Back to Ohio

We're going to our cabin in Ohio over Columbus Day weekend. We'll get off I-77 at Route 39 and head west through Sugar Creek, Walnut Creek, Berlin, Millersburg, and Nashville. On the two-lane highway between Walnut Creek and Millersburg, we'll see lots of Amish buggies. Berlin, in fact, has become a center of Amish tourism; the population of Amish in Holmes and surrounding counties is among the largest in the country, and is said to rival that of Pennsylvania.

One soon notices variations in dress among the various groups. Here goes a young woman dressed head-to-toe in black, wearing sturdy black oxfords, and there goes a gaggle of giggling prayer-bonneted teen-agers in pastel dresses and flip-flops.

Driving through Millersburg years ago, when our older daughter was five, we saw an Old Order Amish woman crossing the street with an identically-dressed toddler in tow. "Look, Mommy," said Margaret, "a baby nun!"