Like the traditional missionary, an anthropologist strives to find a people group to live and work with, a people group alien from his own. But what group? The bad joke among my Penn State graduate colleagues was, “You need to find a group that hasn’t yet been exploited by anthropologists and study them.” I thought of the Yanomamo Indians in Venezuela. Barbara and I and our daughter, Kimberly, had lived there three years and my thesis advisor specialized in the Yanomamo, a Venezuelan tribe. And yet, three years after we had left, it felt daunting to take our family of five back to Venezuela to live for at least a year, plus they could not live with me in the tribe―I would frequently be separated from them for long periods.

Just thirty miles away from our Bellefonte, Pennsylvania home was a large Amish community. I wanted to learn more about them. But how would that work? I couldn’t afford a motel in the area (grad school was our poverty time). I made a few forays into the community but the people did not seem welcoming. I talked to our friends, Shirley and Joe Renno. Joe’s father Erie was a Mennonite Bishop whose family had left the Amish church years before to join the Mennonite church.  Erie had an uncle who was bishop in the “White Buggy” Amish church (nicknamed “White Buggy” because of the unpainted canvas tops on their buggies). When Erie agreed to take me to visit Sam Yoder, this proved to be the turning point that gained my entry into the Amish community.

On that cold winter night we drove along PA 655 to Reedsville and into the farmland beyond, turned left on Church Street, then turned right into a long snow-covered lane. The machine shed appeared in our headlights with the unpainted barn behind it. We parked in the dark farmyard near the large, white “big house.” Erie Renno’s cousin Eli walked out to meet us and led us to the “dawdy house” where Bishop Sam lived—a bedroom built on the side of the big house. We walked in to see white walls with blue trim, and an unpainted pine plank floor.

Bs. Sam was in his early 90s, sitting near his cast iron potbelly woodstove in his big rocking chair. He did not rise to greet us. We sat down around the stove’s welcome heat—Joe Renno, Erie, Eli and Sam.It was not a warm family reunion, but people were cordial. We all spoke English, although Sam’s first language was Pennsylvania German. He sat close to the stove with a quilt over his lap. Snow white hair and a long white beard covered most of his face. Like all Amish, he had no moustache. Nearby stood a single bed and a small table with a candleholder on it. The only light while we talked was a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling that enclosed us in a circle of light. Sam explained that he and his wife had slept in this room until she died, several years before. Now, he was eating all his meals with Eli’s family in the adjoining kitchen/dining room in the big house. He smiled and explained, “I’m collecting interest on the mortgage.” 

I imagine they all wondered why we “English” were there. I was having second thoughts. The men eyed me carefully, sizing me up. How could I tell them I wanted to “study” them, as if they were butterflies pinned to a board? They’d probably never heard of “anthropology.” I wanted to collect demographic data on their families, study their marriage patterns and understand the many divisions the church had suffered since the 1890s. But how to explain this? I expected they were sensitive about the church divisions and secretive about the inbred marriages. So I told them, “I want to study White Buggy family histories.”

When I got up to find the bathroom, they gave me a small candle to carry. I walked through the big house, feeling like I was back in the 1800s. Kerosene lamps. No running water. A “dry sink” in the kitchen that held two big porcelain bowls but no water faucet and no drain. The water came from a handpump in the pantry that pumped water up from a cistern. They would carry the water over in a pitcher and pour it into the bowls where the women (never the men) washed the dishes. No rugs on the floor, no pictures on the walls. The bathroom was a few steps outside the kitchen door—an outhouse that stood next to a huge brick oven where Barbara Yoder and the girls baked bread.

As we left, I had the impression that I could visit occasionally, but they had said nothing about overnighting. I was discouraged, wondering if I should choose another project. A couple weeks later I stopped again to see Eli and Barbara. Eli was out in the barn, so I talked to Barbara. I had never exchanged more than a few words with her. English was her second language and most of the women did not speak much with English people. I was complaining, “I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t stay in a motel and I’ve checked with several families here in the valley. Shirley and Joe Renno would let me stay with them, but they’re too far away from the community.” I waited as she became silent. Finally, she said, “Well, Eli says you can stay here.”

The Yoders probably never anticipated that over the next two years I would visit a couple times a week, eat with the family at their large dining room table and sleep upstairs in son John’s bedroom. I milked a cow, walked the cornrows picking ears of corn and spent my days talking with people. This home base allowed me to collect data on eight White Buggy congregations and compile demographic records on 900 men, women and children. I will never be able to repay them for their kindness and hospitality.