Winter, the Amish way
Paul Levy

FROM THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR, TRIBUNE



CANTON, MINN. -- As wind and snow whipped through his horse-drawn buggy, Gideon Hershberger held tightly to the wide brim of a felt hat that had been torn, frayed and battered by 15 Minnesota winters -- and an Amish lifestyle frozen in time.

Gusts tugged at Hershberger's footlong beard and blasted against weather-beaten creases that cut deep into beet-red patches surrounding his sparkling eyes. Layered in two slightly tattered jackets, two vests and a long-sleeve shirt, but with only a Buster Brown haircut to cover his frost-tinged ears, Hershberger was anxious to begin the frigid 7-mile ride from Harmony's Main Street to his home in rural Canton, the heart of southeastern Minnesota's Amish country.

"I suppose a windshield might make riding more comfortable on these brutal February days," said Hershberger, 28. "But when the horse works up a sweat, a windshield would fog up from the steam. It's better our way."

Keeping warmRichard Tsong -taatariiStar TribuneAlways challenging, but never more so than in winter, this is the Amish way: No cozy automobiles, no electricity, no telephones, no conventional oil or natural-gas furnaces. And no regrets.

While other Minnesotans set their thermostats at 72 degrees, settle in front of home-entertainment centers, cook popcorn in the microwave and bemoan February heating bills or rising gasoline prices, Amish families retreat to farmhouses heated solely by an air-tight wood or coal stove that is the centerpiece of home and, in winter, the focal point of their lives.

Layers for warmthRichard Tsong -taatariiStar TribuneSteeped in routines anchored more than a century in the past, the Amish stress separation from the rest of the world and its high-tech ways. But like other Minnesotans, they can't escape wind chills.

Keeping warm

Most of the 100-plus Amish families in southeastern Minnesota attack each arctic blast of winter head-on. They ride in horse-drawn buggies or sleighs warmed only by heated soapstones on the floor. In Harmony, an Amish woman opened her coat in much the same way that a Times Square entrepreneur would do to show off fake Rolexes.

Winter harvestRichard Tsong -taatariiStar TribuneInstead of watches, though, she had two hot-water bottles in the lining.

Others in the Amish community cut through frozen ponds with diesel-powered saws, even when it's minus-20 or even colder, gathering foot-thick slabs of ice that will be insulated in sawdust and Styrofoam, buried in "ice houses" when the ground thaws and used for summer refrigeration.

Standing tall in horse-drawn plows, with pitchforks in their hands and wind and snow pelting their eyes, men pitch manure onto frozen, snow-covered fields. Others go to sawmills -- unheated and uncomfortably drafty -- to cut and pile wood needed for heating and cooking.

Taking a breakRichard Tsong -taatariiStar TribuneWomen hang out freshly washed clothes that freeze stiff seconds after being pinned on the line. Or they brave the often torturous buggy rides to town, yielding to motorists, many of whom zoom by or slow down to gawk. Struggling to navigate through whiteouts while maneuvering on the shoulders of snow-covered roads, the Amish rarely have time or inclination to complain.

"Our horse-drawn buggies can go where cars can't," said Eli Hershberger of Canton, noting that many rural roads in the area remained unplowed. "Four inches of snow on the roads doesn't bother our horses.

Jacob HerschbergerRichard Tsong -taatariiStar Tribune"And," Hershberger added, "we don't worry about losing electrical power during ice storms."

Some leave the group

Hershberger's attitude -- we know we're different, but this is who we are -- is common here. Intensely private, often conversing in a German dialect when outsiders are present, the Amish are typically polite but guarded. Families are large and surnames are few. Mailboxes with "Hershberger" or "Yoder" on the side are as common here as the Andersons and Nelsons elsewhere in Minnesota.

Sliding through recessRichard Tsong -taatariiStar TribuneOf the Amish who live in 22 states and Ontario, the families in southeastern Minnesota are considered among the most conservative, said Jacob Hershberger, Eli's brother.

"It's not a lifestyle for everybody," said Jacob, 41, who left the Amish community two decades ago but runs the R&J Wood Goods Amish Furniture store in Harmony with another brother, Reuben, who also left the community. "And nothing tests the Amish like a winter such as this.

"With me, the big thing was that I felt controlled," Jacob Hershberger said. "When I asked questions, I was told that there were certain things I didn't need to know.

"We didn't talk about going to church on a Sunday morning when it was 40 degrees below zero. Even if you had to go 10 miles, you just did it. And nobody dared complain," said Jacob, who drives a car. He sees family members only occasionally.

His siblings who are still in the Amish community treat him well, Jacob said, but are uncomfortable with the idea of coming into his home. He sees his parents only a couple of times a year.

"Since leaving the Amish for the second time, many in the community consider me dead," he said.

Photos cross a line

The Amish shy away from being photographed because, Jacob said, "when they die, they don't want anything left in their memory. God knows they were here -- and that's enough."

Even taking a photograph of one's cooking or heating stove -- most homes have both -- is nearly blasphemous.

However, Ida Hershberger, Eli's wife, recently allowed a reporter and photographer to enter her home. She talked about the round pizza-like slabs of bright yellow dough she was rolling to make noodles. She pointed to six loaves of bread -- on the sill by the water pump and sink -- that she baked earlier in the day. She talked about the pies she would make for the 40 people planning to attend a church service in her home the following Sunday.

"I don't mind being near the cooking stove in weather like this," she said, as temperatures dipped well below zero.

But when the photographer asked if he could take a picture of either her Pioneer Maid cast-iron cooking stove or the 10-year-old wood stove in the living room, where two other women worked pedal-operated sewing machines, Ida's tone turned frigid.

"My husband's in the other building making furniture," she said. "Maybe you should talk to him."

"Oh, you can't photograph this stove, either," Eli Hershberger said, pointing to a coal stove in his work area. "This stove is an important part of our daily lives, especially now. A picture of it would be too personal."

Eli Yoder, 41, a furniture maker who also sells baskets made by Amish neighbors, talked about his cook stove, which was made in Canada by Mennonites, as if it were sacred.

"Photograph this?" he asked. "Oh, I don't think so."

Among Amish at more than a dozen farms, it was only Gideon Hershberger who somewhat hesitantly allowed the Star Tribune to photograph his heating stove.

No, not the 53-year-old Gideon Hershberger, the Amish furnituremaker with nine kids who lives in rural Canton. And not the 76-year-old Gideon Hershberger, who lived a mile away. He died a year ago.

This was the younger Gideon Hershberger, 28, the one who milks cows at a neighbor's farm at 4:30 a.m., then pitches hay in his own field for the 22 beef cows he is raising. This is the Gideon Hershberger whose eyes twinkle with mischief -- as icicles hanging from his golden-brown beard glisten.

As good-natured as he seems, the decision to allow a picture to be taken fills him with reservations.

"Please, understand, I'm Amish. This is very personal. We're private people," he said.

He and his brother, Enos, 20, arrived at Gideon's house on a 10-foot-long wagon-sled, drawn by two Belgian draft horses. They had spent the previous hour at Gideon's pond -- one of the few ponds in an area nearly devoid of lakes -- cutting ice for others. "Just trying to be a good neighbor," he said.

The stove, he said, is a "Frontier 1977" model: small, but powerful enough to heat his 12-room house. A vent in the ceiling above the stove can be pulled open, allowing heat to rise to the second floor.

Adapting

"It's simple, but we're not simple people," said Gideon, who married his second cousin, Katie -- "That's as close as we're allowed" -- and is the father of three children.

"I like cold weather better than the heat," Gideon said. "But I know there can be emergencies in the winter -- and if they occur, I do what needs to be done. If that means getting on a train in La Crosse or riding on a bus, I'll do it."

He last rode a bus two years ago. He has used a telephone. In a house lighted by kerosene lamps, he keeps four small battery-operated flashlights in the house. He says he reads newspapers three to five times a year.

"I don't need a newspaper or television to get a weather report," he said. "I can walk outside or look out a window and tell you it's snowing."

Outside, boys wearing wide-brimmed hats and girls dressed in bonnets and ankle-length dresses raced sleds down hills sparsely lined with bare trees -- symbols of strength, honesty and vulnerability, much like the Amish families that arrived here from central Ohio 30 years ago.

"They tell me there's a storm a-comin' in," said Chriss Stutzman, 42, who was wearing short sleeves as he sawed wood for the bedroom set he was building for a Minneapolis family. "Too bad, because it gets kind of cold traveling by horse and buggy.

"But, just like I can't explain the spelling of my first name -- except that my father spelled his that way -- I can't explain how the Amish here survive the winter," he said. "I do know this: We can always use a little more moisture, and I'm glad to see the new snow covering.

"In this community, no matter how cold it gets, every day is a nice day."