As a reporter, I swallowed hard each time I drove to the rural areas of Hazleton, Fairbank or McIntire, Iowa, to write stories about the Amish. I knew they would be reluctant to talk to me, wary of my intentions, fussy about photography. Some of it came back Monday as I followed the news coverage of the horrific bloodshed in an Amish school near Nickel Mines, Pa. I thought about the raw intrusion and the scrutiny of the outside world. I pulled out the Amish file in my home filing cabinets and found brittle, yellowed clippings from 1975, 1976 and 1977. In search of Honesty: Old Old Amish Move from Missouri to McIntire was a full-page feature I did for the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier in the spring of 1975. The article told how Amishman Jerry Bontrager brought his family to that place after surveying land options in Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The price of land, the quality of existing buildings and black soil are what made him and others choose northern Iowa farms owned by non-Amish. The electric power lines would be disconnected, the indoor bathroom stripped, and other vestiges of modern living would be removed. Bontrager related some buyers remorse, how he had learned he had poorly drained land, sink holes and quicksand. I didnt know that before. He held back when asked why he made the move. He shifted his weight against the side of the small henhouse he was leaning against. Then he spoke, I wrote. Church matters was the reason. Some people didnt live up to our rules, he spoke carefully, choosing each word. Weve got rules in church like other churches, and the state has rules, and we have to stick to them. People didnt live up to what we thought were honest. But Bontrager wanted to say no more. Bontrager told me how the northern Missouri area offered bad temptations to their children. There was a lot of heavy drinking down there. Im not very fond of that drinking. Then there were problems in Missouri with how they marketed their raw milk. I ended that long article with this. We hope were doing the right thing, Bontrager confessed. But its planting season. Times too short to doubt. The Amish believe farming is the calling closest to God. God made the land and man made the city where evil is centered, they believe. McIntire will indeed be tested. And in the end, the Amish hope they find it a blessing, a place of honesty, a haven from temptation and a productive farming community. There were other clippings, one from December 1977 on how the Amish didnt celebrate Christmas much: A 71-year-old Amishman grins when its suggested his people may be missing on much that is positive and good about Christmas. Not atall, he says. A man like him with 76 grandchildren may be glad that gift-giving is as little regarded as it is by his sect.

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