Old Order Amish in Indiana

The historic national site of Amish Acres, Nappanee, Indiana, provides a map for touring (dashed line) the many nearby Amish businesses and homes. Let's take a look. (Map source: The above map is only a small part of A Guide to Amish Acres, Nappanee, Indiana, July 2003)
In the Nappanee area, Amish men ride bikes with rubber tires to manufacturing plants, operated by the Amish, as this wood working factory, or by the "English" in the many RV factories. Indeed, northern Indiana is the RV capital of the USA.
Because many of the Amish in the Nappanee work in factories rather than on their farms, they spend their incomes on new houses with plastic fences and small barns. New and well-maintained schools are also evident. Telephones are allowed here, but only in locked booths for all to see; sometimes, in barns or workshops. Indeed, Amish with very little acreage rent it to the "English."
But some things stay the same: large kitchen gardens, often with lots of flowers; Germanic surnames on mail boxes; horses for farm work and carriages, which leave their evidence on the roads.
Horses are used to cut hay and winter wheat, which was being shocked in late July.
The Amish are plain people in life and death. In the Borkholder cemetery, the tombstones are uniform and modest -- without quotations from the Bible and family afflictions. Only a few Germanic surnames predominate among the Amish.
Among the Nappanee Amish, propane gas is allowed and used to run refrigerators, engines, lights, etc. This is a major deviation from other Amish communities in the rest of the USA. An Amish family operates this country store for the surrounding Amish and Mennonites. Beside the variety of dry goods, bulk foods and large packages of brand foods, such as Jell-O, are the most distinctive aspects of this store.

Created by Ingolf Vogeler and last revised on 06 April 2005.