Pennsylvania Dutch Guide-Book

by Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau

The Plain People

By PROFESSOR A. FRED RENTZ
The late Professor Rentz was an Educator and Authority on the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Religion was one of the strong motives in the lives of our Pennsylvania Dutch forbears. It was upon the invitation of William Penn, who offered them a religious haven in Penn’s woods, that they came to America out of the Palatinate in Germany. The first ones to come were the Lutherans and Reformed, who even today form the largest segment of the Pennsylvania Dutch people. The Lutherans and Reformed were followed in quick succession by the so-called plain people, the Mennonites, the Amish and the [1]Brethren; the heart of whose life is still in Lancaster County, Pa. We speak of them as “plain” because they dress in a religious garb. They speak of us as “fancy” or “gay.” “Plain and Fancy.” Here they live having preserved the customs of our forefathers most faithfully over a period of two hundred and fifty years.

Of the three plain sects the Mennonites are the oldest historically and the most numerous. They stem from one Menno Simons, a Catholic parish priest, who seceded from the church of his fathers in 1536. He was one of that large group of Anabaptists who could not in good conscience join the Lutheran and Reformed movements because they believed in infant baptism. Menno Simons believed only in the baptism of the believer. “Don’t baptize a baby that does not know what it’s doing, but baptize only one who believes.”

The Mennonite woman will wear a trim little black bonnet (some are blue, brown, green) with no skirt on it. Her prayer cap is perched jauntily on the back of her head. The material in the cap is net, much finer than the Amish cap. The cap may have strings or not, dependent on the individual’s choice. Her dress may be a solid color, but usually it will be a print. Her cape is square and is fastened to the belt in front. Among our Mennonite friends, the apron has disappeared; except among the more conservative groups.

The Mennonite men usually wear black hats, not broad brimmed. They are, as a rule, smooth shaven. Their coats are Cadet type, no collars or lapels; buttoned up to the neck. Their trousers are styled like those of the gay people.

In 1693 in the Canton of Berne in Switzerland lived Jacob Amman, in all probability a Mennonite bishop, surely a Mennonite clergyman. He seceded from the Mennonites on the question of church discipline. Said he, you Mennonites have lost the way of life of Menno Simons. You are far too easy on your people. If you excommunicate a brother or sister for transgressing the laws of God or violating the rules of the church, all that it means is that they can’t partake of the Holy Communion. It ought to mean far more than that. It ought to mean “meidung”—a German word meaning avoidance, shunning, ostracism. If we excommunicate some one, we will have no fellowship whatever with him. If we pass him on the street, we will ignore him. We will not buy from him, nor will we sell to him. If he’s a member of our family we will not eat at the same table with him. The Old Order House Amish carry on that tradition to this very day.

Let us first describe the dress of our Amish friends. The Amish man in the winter time will wear a broad-brimmed, low crowned, felt hat. In the summer time, natural rye straw. He will wear a beard after marriage, but no moustache. The moustache in former generations was the hall-mark of a soldier and, of course, he is adverse to anything that savors of the Military. His dress jacket will be fastened with hooks and eyes rather than buttons. The button is too characteristic of the Military uniform. The front of his dress coat (mootza) is usually cut in a V at the top and has the old fashioned Prince Albert coat tails. There are no collar or lapels on his coat. His trousers are broadfalls, buttoned on the hips like a sailor’s trousers.

The Amish woman’s garb is likewise interesting. Her headdress consists of a bonnet and a white cap. The bonnet in the case of adult women is black. Children often wear blue, purple, green bonnets. It is rather big, covers virtually all of her hair. “The hair is woman’s crowning glory” and to expose it, would be vain. There is a long skirt on the bonnet, extending down to the shoulders, over the nape of the neck. Underneath the bonnet, the Amish woman will wear a white cap, which she knows as her prayer cap. This she wears at all times. The cap has white strings which she ties in a neat bow when she is dressed up. When she is working the strings will probably float down her back. The prayer cap has good Scriptural authority, provided we are literalists in interpretation. St. Paul tells us that we are to “pray without ceasing” and that women are not to pray with head uncovered.

Her dress is always a solid color—blue, purple, violet, green, lavender, red—indeed any solid color. Over her shoulders she wears a cape, which comes to a point at the waist, front and back. The cape may be black or the same color as the dress. The young women may wear a white cape when they go to church. A black apron completes her garb. In the case of the young woman the apron is white when she attends morning worship.

They do have virtues that the rest of us would do well to emulate, to our own profit and the profit of society in general. For example, in the Amish community the writer knows an Amish blacksmith, one of the most God-like gentlemen that it has been his privilege to know. The blacksmith does more work, takes in more money on a Saturday than any other day of the week. Some years ago, his neighbor, a “gay” farmer, was ill. It was Saturday morning. The farmer’s hay was lying in the field, ready to be taken into the barn. What did the blacksmith do? He locked up his shop, took himself and his son into the hayfield and by evening the hay was in the barn of the ill farmer. The blacksmith sacrificed his best day’s wages to help his neighbor and brother.

Photo by Jim Hess
AMISH GIRL’S BONNET, AMISH WOMAN’S BONNET, PRAYER CAP AND DRESS

Second:—As we drive through the Amish community and observe their farms and farm buildings we need to remember that there is no fire insurance on the buildings. They look upon insurance as an effort to thwart the will of God. But, let the biggest barn in the Amish community burn to the ground, in ten days or so after the fire, some morning a hundred, two hundred, as high as three hundred Amishmen, will appear; armed with hammers, hatchets, saws—whatever it takes to build a barn—and by evening a new barn will stand on the site. For the material, they will contribute into a common fund. The women will serve two dinners, one at noon, one in the evening. The writer saw a barn raising one day. At four fifteen o’clock in the evening the completed barn stood there. On this barn 201 men were helping. The writer said to the farmer “Uncle Isaac, this must have cost you a pretty penny, just to feed so many men.” Said Uncle Isaac, “It didn’t cost me a cent, the brethren furnished it all.” Mutual helpfulness is still a virtue.

Third:—During the economic depression of the thirties not one penny was paid to an Amish family out of public funds by way of relief. They took care of themselves.

Fourth:—When the Roosevelt administration came to power in 1932 and its department of agriculture found too much wheat, too many pigs, they said, “Let your land lie fallow. We will pay you a subsidy.” The answer of our Amish farmer was, “Nothing doing. This land is a trust from God. Farm it, we will. If you don’t want wheat, we will not farm wheat, nor will we raise pigs, if they are not needed, but farm our land we will, and we don’t want your subsidy. Self reliance is still a virtue.”

Photo by Jim Hess
LANCASTER COUNTY BARN RAISING

The third sect of plain people is the Church of the Brethren or Dunkards. They stem from Alexander Mack, a Mennonite clergyman who seceded from the Mennonites in Schwarzenau, Germany in 1708 on his interpretation of baptism. The Mennonite commonly sprinkles in baptism. Mack taught that to be baptized properly one ought to be immersed, “dunked” if you please.

The Church of the Brethren have largely lost their “Plain Way” of life. Since they have gone in for higher education, their garb has largely disappeared. Few of the men wear beards and most of the Brethren use regular clothing. However, some still wear a garb similar to the Mennonites, the favorite color of the men being grey.

There is one sect of Dunkards, the Old Order River Brethren, very plain, just as plain as the Amish. These people are not a numerically large sect, for there are only approximately 12,000 of them in America. However, they deserve mention, for it was from them that President Eisenhower descended, whose grandfather, the Rev. Jacob Eisenhower, was a minister in the sect.

We, who live in Lancaster County, respect these plain folks most profoundly. They are our neighbors and we find them good neighbors. They have made a contribution to our agriculture, greater than their numbers warrant, to make our county the richest non-irrigated agricultural county in America.

They are a peace loving people whom you do not find in the courts either as prosecutors or defendants. All they ask of you and me is to be let alone to lead their lives in the light as God has given it to them to see the light.