‘Why I Left The Amish’ Reveals A Less Simple Life

By Nancy K. Crevier

What is it about the Amish, the quiet, Christian religious population settled predominantly in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio that fascinates the general population? It is a question that Saloma Miller Furlong, author of Why I Left The Amish, has wondered about for a long while.

“It baffles me,” Ms Furlong said. “The fascination is at an all-time high,” she added, as people from the “outside” seek to join the Amish, hoping to find the serene existence that they believe the low-tech, down to earth, simple population represents to so many.

Ms Furlong will be at the C.H. Booth Library, Wednesday, January 25, for a luncheon talk and book signing, one of several engagements from Minnesota to Virginia to Maine that she has scheduled since her book was published one year ago by Michigan State University Press. She remains as surprised as the next person at the crowds she draws, numbering anywhere from 40 to 150 people. As of January 12, adult program director for C.H. Booth Library, Kim Weber, said that 60 people had already registered for the free event in Newtown.

What attendees will discover at the January 25 talk, though, is that as well as being a supportive, positive, and forgiving community, the Amish way can also be one of psychological and physical abuse, and a place where those who question the Amish way — particularly women — can find life to be harsh.

“The Amish have a pristine white reputation, I think, because they are an insular community and a lot does not reach the rest of the world,” said Ms Furlong. It is a male- dominated society, she said, with a belief system that is ripe for abuse.

Her own upbringing in the Geauga County, Ohio, Amish community is the basis for Why I Left The Amish, a title that reflects her not once, but twice, self-removal from the religious sect. It follows her life through the first time that she left Geauga County, at age 20, Ms Furlong said. A second book, co-authored with her husband, David Furlong, is currently in the works.

“I first wanted to leave when I was 14 years old, and no longer allowed to go to school,” Ms Furlong said, “but I was too young.” Her questioning nature was also not considered to be a good quality in a young Amish woman, but she could not deny the questions that boiled up from inside.

“My mother couldn’t understand it. I was not a fit in the community, which believes that you must follow obediently the ‘uffgeva,’ or ability to give in or give up your individuality,” she said. “But I knew that the rules of the Amish were bigger than me, that I couldn’t change that.”

She was also acutely aware that her family was dysfunctional. Her early years of life were plagued by a despondent father and a frustrated mother who had to take on the daily tasks that her father would not or could not do. It would be years before he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar and receive treatment for those diseases that caused debilitating depression, voices, and as Ms Furlong grew older, violent episodes that resulted in beatings for her and her six siblings.

She endured a mother who was “sometimes protective, and sometimes implicit in the violence,” she said. Her mother was not averse to administering the Amish condoned spankings that quickly evolved into cruel whippings.

“My older brother was also violent, but his was a calculated violence,” recalled Ms Furlong. He was also responsible for molesting her and her sisters.

It does not paint a pretty picture of Amish family life. “There is so much misinformation in the general population [surrounding the Amish],” she said, and she attributes much of it to what she calls “the bonnet fiction” that has flooded the market, written by “people without a clue. There is so much that they get wrong about the Amish culture,” she mourned, whether it is the positive parts of being Amish, or the hidden lives like her own.

The Way Of Forgiveness

The Amish way of forgiveness means that abuse can be ongoing. “If a member does something wrong, he or she is required to make a public confession. Members are required to forgive and forget,” said Ms Furlong. “What [the Amish] don’t realize is that there can be a psychological reason for deviance; they believe it is all spiritual, that the church can take care of it. The Amish,” she said, “do not know how to deal with violence.”

Ms Furlong was 20 years old the first time she left the Amish, even after becoming a member a year earlier, a commitment that came only after “Rumspruinga” and admonishments from members that it was time for her to join.

Rumspruinga, a period during the late teens, is another misconception the public has, said Ms Furlong. “In my community, it is more a time when parents looked the other way when young people would race buggies, drink, or maybe have a camera on the sly. It was really a time to join the gathering and find a marriage partner. We did not get a conscious choice to stay or leave,” said Ms Furlong. What parents would not condone, even in Rumspruinga, is a young woman taking a college course or dating someone outside the community. And education, more than anything, was what she longed for.

Through the assistance of an outside employer, Ms Furlong left the community on the sly when she was 20 years old, knowing she might never see her family again. She traveled to Vermont, but within a few weeks, her sister pressured her for her contact information, and members and her mother arrived to return her to Ohio. She resisted that time, but shortly after, the bishop of the community and others returned and coerced her into returning. Because she was not yet of legal age in Ohio, 21 at that time, she was compelled to return.

During those four months she was away from Ohio, she met the man who would one day be her husband. “He watched me go back and knew it was not my choice. He saw my guilt,” she said.

He would reject her subsequent rejections of him and write to her until the day she once again left the community, for good, when she was 23.

This time, she told her family she was going, and has returned for visits nearly every year. “I did have to be shunned, but again, it is not what most people believe,” Ms Furlong explained. “It means they cannot eat with me, they cannot do business with me, they cannot ride in my car, and they cannot accept gifts from me,” she said.

Since leaving, she has received her GED, taken college courses, raised two sons with her husband, David, and in 2007, graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., with a major in German and a minor in philosophy, having received an Ada Comstock scholarship for women who have not finished college at the traditional age. She studied in Germany for five months, and has interned with Amish expert Dr Donald Krayvill.

It was through the assistance of Ada Comstock founder Eleanor Rothman that Ms Furlong found an editor for Why I Left The Amish. “It was thanks to Jeanne Braham,” said Ms Furlong, “that this book that I had tried for six or eight years previously to publish, was restructured.”

A View Of The Culture

While she has undergone therapy in the years since she left the Amish, and has dealt with conflicting feelings of anger and hurt, Why I Left The Amish is not meant to put the community in a bad light, Ms Furlong said.

“I wanted to give a balanced and nuanced view of Amish culture, first of all. There is a lot of research on the Amish that does not explore some of the more difficult issues that exist,” she said.

Why I Left The Amish breaks the cloak of silence surrounding abuse, for example, said Ms Furlong. But it also reflects on the amazing support members give to one another in difficult times.

She also hopes that her story, when read by those in Amish communities, will give them a positive view of what can happen when somebody leaves. Taught that “All hope of your salvation will be lost,” should a member leave, she sees the book as “part of a healing process for me, and maybe for other Amish people.

 “The Amish don’t know what to do with people like me, who go on to lead happy lives,” she said.

Ms Furlong will be at the C.H. Booth Library for a book talk and signing, Wednesday, January 25, in the meeting room. Attendees are requested to bring a brown bag lunch for the 12:30 program, with beverages provided by the library. Ms Furlong will begin speaking at 1 pm. Copies of Why I Left The Amish will be available for purchase. The program is free, but preregistration is requested at 203-426-4533.

The book is also available online at amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble stores.

Ms Furlong is also featured in the PBS American Experience series The Amish, which premieres Tuesday, February 28, at 8 pm.