My first visit to the Amish....

We were having a great time! Pam and I would work our jobs and then on our days off we would go antiquing, or to an auction, or out to Hartville, south of Akron, to the great flea market there. Pam was showing me many things about buying antiques.
I enjoyed it so much that it didn't seem like work, although it was hard work! We bought a lot of furniture. To get furniture into our spaces at the Heirloom Cupboard, we had to haul each piece up a narrow metal fire escape staircase attached to the back of the building that went up to a door on the second floor. It was a struggle! In winter it was treacherous.

Pam moved out of the Heirloom Cupboard in March 1994. She had a friend in Homerville that had a very cool antique shop, Village Antiques. Pam rented a space in there. Homerville was south west of Medina by about 20 miles, an area where there were a lot of Amish families. The Amish bought antiques. There was a list of things dealers could find that they knew would sell instantly in the shop because it was a staple for the Amish household. For example...porcelain pans and tubs, wooden handled utensils, gardening tools, old wool blankets, and treadle sewing machines to name a few.

That summer I had bought an old Singer treadle sewing machine and had it at my house. I hadn't brought it in to the shop because it was very heavy, and I was dreading the horrible trek up the fire escape stairs to get it in my space. Pam told the owner of the shop in Homerville that I had a machine. He told the Amish. I got a message that someone wanted it. It was to be for a fourteen year old girl. It is a big day for an Amish girl when she gets her own machine. This is probably something that she will be making money with to help support her family, both now and when she gets married. Plus a sewing machine was a necessity. The Amish make all their own clothes, quilts, and other cloth household items.
I offered to deliver the sewing machine. I wanted to see where and how they lived, and to meet the girl who was to have this old Singer.

The address took me to a secluded road that had only Amish farms on it. The house's had no electric poles or wire going up to them. No telephone lines either. The farm was back off the road down a long dirt driveway. It was clean and organized. There were many vegetable gardens...with all the plants growing in neat, weeded rows. On the other side of the driveway were long beds of flowers, zinnias and marigolds all bursting with color. Cows and horses were grazing in the field. Geese, ducks, and turkeys were wandering around the barnyard. It was like stepping back in time.
I looked over at the farmhouse. It had a long porch extending along the whole side of it, with about 5 girls standing on it, had they all stood in line by height they would have looked like stairs. They were all clustered together watching me, each wearing a long grey dress with a white pinafore. On their heads was a white bonnet-like cap. I don't know if they weren't used to a strange person coming to their home, (they call non Amish people English), or if they were just that happy to get the sewing machine. In any case I was greeted with excitement.
The girls walked down the porch steps and gathered around me and shyly spoke, asking me questions about where the machine came from? I wished I had a better story to tell them than just getting it at an auction.
The father came out of the barn with a little boy trailing behind him. He was wearing a flat straw hat, a blue shirt, and black pants with suspenders. He was dressed in miniature of what his dad had on. He was a cutie.

I got paid for the sewing machine in tens, fives, and ones. The oldest girl told me she had saved money from selling her chicken's eggs to buy the machine, but it was her dad who gave me the money. The father then bear-hugged the machine off the back of my truck and the deal was complete. They all stood by the sewing machine and waved me good bye as I drove down the long driveway onto the dirt road.

Up the road a bit, I smiled and waved at two Amish boys riding in a buckboard drawn by two draft horses. They were dressed in the same identical attire as the dad and little boy at the farm I had just left. They shyly smiled and gave me a curious look as if to say...what would you be doing on our road?

They were right, I didn't belong there. I live in another century.