This is Really My Job

I’ve started working on this project to bring tree seedlings and environmental education packets to Amish schoolchildren. A lot of the background work is already done—the meetings with the Amish Bishops, the Old Order Book Society and the school boards. Now I step in to work with the teachers. I have a partner for this task: her name is Sarah Fisher (she’s Amish). Today was the first day we visited teachers together.

Amish schoolteachers are women, often young and perhaps always unmarried, and therefore still live with their parents. When they get married, which they almost always do, they stop teaching in order to care for their own children. Our plan was to meet with them at home in the evening before supper. I guess there’s an interest, on the teacher’s end, in knowing that her parents know about and approve of her decisions. In some cases it doesn’t seem to matter, but in others it does.

The complicated thing about these visits is that there’s really no way to warn anyone that we’re coming. So we pull up in my car, set the dogs a-barking and give the screen door a few knocks. Most of the families know Sarah, so she’ll ask if the woman we’re looking for is home. We’re invited in and she comes to us and I explain why we’re there. The story is that we have a grant to give trees and information packets to each student. Hopefully the trees will get planted and the packets won’t get thrown away. A few years ago (before my time), this same project happened in another county and the kids were really excited. A lot of families asked for more trees. It's generally adorable.

The first teacher we see is Mattie Beiler, and she's completely not what I expected. She is nearly 50 years old and boards during the week with extended family who live next to her school. She’s interested in the project and has heard about it from her cousin, Henry, who helped write out the tree planting instructions in Pennsylvania Dutch for the youngest students who often don’t speak English yet. (The “funny” thing about that—which definitely needs explaining—is that PA Dutch is only a spoken language.) She talks about how this is her last year as a schoolteacher and how someone had said to her, “You’ve taught school for 30 years! Do you even know how to do anything else?” Then Mattie said, with an appreciable amount of sarcasm, “I told her I figured I should first learn how to boil water.” It takes me a rather long moment to understand that she’s definitely joking. She also has two cockatoos that make a tremendous amount of noise during our conversation.

Next we drive to Rachel Fisher’s house. She’s not home yet and we sit in my car and wait for her. It’s gotten suddenly cold and we talk about the rain. Her driver pulls in and Rachel unloads her things from the truck. A few minutes later, she walks over to see us. She’s concerned her school board will want to approve the project before she agrees to it. I drop the packets and chase after them in the wind. Yes, it’s suddenly much colder.

Our last stop is Priscilla Fisher’s. We knock on her door and are greeted by her father. Sarah asks for Priscilla, but her father doesn’t budge. Instead he stares at me with what I interpret to be both amusement and disapproval, and I immediately feel completely awful. Only a few times in my life has anyone ever made me feel like I spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e, and regardless of whether or not it’s true, my first response is to side temporarily with the accuser until I sort myself out. So I stand there speechless and Sarah’s face turns red as she works through some more explanations. It also becomes clear that we’ve interrupted their supper. My god, I’m a thoughtless home-wrecker.

Eventually he leaves to fetch his daughter. She comes to meet us, her mouth full of food, and Sarah starts talking as she chews and swallows. Priscilla is brown-haired, brown-eyed and completely lovely. We ask her how many students does she have and when can we drop off the trees, and I notice that she has this crazy way of answering questions that somehow seems to imply that there is a much greater meaning to the words she’s saying. She says, “I have 34 students,” and it doesn’t quite seem like that’s the end of it. I want to say, “Priscilla, please tell me what it’s like for you to have 34 students.” What is that? Intrigue I guess. All I can think for the rest of the time we’re there is: this girl is going to get married; she will not be a schoolteacher living with her sister when she’s 50. A few more minutes with her and I might have considered asking for her hand. The Fishers of Old Forge Road: a truly powerful force in their world of nonverbal communication.

Sarah and I will visit the rest of the teachers next week, and we’ll also take the first round of trees to the schoolhouses. I can’t believe that the most powerful take-home message of this experience so far was how to be marriageable. I'll probably leave that out of my final report to the Department of Environmental Protection.