising people of the Pioneer Trails bus line are happy for it.  They run up to six tour buses a week out of Holmes County’s Amish country, plus a bus or two from Indiana and Pennsylvania, heading down to the eastern suburbs of Sarasota, where Pinecraft straddles Bahia Vista Boulevard, at the intersection with Beneva.

The earth there is not fit for farming, being mostly sun-baked sand and crushed shells, but the Amish people in Pinecraft don’t do any farming , anyway.  It isn’t a rural community.  They have, instead, a cluster of retirement bungalows, vacation cottages, single-wide trailers, and tiny houses, and the whole point of going there is to get away from farming for a spell, and enjoy the warm weather, the beaches, and the southern hospitality of relatives and neighbors who keep a bed or two for tourists who need to get away from the cold weather.

The post office in Pinecraft is a squat little building with outside mailboxes for the tourists, and the church – the Mennonite Tourist Church – acknowledges the transient nature of the population.  On Bahia Vista, there are a couple of Amish restaurants and a produce market, a quilt shop, a gift shop, and a furniture store, but other than that, Pinecraft doesn’t look Amish at all.  At least it doesn’t look like our typical Ohio Amish farm country.  And if you travel through there too fast, maybe racing to get out to the beaches, you might miss it altogether.  You might miss the white-bearded Amish men riding around on bicycles and tricycles, or miss that little Mennonite lady running her electric cart along the narrow streets between the trailers.  Besides, in Sarasota, the average person doesn’t think of Ohio farm country at all, and it is no wonder that most people travel through here and completely miss the little Amish community sitting right in the middle of all the rest of this sun-drenched beach country.

But one thing you shouldn’t miss is the arrival of one of the Pioneer Trails buses at the Mennonite church.  If you get a schedule of departures and arrivals at Yoder’s restaurant, you can join all the fun on the parking lot, just when the bus from Ohio shows up.  All the locals gather there to meet the bus, and to see who has made the trip this week – maybe relatives, maybe friends, or maybe just neighbors from Holmes County.  (Surprise, you have house guests!)  You can also get your copy of the latest Sugarcreek Budget Amish newspaper, and you can pick up whatever packages a friend has shipped down to you from home.  When the bus unloads, there’s a quick little old-home reunion right there on the parking lot of the church, and then just as quickly as it takes to say hello, everyone has gone back home with their newest visitors.  Quickly, now, let’s get out of the heat.

If you visit Pinecraft in Sarasota, you’ll recognize the Amish attire.  If you know what to look for, you’ll also recognize the fine, authentic Amish cooking at Yoder’s Restaurant.  You may even spot the Guggisberg Baby Swiss cheese that they sell in the shops.

But most people don’t go to Sarasota to see the Amish.  That’s what Ohio is for.  We go there, instead, for the white sand beaches, the sparkling marinas, and the palm trees swaying on the breezes, all set against a deep blue sky.  But, you see, that’s why the Amish go there, too.  Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll notice an Amish family at the beach out on Lido Key.  It’s quite a sight to see.

Hard to imagine, you say?  Not once you’ve been to Pinecraft.

The contrast of the modern on the old is quite high in Holmes County, Ohio, just like the contrast of black on white in this photograph.  Here, the old world and the new operate side by side, Amish living separate lives, dispersed among the English of the county, and sharing the roads and towns as if there were nothing unusual about the contrast between the old world and the new.  We who have lived in this part of Ohio don’t even notice the contrast any more.  There seems nothing improbable about the seventeenth century and the twenty-first being interlaced.  The integration of cultures is so successful that we are not surprised to crest a hill on a snowy lane and find a horse pulling a wagon loaded with sacks of grain.  We were out that day with an SUV with four-wheel drive because we thought that was the only way to drive through the deep snow.  Guess we were wrong.

Do you remember recess at school?  Do you remember the swings?  I do, and I remember how I used to pump those swings as high as I could go.  Amish kids are just like that, too.  But here is a pair of girls who have figured out a better angle on pumping a swing – one girl on each side, taking turns to pump from a standing position.  I saw several pairs of girls work this swing that day, taking turns on their way back from the outhouse at the edge of the school yard.  Kids at recess at a one-room Amish parochial school in winter?  They’re just like the kids I used to know – the more air under that swing, the better!

In Holmes County, Ohio, the largest Amish population in the world can be found sprawled across the rolling hills and down in the narrow valleys that so much reminded the first Amish settlers here of their homelands in Germany.  It’s a diverse Amish population, and we have everything from the most conservative Schwartzentruber Amish to the rather more urbane and liberal sects who interact extensively with the non-Amish, or English, population.  Modern conveniences range, according to sect, from the very slight accommodations to modernity that the Schwartzentrubers practice (such as sometimes using Coleman gas lanterns, instead of the more traditional oil and wick lamps), to the use by other sects of sophisticated electronic devices such as phones and computers.  And the “discernments” that make one accommodation agreeable to the Amish – whereas another accommodation is not yet agreeable – can be puzzling to say the least.

One of the nods toward modernity that most makes me chuckle is the neighborhood phone booth, often parked near the road where no one has to admit to owning the thing.  Here is a photograph of one such “neighborhood” Amish phone booth, and right away I suspect you’ll notice the most astonishing aspect of the thing.  Right, you got it.  That’s a solar panel mounted to the side of it.  Inside, there is a phone with an answering machine, and a fax machine, too.  Once you know what you’re looking at, you’ll begin to spot hundreds of these little phone booths peppered around the county.  Some are quite nice, and others are nothing more than little roofed enclosures attached to the back side of a barn.  I know one Amish fellow who has a phone mounted to a tree some hundred yards back into a stand of timber, so nobody can see it.

So there is progress in Holmes County.  Slow progress to be sure, but measurable nonetheless.  Who knows?  Maybe one day we’ll see radio-controlled airplanes for the kids to play with.  No, wait – I’ve already seen that.  Go figure.

In my Ohio Amish Mysteries, soon to be republished as the Amish-Country Mysteries by Plume (a division of Penguin Group USA), the old red-brick Holmes County Jail is featured prominently, and I thought my readers might like to see what it looks like. Here is a picture taken just a few years ago, after Holmes County moved its real jail to a modern facility in the countryside north of town.

Just inside the main door to the right is where I placed Ellie Troyer-Niell’s front counter, and that window on the first floor at the right corner of the building is where I put Sheriff Bruce Robertson’s large office. Many of my characters (Professor Michael Branden, the sheriff, and Pastor Caleb Troyer) have stood looking out from that window, to think or talk about a case.

The rest of courthouse square is taken up by the sandstone courthouse (off-camera to the left) and the tall civil war monument (off-camera to the right), and I’ll soon post photographs of those, too, so you can see the locations where many of my Millersburg scenes are set. In months to come, I’ll try to post photos of other scenes from my novels.

Courthouse square in Millersburg, Ohio, is often a setting used in my Ohio Amish Mysteries. On a prominent block in the center of town, there is a red-brick jail, a civil war monument, and the ornate sandstone Holmes County Courthouse, all surrounding a central lawn. I thought you would like to see pictures of these landmarks, and I have already posted a photograph of the jail. Here is one of the courthouse. They say that when it was first being built, you could see the gleam of the shiny copper top from the high ground in Salt Creek Township, twelve miles to the north. Today, that roof has gone the way of all such copper domes – oxidized to dull green – and it is not nearly as pretty as they say it used to be. Even so, I think it is an impressive building.