My brother Roger recently told me about Born Amish, the story of an Amish girl who grew up in Kalona, Iowa in the 1970's and 80's and who ran off with a man from Kentucky who had lived in Iowa and hired out as a driver for the Amish. Understandably, this book appears to be a tad controversial among the residents of Kalona. Now I see that she previously wrote another book, "Crossing Over: One Woman's Escape From Amish Life"... and now with a couple of clicks, it's on its way as well.
Okay, change of subject: This is what happens when I write what I think (something I was recently told I should do) - random changes. I am remembering something that happened when I was a teenager. One summer day, my friends Anne Hochstedler, Aimee Bodie, and I walked into the town of Kalona from Shiloh. Along the way, Aimee, who was from Washington State, was commenting on how "everybody in Iowa is related." Anne and I both disagreed and I finally stated, rather emphatically, "For example, Anne and I are not related." When we got to town we were hot and tired, and we stopped at my Grandmother's house to rest and get a drink of water. After introducing my friends to Grossmommie, she asked Anne who her grandparents were and then she said the completely unexpected: "Your grandfather was my second cousin." What!? Anne and I were speechless. Aimee, on the other hand, was gleeful: "See! I TOLD you everyone in Iowa is related!" There was simply no response for it.
Along the same vein, an interesting development recently: At the Mennonite church I attend here, there is a man called Don Mengershausen whose relatives, I eventually learned, came from Wellman, Iowa which is about 7 miles west of Kalona. Their last name was Miller (which so happens to be Grossmommie's maiden name) but so is the family name of the author of the book above and I don't think they're related. Well on second thought, I suppose I wouldn't be surprised if they are... So, I dutifully collected the names of all the relatives Don could think of and got the information to my dad who has every family geneology book there is for our family. I asked him if he could look in the "Hay John" book for Don's relatives. My great-great-grandfather was called John Miller, and to distinguish him from every other John Miller (which is also the name of Don's great-something-grandfather, but different middle initial), folks called him "Hay John" because he sold hay to people. Thus, the Hay John book. This is the book that Dad found Anne Hochstedler's family in as well as all the other people I hear him talking about that I have no idea who they are, as in: "Well Regina, these people you were talking about from your mail route are third cousins to you, see here?" But it turns out that the Hay John book wasn't the most useful in this case. Dad then went to the Hochstedler book which was printed in 1938 and thus went back more generations (I didn't even know we had a Hochstedler book or maybe I wouldn't have been quite so surprised about Anne back in the eighth grade) and found that Hay John's wife, my great-great-grandmother Magdaline was a half-sister to Don's great-great-grandfather John Miller. After writing down the information and spending about two weeks working it out, Don and I have concluded we are fourth cousins. He was pretty surprised to hear it too. Who knew I'd have a cousin in Grants Pass I'd never heard of?
The second book I got is Mother-Daughter Knits which I am quite excited to have since it goes into quite a bit of detail about custom fitting sweaters and such to get the best fit, rather than just blindly following a pattern and then if it doesn't fit oneself, having to go find someone it will fit to give it to. Or else taking it out and re-using the yarn on something that hopefully will end up fitting oneself.
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