03-30-2011, 09:26 PM
Right now I am reading Why I Left the Amish a memoir written by Saloma Furlong.
Here are a few words by the author about her story, plus a link to the source.
Why I Left the Amish, begins with an unanticipated break in my studies during my first semester at Smith College in 2004 when my father died and I traveled back to Ohio to my childhood community for his funeral. Finding myself back in the horse and buggy world I had left twenty-four years before, and then suddenly back on Smith College campus in a matter of forty-eight hours left me reflecting on the two separate and distinct lives I have lived.
Many childhood memories were triggered before and during the funeral — memories of my father’s mental illness, my older brother’s brutality, and my mother’s lack of protection, which often left me without advocates. Besides my struggles within my specific family, I also battled my feeling of being an outsider within the only community I knew. No matter how hard I tried, I could not quiet the fundamental questions that boiled up from within any more than I could fully conform to the ways of the church, even after becoming a baptized member of the church. My desire for more formal education was always there, even though I knew it would be impossible to acquire more education if I stayed in the community.
http://aboutamish.blogspot.com/2010/10/m...amish.html
Here are a few words by the author about her story, plus a link to the source.
Why I Left the Amish, begins with an unanticipated break in my studies during my first semester at Smith College in 2004 when my father died and I traveled back to Ohio to my childhood community for his funeral. Finding myself back in the horse and buggy world I had left twenty-four years before, and then suddenly back on Smith College campus in a matter of forty-eight hours left me reflecting on the two separate and distinct lives I have lived.
Many childhood memories were triggered before and during the funeral — memories of my father’s mental illness, my older brother’s brutality, and my mother’s lack of protection, which often left me without advocates. Besides my struggles within my specific family, I also battled my feeling of being an outsider within the only community I knew. No matter how hard I tried, I could not quiet the fundamental questions that boiled up from within any more than I could fully conform to the ways of the church, even after becoming a baptized member of the church. My desire for more formal education was always there, even though I knew it would be impossible to acquire more education if I stayed in the community.
http://aboutamish.blogspot.com/2010/10/m...amish.html