Van ich failed hab, will ich bessa du
I’m in Texas for a week with my mom, 2 aunts and uncle, cousins and grandparents to build houses with Proyecto Azteca (an organization similar to Habitat for Humanity). This is a family tradition — my grandparents, who are now 82 and 80, have for about 20 years gone to Immokalee, Florida, Southern Texas, or elsewhere to volunteer with Habitat or Mennonite Disaster Service or other relief agencies after disasters. Through high school and college, I would take a week off each winter to help build houses. Several times, we had the whole extended family (my grandparents had 6 kids, I have 18 cousins, so it’s a big crew) we’d get a house all to ourselves to work on for a week, lastly in Arcadia, Florida, where we worked for a week in 2007 as a family with MDS building a home for a woman who’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Charley in 2004.
Last night as my cousins and I were sitting around with my grandparents, we were learning a bit about our family history. Both my grandpa and grandma grew up Beachy Amish, which split from the Old Order Amish church in the early 1900s. A little Amish history (as best I know it, I’m not an expert here by any means): The Amish/Mennonite churches have split many times since their start in the 1600s over many issues, one of the most prominent being shunning, one of the causes of the initial split between the Mennonites and Amish.
My grandparents both grew up in the Beachy Amish church. Ok, this gets complicated. According to my grandma, Chris King (he was a preacher) broke off from the Old Order Amish church because they didn’t believe in shunning. They also started allowing electricity and indoor plumbing (but no radio) and allowing separate church buildings. John A Stoltzfus was also a preacher there and split off to form the Beachy church (grandma can’t remember what that split was over). My grandma’s father Dave grew up Old Order Amish. He then married Barbara, a Beachy Amish, which meant that Dave’s entire family had to shun him, being Old Order Amish. Instead of shunning Dave, the whole family decided to join the Beachy church (meaning they were shunned by all Old Order Amish friends, neighbors, etc.). They all attended Weavertown Amish Mennonite Church, pictured at left.
My grandpa’s parents (John and Anna) both grew up Old Order Amish. John left the Old Order church (grandpa doesn’t know why) but Anna stayed in the church, which meant she had to confess in front of the church every time they had a child, as it meant she wasn’t properly shunning her husband. Finally, when she had either Sara Ann or Levina, my great-grandmother Anna decided she had had enough and refused to confess in front of church, instead leaving the church and walking home. She then joined the Beachy Amish church with her husband.
In 1928 (the year my grandma was born), as some of the younger members of the Beachy church were buying cars, which was not allowed, and hiding them at neighbors or in barns, a bunch of the kids had to confess in front of church. The church members that day then voted (after the kids’ confession, of course) to allow ca
Now back to the title of this blog post. My great-great uncle Sam never left the Old Order church. He had to shun his brother because of this. Apparently, with shunning, you can still talk to each other, do business with each other (but you can’t hand money from hand to hand), but can’t sleep in the same bed as your wife or sit at the same table. In my grandpa’s words, “it’s a lot weird.”
My great-grandfather John (my grandpa’s dad) was good friends with his brother Sam and they joked around a lot and carried on. Sam once was getting behind on his farming and hired a man with a tractor to finish up the field work at night. The bishop found out and Sam had to confess in church, where, so the story goes, he said “Van ich failed hab, will ich bessa du” which is Pennsylvania Dutch for “If I have failed you Lord, I will do better.” The funny part being the “if” — but whether or not that’s what Sam actually said remains unknown (and irrelevant). According to the story, Sam said it was worth confessing as it got his fieldwork done.
It’s an honor to be here with my grandparents and get to hear these sorts of stories; it’s really fascinating to hear about these traditions and the Amish church that I grew out of. It seems so distant from the technology-filled world I live in today, but a lot of this happened just 100 years ago.
I’ll be blogging less this week as I enjoy manual labor and 80 degree weather. We’re headed to Mexico for lunch today :-)
