The Amish Community

Yesterday morning, we got a call from Sara, saying that our Granddaughter wasn’t feeling well, so Anne-Marie and I had a day of touring alone.  We drove down to Rockome gardens, a forty minute drive, expecting to have several hours of looking at the displays and buildings, but we were surprised with a closed sign, seems that they are closed Monday and Tuesday.  Rockome Gardens has been an exhibit of the Amish lifestyle, and crafts, since the late 1930s.  We will have to make a better coordinated visit at a later time.



Anne-Marie and I toured around the Arcola, Illinois, area, looking for a favorite Amish store. We passed through rural areas, that the local power company didn’t even bother to install electric lines down the roads.  This is the Bagdad School, it seems to have a propane stove for heat, and the addition to the right has a large 4X4 skylight, and a light tube to provide light within.  There is no evidence of electric, or phone lines entering the school.



The Amish have a lot of farmland in this neighborhood, and some have extensive buildings, and others not so much.  There were even some newer houses, that were in the Amish fashion, of being built with no provision for electric lines.  The pictures show the countryside with no lines.



Beachy’s is a grocery store, that caters to the tourists, and the locals alike.  The locals ride bikes, horses, wagons, and buggies to the market.  The bike parked in front of the store, was ridden by a Amish woman, in typical dress, and bonnet, and bare footed.  In the store, we saw several women barefooted, I find this amazing, because if I find the smallest rock on the rug inside the trailer, it hurts my feet, they must be tough.  The men were dressed in the same fashion, suspenders no belts, buttons not zippers, and the haircuts were of the same style, and the women had dresses that were pinned together, no buttons, and nearly all had the same style of bonnet.



They give the closest parking spaces to the local’s with their horses, wagons, and buggies.



The store has no commercial power, but they do have electric checkout registers, and what looks to be electric light fixtures in the ceiling.  The light fixtures might be skylights, but I couldn’t tell, they were quite bright.  There is extensive use of propane light fixtures of this mantel type of light fixture, throughout the store.



The cooling fans, and ceiling fans, are powered by compressed air.  Each fixture has a compressed line in, and a exhaust line out.



The shelves in the store were full of prepackaged bulk food, and many, many varieties of preserves under their own label, and other Amish food processors.



Beachy’s labeled, mustard mayo pepper spreads, and Planks locally made mustards and spreads.  These same labeled foods can be found in many local markets around Champaign, and Urbana.



Anne-Marie and I stopped at a local meat market, Dutch Valley Meats in Arthur Illinois, and not knowing what to expect about how they can keep everything cool, I was surprised to see common coolers, lights, phone lines, even a wireless Wi-Fi router, and they accept credit cards.  The girls behind the counters, were Amish, pleasant, and very knowledgeable about the operations of the meat market.  They work with the latest technology during the day, and after work return to a lessor technology equipped home.  I read about the struggles of the younger people in their community, and some are attracted to the modern world, and then others are repelled by it.  The pace of life in this community is slower than the big cities we have been to, but it requires more energy and work than what we are accustomed to since retirement.