Ths is the first one I wrote, called Keep Your Eyes On Jesus.

After a while the house in Shreve was sold, but before it was sold, Maryann and Jacob lived in the big house for a few month.

I was in a severe depression in those days, and for a few years, I hardly did anything for a long time. I mostly walked to Funk, a small spot-on-the-map town down the road that was close to where Amos and my parents lived. It had a small country store that is now closed. It was owned by the Hunter’s, and I cleaned the store sometimes. They had a disabled teenage daughter. I did hang out with some of the neighbor kids for a while.

I was committed into a mental hospital at one point while at Funk by uncle John. He claimed I was suicidal. I am still not sure how he came to that conclusion, but I was depressed. At the hospital, I remember the teens wanting me to teach them how to speak PA Dutch. They asked how to say “sit on my lap”. After I told them, they told the nurses, and I was asked about it, and I told them that I was just telling them what they had asked, but I was not actually asking for the girls to sit on my lap.

I also at one time got my leg broken by Amos one day when he got mad at me for running from him, and the reason I had been running was cause I was scared of him, but I had already done what he wanted me to do, pump water. After my leg was broken I walked around town with a cast and crutches for 6 weeks.

In those days I also read the bible a lot, and got all the way through the Old Testament and part of the New Testament. I was in a vary deep depression but after I was around 16, I left home, and went to live with Fremont and Eleanor Mast, my moms second cousin. Fremont is a retired Mennonite pastor.

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I did not know how to respond to that, and just wanted to hide. I went down stairs to talk to my parents, and found that Dad was not aware that this was happening till that morning. Mom was however aware, as she and her brother John had decided that due to my sister Maryann going to a bible study at cousin Fannie Millers house, that Maryann and her husband Jacob were no longer a good influence on Mattie and me, or my parents.

One thing my parents were not aware of, was that Jacob had already bought a car. If they had known, this would have happened sooner.

Anyway that day I was in Maryann’s old room, and Levi broke in the room, breaking the lock, and I walked right up to him, and punched him in the nose. I then left the room, and climbed down the roof, and out to the lawn below.

They decided not to move that day cause my father talked them out of it, but the next day I was at the fruit farm that my Aunt Lydia lived at, and were picking apples. While there, we were informed that they were attempting the move again on a Thursday. My sister Mattie and I let out the air in the tires of the trailer that was to move my sister’s trailer. The air plug fell inside one of the tires. When they later did move, they had to get at least 1 new tire to do so.

The night before they did move, Mattie and I climbed out the small door in the wall, through the attic, and out on the roof, and down to the lawn, and then ran down to the neighbors to call my cousin John to come get us. It would be the last such escape after 4 years at this Shreve house. We had done it a lot over the last few years to go watch TV at a former chicken coop that my brother and sister and a few cousins rented with Mike Linscott, who is now married to my sister Mattie.

While at that house, I mostly rode a bike around an empty lot out back. One day I got a call from someone that claimed to be, and sounded like my brother Amos. This guy claimed he was coming to the chicken coop to get me. I was scared of him, and hid in Amanda’s room, and dialed 9-1-1, but then I got scared of that idea, and dialed a few more numbers. I then hung up the phone. The phone rang then, and I picked up, and it was an officer, and I told him I thought I dialed too many numbers. I then explained about that call I had got from someone claiming to be my brother, and wanting to come get me. He told me to lock the doors, and stay inside, and if my brother comes, to call them back. No one ever came to the house, but later I found out that it was some one else that called for the purpose of scaring me.

After 3 days, Amanda got me to agree to go back home with my parents to live, saying she and the others could not afford to house and feed me since I was 13 and could not get a job. That was the end of my first time leaving the Amish. I would leave twice after that.

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As soon as we got down to Shreve, my parents went back up to Homerville to sell our old place at auction, and while there, the Amish told everyone else that they are not allowed to bid on the place.  The house had been appraised at $70,000 dollars, but when it was not getting that amount, my brother Amos bid it up to $49,500 dollars. Which was still a loss for my parents, but helped get us closer to the amount it was worth. The Amish guy that bought it, was the same guy that bought my uncle Joe’s place down the road. If the Amish had not done that, we would have got a fair-market value for that property, but no “English” person was allowed to bid, according to the Amish. My parents at the time did not realize what was going on, but later found out.

But during their trip to Homerville, my siblings and cousins had a party. Uncle Joe’s and Dan’s kids were there to drink beer and party. I remember being so tired of the 48 hour long music blasting that I did not know where to go to get some sleep!

After moving to the new house, we had electric for a while since we had not fully paid for the house. In part due to the Amish not allowing “English” to bid on our old place. I think about a year later, we finally got it cut off, but left the wiring in the walls. I assume they would have removed it if they had a chance to pay the loan off.

I do think my Dad was told to remove the lightning rods from the barn cause it is not putting faith in God to have them up there. To me this is pretty backwards, if it is already up there, but to the Amish, it is faith.

I had passed 4th grade in the little one room school house before moving, so I was ready to go to 5th grade, but there was no Amish school in the area. So my Mom tried to home school my sister and me, but that did not work out due to getting told to do being also told to do chores, and also generally being distracted. So I ended up after a few weeks giving up on school for the time being. Amanda then got me into the 6th grade at  Shreve Elementary School, a public school, but when my uncle John found out, he forced my Mom to remove me.

While at the public school, my cousins, some of uncle Sam’s kids were going there too, and I believe it was them that had taught the kids there some bad words like “f*** the cow”, and at first when I could not understand the words, cause they had mispronounced it as “foot” instead. The kids kept coming up to me and asking what that meant, and at first, I had no idea what they were trying to say.

I was removed from that school after only 3 days. But it left an impression on it at that point in my life, about what I could do in my future if I got the proper education.

Later my uncle got me into a Amish one room school in the back woods over by his house, and I would go to work with my Dad, as he worked with my uncle. But it was not the same as at the public school, and after a while, maybe I was just rebellious, but I dropped out. The kids there did not like me, and I was tired of being considered the bad guy in school.

I then also helped Dad at uncle John’s shop for a while. I liked working with the wood.

We used to go to Shreve Homecoming in the summer, a local get together, just like most towns have. We lived a few miles from Shreve, so we enjoyed more frequent trips to town than when we lived in Homerville.

Here are a few photos taken by Simon within those 4 years that we were at this house in Shreve, on one of his visits from Ft. Wayne IN.

Sister Maryann married Jacob Hershberger during the time we were at that place in Shreve.

DOB: 11/09/1980

Youngest child of 11 kids. My parents are now in their 70′s, and you can see them on youtube.

• Simon (Left the Amish when I was 6 month)
• Amos (Still Swartzentruber Amish)
• Fannie (Still Amish, but not Swartzentruber)
• Katie (Still Amish, but not Swartzentruber)
• Lydia (Still Amish, but not Swartzentruber)
• Marry Ann (Left the Amish in 1994)
• Amanda (Left the Amish in 1990′s)
• Sam (died at the age of 8 years old in a car-buggy crash)
• Mel (Left the Amish in 1990′s)
• Mattie (Left the Amish in 1994)
• Joseph (Left the Amish in 1998 for the 3rd and final time)



This is my story page, and it will probably be updated from time to time but to start, I will have some notes I wrote down over the years.

My oldest brother Simon left the Amish when I was 6 month old. Recently he told me he used to go for plane rides with a friend in those years, and his friend would tip the plane on its side passing over our parents’ property so he was afraid that someone would know it was him sitting in the plane.

My brother Samuel died in April 1982, when I was a little over 2 years old. He was in a buggy with my Dad coming home from Sullivan when a car driven by a guy that was drunk from his wedding photographer job hit the buggy. This was one of our all-purpose horse Coally’s 3 or 4 car-buggy accidents. She ended up dying at the age of 16 years old. By that time she had got a little skittish of semi trucks, which is understandable.

I went to school when I was about almost 6 through age 9; 1986-1987 school year, till the 1989-1990 school year. The reason for not going a year sooner is cause my older sister Mattie had gone to school when she was 5, and her birthday was Nov 1st., (I am 2 years and 8 days younger then Mattie), so she would have been 6 that year, but the school board told my parents that they had to remove her for the year cause she was not officially 6 yet.

Here are some notes about those early years.

I was sleeping in the back of the buggy one day and when I was awoke by the fact that the buggy had been hitched up with a horse that was a little bit wild, and not easy to stop.

My brother Amos had this Morgan horse, that he wanted to show his buddy, so he hitched it up to the buggy, not knowing I was asleep in the back. When I woke, I tried to yell to Amos to stop, but the huge gravels made it too loud, so I tucked on his arm to get his attention. When he realized I was back there, he asked what I was doing, and I told him I was sleeping. He replied that I should not jump. I could not really hear him, and only heard what I thought were the words, “now jump!”

When I landed on those huge gravels they made a huge gash in the back of my head. I was rushed to the hospital with a head concussion. My Mom shaved around the gash, and I believe this was before taking me to the hospital.

I also would climb up into the haw mow all the time to throw down hay for the horses, but I remember once or twice where I fell down the hole where you climbed up into the hay area.

Speaking of falling, we had a porch that was about 14 feel off the ground. Under it we had a swing, as well as part a walk-in basement. And on top we had a banister, and hummingbird feeders under the eves, and as a young boy, I would climb up on that banister, and put my fingers in front of the bird feeder, to have them sit on my finger. But one time I fell down, after falling asleep on that banister. I was only about 1 foot from hitting the cement slap that was by the door to go into the basement. I had a head concussion that time too. But it was not my last.

We would go in town to shop, and mostly that would be the IGA in West Salem, but a few times we also went to the hardware store next door. This one time I remember my brother Mel and I sent to buy some groceries  and he had 20 dollars, and I am not sure where he got it, but he had this money, and wanted to buy a radio. I was 6 at the time, and Mel was 10. He probably paced that store for 30 minutes looking at that radio, and going back and force, till  finally told him “well get it!” He finally got up the courage to take it up front to the desk, and buy it. I remember it, the lady asked, “that all you need?”, and Mel said, “yes”, in a vary nervous tone.

After buying the radio, my brother and I went to the IGA to buy the groceries, and one of the items on the list was Mt. Dew. On the way home, I asked him, “so, why did you buy Diet?”. He was surprised, and had not realized that he did not buy the regular Mt. Dew, cause he was so nervous.

In those days I also got a little into smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and a little pipe. Not that i really liked it, but I did it cause it was something different. In our Swartzentruber Amish sect, we were allowed to smoke only pipes, cigars, and chew certain types of tobacco. To get around this, my cousins introduced us to “Between the Acts” cigars, cause they were smaller then the regular cigars, but had the brown cigar outer layer instead of the white paper like the cigarettes that are not allowed.

I never got too hooked on any of that, but I do know I tried it, and thought it was cool at the time.

Other highlights of my early childhood included weddings, both of people in our church, and the ones in our home for my sisters, and one for Amos, which was at his bride’s parent’s house. At his wedding I remember that someone gave a mustard-filled cloth diaper as a wedding present. To this day I can’t stand mustard.

Other things about Amish weddings, are the games like Hot Ass.

I also remember in those days we would butcher chickens and turkeys etc. for people from the city, sometimes 100 or more in a day. We would charge so much per chicken, and that supplemented what my Dad made at the saw mill. I would help with the plucking of the chickens, and gut them, and get them ready for the clients. Some clients wanted the feet, others did not.  Some wanted them whole, and some cut up.

My Dad while working on the saw mill had an experience I would not wish on anyone. He was the only person working with one of my cousins when my cousin fell backwards into the big saw blade and got cut criss-cross across his body.

We also raised sheep on our small farm, with 10 acres, and some Guernsey cows for milk. The Amish used to make fun of us and our sheep, but at my sister Katie’s wedding, my parents had butchered 3 sheep, and the Amish thought it was good deer meat. I wonder how they thought we had enough deer meat to feed that many Amish families? Amos would have been the only one at the time that could possibly have shot any deer, since Dad did not hunt, and you can’t shoot more then one most of the time in deer season.

I also remember the Bishop and preachers coming to see my parents and talking in the wash house where the kids could not hear so good, although we would try to sometimes, and sometimes it was boring stuff, bit other times it was about us.

Notes to expand on: Pie sales at uncle Sam’s saw mill. Finding $5 bill walking in meadow with Aunt Lydia. Photo being taken by grandma’s neighbor.

Selling strawberries from the farm.

Cousin’s kids,  Kenny and Kristina staying at the house, and getting dressed in Amish cloth. The mother then took them back, with the Amish cloth, instead of changing them into their old cloth before leaving. Their parents are both passed away now. Kristina lives in Florida. She says Kenny is getting into the music business.

My uncle Sam at one point got told by his bishop to change his son’s name, and this disturbed my uncle quite a bit, the kid was 2 years old, and already knew his name, so I completely understand my uncle’s reaction to this request.

After my sister Fannie got married, her husband Joas started making problems for my other sisters, claiming that one of my sisters was dating his workers, which was not true, according to my parents, but he kept bringing it up with the preachers, and  am not sure what the violation was that he was reporting, but he kept bringing these false allegations to the preachers till my Mom asked Abe Yoder, one of the preachers, “well, what is we just moved?”, and he said they would not do that, but by the next Monday, they were moving to Shreve. I believe this was why the Amish made it so that they did not get the full value for their land cause they would not stick around and allow the Amish to bully them.

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