 |
| Pauline and Dennis (foreground) sit at a Hutterite supper table in Kenton, Ohio |
On my return from West
Virginia last month, Pauline welcomed me into her Victorian home in Newport,
Kentucky.
“On
your way to Michigan tomorrow, will you have time to stop in Ohio for a visit
with our friends the Harris family?” she asked.
“Yes.
I packed a dress with sleeves as you suggested.”
“Good!
I’ll ride with you. Dennis will meet us there.”
“What’s
the name of their community?”
“Hutterite.
But Dennis and I call them ‘plain folk’ as we do the Amish. Wanda and Michael don’t
use electricity but drive a fifteen-seat van. Wanda loves to cook soup for
company. I take dessert.”
The
following afternoon, I found Ohio’s June agricultural landscape as breathtaking
as Farming Magazine portrays it.
“Dennis
and I enjoy escaping the city to spend a day with the plain folk. You’ll soon know
why.”
We
drove through tidy Ohio towns until Pauline nodded to a spacious white
farmhouse. “There it is.”
Surrounded
by trees and red barns, the house sat upon an undulating sea of green cropland.
The flower garden along the front porch caught my eye from the road. A little
blonde girl in a maroon dress ran barefoot with a dog the color of her hair.
I
praised God for sight and His bountiful beauty.
Pauline
spied Dennis’ van. “Looks like he beat us here.”
Two girls
in long, colorful dresses walked down the steps. Two boys about seven and nine
ran around the yard with their younger sister and the dog they called Carmel.
I
knew Wanda by her matronly figure and smile.
“Welcome
Iris!”
“Hello,
Wanda. Thank you for the invitation.”
“Well,
come on in! Michael and Dennis ran an errand with the older boys.”
We
found five sisters beside the large, harvest table arranging flowers in a vase.
They tucked blossoms under each other’s scarves.
“The flowers are for the funeral of a
community member,” Pauline explained. She talked patterns and fabric with the young
ladies.
For
three hours Greta skipped in and out of the house to color with crayons. Nine-year
old Hans led me into a barn to see his chicks.
“A
rat killed two of them,” he said.
“I’m
sorry.”
Around
four o’clock after Dennis and Michael returned with her two young men, Wanda placed
Pauline’s cheesecakes on the table. Three-year old Greta pointed to a chocolate
piece. “That one.”
Later,
we chopped vegetables and gathered silverware for supper. Twelve people fit on benches with room to
spare for the matriarch. The youngest children sat at their little table.
Joyously,
Wanda carried in a soup pot of creamed chicken half her size, set it before us,
and returned with a stockpot of rice. At last, the matriarch joined is. The
patriarch dispersed hymnals.
Before
the feast began, the family sang parts in harmony. The feeling was akin to my
grandmother’s table when I was a child. Before the family dismissed, they sang
from the hymnals again.
Dear
Reader, I know why Pauline and Dennis visit the Hutterites.
They
love to see the chocolate ring around Greta’s mouth. Plain and simple.
