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Sunday, July 7, 2002
Old Times, new attitude
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||
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SMYRNA — The sun breaks through a shower-specked sky as Norman Kauffman, in a straw hat and suspenders, leads his horse Jacob out of a green field. Nearby, his two daughters, wearing full-length dresses, their heads covered in bonnets, carry plants in and out of a greenhouse that smells of damp soil and petunias. In the house, their mother, Judy, scrubs the kitchen after the noon meal. Kauffman bids his family goodbye, hitches Jacob to an open wagon made of wood and, at a steady trot, heads down Route 2 toward his metal business. It is a typical trip for Kauffman, and a scene that is becoming more familiar in this northern Maine farming town, home to Maine's only Old Order Amish community. Six years after first setting down roots in Smyrna, the Amish community has grown from just a few settlers to approximately 80 people in 12 families. To the non-Amish residents of Smyrna, the Amish and their shed-building business, Sturdi-Built, have brought a new kind of economic vigor to an area that previously had little to offer. To the Amish, tiny Smyrna, population 400, has become home - a place to raise their families and earn a living while practicing a simple, spiritual way of life in a complex, hurried world. While Amish in other parts of the country are known as private people who want nothing to do with the outside world, the Amish in Smyrna have shed that image. They are friendly with any visitor to their community. They do business with non-Amish folks. They enjoy talking with others about their crafts, their stories, their history and - to those who are interested - their spiritual conviction. "Not every Amish community is like this, and that is why we are here," said Benuel Esch, who moved to the community a year ago. "We like to share our culture and testify to the rest of society. We like to stay separate from the world, but we intermingle with the outsiders quite a bit. We found that walking the talk is better than talking the walk." Communities in 20 states Amish history is rooted in 17th- century Switzerland, where a group of people called the Anabaptists broke off from the Christian teachings of the time. They believed, in contrast to Roman Catholics, that adults, not children, should be baptized. The Amish religious order that resulted, known as the Old Order Amish, came to North America in the 18th century, first settling in western Pennsylvania. Today, there are Amish communities in 20 states, with about 80 percent of them living in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The group in Smyrna remains relatively unknown to southern Mainers. The National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom in Livonia, Mich., was not even aware of Amish people in Maine until a few weeks ago. This could be because the Amish live simple lives outside the public sector. They practice nonresistance, meaning they do not serve in the military or vote in public government. They do, however, pay taxes, although they require little assistance from the towns in which they live. For example, the Amish children in Smyrna do not attend local schools. Rather, the Amish community has its own one-room schoolhouse, where the children spend their winters studying until the eighth grade. After that, they join the family farm, or business, to work and learn from life. The Amish live a lifestyle that is defined by peace, love and by possessing few material goods, living close to the soil. They reject modern conveniences, such as cars, electricity and washing machines. Instead they use horses and buggies to travel. They wear homemade clothes in muted colors, devoid of buttons. The men are bearded, wear long pants, long sleeves, suspenders and hats. The women wear full-length, long-sleeved dresses and their heads are always covered. Their everyday decisions are defined by the King James Bible. "People sure seem to be interested in them," said the Rev. William Lindholm, who heads the Michigan committee. "They live a different lifestyle and people are attracted to that. They do things that a lot of people would like to do. They live a simple life people are attracted to." Appeal of rural Maine The Amish found Smyrna in 1996 when five families from the Midwest, including Kauffman, his wife, Judy, and 11 of their 12 children, went looking for a rural part of the country that had never before been home to Anabaptist witnesses. Smyrna is about 15 miles west of Houlton in the middle of rolling hills and potato country. It is tightly nestled against the town of Oakfield and the village of Smyrna Mills, where there is a small grocery store and a feed store. "This is an area where (the Amish) can create a certain lifestyle that they couldn't create with wall-to-wall people," said Andy Mooers of Mooers Realty, who sold a 300-acre parcel of property to the first group of families. "They're nice folks, honest and trusting and that's what kind of people we have up North." The original families who settled in Smyrna were among a group of Amish who wanted to live differently than their brethren in other Old Order Amish communities in other parts of America. As Kauffman describes it, those communities had become "a world within a world," without having much interaction with mainstream America, or Americans. "This group is an expression of not wanting to be that way," said Kauffman, who is a minister for the community. "We have no secrets." There are some doctrinal details that separate the Amish in Smyrna from other Amish communities. But to the casual visitor, the most noticeable difference is the attitude: The families in Smyrna want to interact with, do business with and befriend non-Amish people. Shutting themselves off from other people, interacting only with other Amish, Kauffman explained, is not the way the families in Smyrna believe God intended them, as Christians, to live. So far, most of the members of the Smyrna community are happy with their new homes in Maine. Many still have family in places such as Tennessee, Iowa and Michigan. Agrarians by trade, the families who moved to Maine found they had a challenge: The winters are longer and harsher than in places like Iowa and Tennessee. The growing season is shorter and the market for livestock is more limited. "That is one of the biggest hindrances," said Isaac Kulp, who was born in Lancaster, Pa., and moved to the community two years ago from Tennessee. "It's harder to farm here." Sustaining life and building an economy on farming as they did back home, they learned, was not going to work for every family in Smyrna. What has worked well for the community, though, is well-crafted handiwork. At Sturdi-Built, which employs half the men in the community, the phone - one of two in the whole community - rings constantly. People call for dimensions, prices and directions. Kulp takes orders, telling his customers that they are booked until August. The "mini-barns" have exceeded anyone's expectations. At times, Sturdi-Built will have 20 or more orders a week for the structures, which can be as small as a shed or as big as a hunting cabin and range in price from $675 to $2,150. The mini-barns have kept them so busy that in 2000, the community made a collective decision to allow the limited use of gas-fired engines to run air compressors to improve production. Other Amish-run businesses are doing well, too. One family runs an organic vegetable stand; another runs a leather goods and horse harness shop. There is a small bike repair shop and Kauffman's metal shop, which supplies sheets of metal in all colors for roofing and siding to contractors across the state. Benuel Esch is a machinist by trade, but is finding more success in grain and furniture. Samples of his rustic log beds and tables can be found at the Country Store, which is run by another Amish family. The store sells more wares to the people of the outside world than to the Amish. "This economic activity is bringing a lot of people to this area to purchase what they are selling," said Perry Lilley, chairman of the town's Board of Selectmen. "We had no attraction like that before. No attraction to bring people up from southern Maine." Clarice Johnston and her sister Donna Doucette, who live in Caribou, come to Smyrna to shop. They get a kick out of the store, which is lit only by skylights and sells bulk foods and items they just can't seem to find elsewhere: sassafras tea, a pound of flax seed, four bars of homemade lavender soap and a plastic rat trap. "I love to come down here and browse around," Johnston said. "It just thrills me to death. I'm into the old-fashioned days, the slower pace." A horse-drawn wagon, loaded with children and rhubarb, pulled up to the store as Johnston showed off her treasures. She and Doucette were eager, but wary, to talk with the women who drove the wagon to the store. They didn't know if they could converse with these Amish women. But the ladies in their bonnets were welcoming and chatty when the sisters struck up a conversation. The Amish community in Aroostook County has beckoned curious visitors who just come to look or snap a picture of a horse and buggy as it pitches along Route 2. "They don't know if they are allowed to come close," laughed Kulp as he jotted down notes for a customer at Sturdi-Built on a Wal-Mart desk minder. "But they are welcome to come." He said the Amish in Smyrna aim to be a "light unto the world." They do this by welcoming non-Amish, especially those seeking a relationship with God, to visit with the families of the community. Locals are even invited to attend Sunday church services at the meetinghouse, although the services are conducted in German. Welcomed by neighbors The community's enterprising nature and friendly demeanor has endeared the Amish to their neighbors. Smyrna has had some hard times, mirroring the downturns in the logging industry and potato farming. But things started looking up when the Amish families moved in, residents say. Vast, nearly forgotten farmlands hummed again with life. The newly built homes and businesses boosted the town's property tax revenue. The Amish even created some jobs for local people. Jon Sanders of Houlton was once a potato farmer. Now he, his father and his grandmother haul mini-barns all over the state for Sturdi-Built. The job pays well, he gets the holidays off and he believes the Amish are honest, moral, hard-working and kind. "There's nothing in the world they wouldn't do for anybody," he said. "I really enjoy working for them." Bambi Barnes, who owns a horse farm across the street from the Kauffmans, was overjoyed when her neighbors moved into the old farm next door and brought along their horses. "The Amish are traditionally country farm people," she said. "They take care of their land and their animals. It's nice to have people move in who share the same interests." The Amish like Smyrna, too. With the success of Sturdi-Built, members of the community say there is no lack of work for Amish men and they are hopeful other Amish families in America will settle in Maine. "Maine is a great place," said Tom Johnson, who owns the harness shop. "We're trying to get more Amish here. Land prices are tolerable and there are opportunities. We don't want to be just 10 families. We'd like to see another community down the road." This inevitably would attract more visitors like Elaine and Sheldon Scott of Caribou. A few years ago they passed right by Smyrna on their way south. Now they stop at the Kauffman family's Merri-Gold Greenhouse to pick up what they described as the best flowers in the county. Filling the trunk of her car with hollyhocks and baskets of hanging petunias last week, Scott remarked how friendly the Kauffman girls seemed. She told her husband how impressed she was with the greenhouse and the Kauffman home, which seem to run just fine with no electricity, no televisions and no telephones. "We think we do pretty well, but we should learn a lesson from them," she said. Hymn blesses meal Kauffman's greenhouse, open every day except Sunday, closes around 5 p.m. That's when Norman's son Vernon heads to the horse paddock to feed Jacob and the other animals, while two small children, a girl in a blue dress, a boy in navy slacks and small suspenders, snooze on a couch. The sun sinks low behind a rain cloud as the family gathers around a long table, set with plastic plates and silverware. The family joins together in a hymn, given as a blessing for the meal. After supper, Norman plays volleyball with the children as Judy and her older daughters wash the dishes. Down the road, just a few miles away, the Esch family finishes supper. Benuel, who has spent the day working on sheds at Sturdi-Built, rests on the couch, his 8-year-old daughter Melinda snuggled under his arm. His oldest daughter, Sarah, mends a dress while his wife, Elizabeth, washes the muddy feet of her youngest daughters. Soon it will be time for bed, but not before singing a few songs out of a black hymnal. There are enough books for everyone, but they don't really need them. The Esch family knows most of the words, and all the tunes, by heart. Outside, a rainbow arches over the Esch house, garden and horses. "Life is what you make it," Benuel Esch said. "We have no reason to be unhappy." Staff Writer Giselle Goodman can be contacted at 324-4888 or at:
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