Why I Left the Amish by Saloma Miller Furlong

The Amish, a 2012 documentary, will be repeated Jan. In addition to two books, her story has been woven into two American Experience documentaries on PBS. The new life she built after her departure is described in a Herald Press book to be released Feb. 3.īonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds is the second volume of her memoir, which began with Why I Left the Amish - a story of growing up with a violent, mentally ill father and a sexually abusive brother before fleeing to a new life in Vermont.īonnet Strings describes a return to her Amish roots in Ohio and the final break when she went back to Vermont to marry the “Yankee” (non-Amish) David Furlong, who contributes a few chapters to the book. “I knew what the price would be when I left, so I didn’t complain about it, but when I saw how it punished my parents, that hurt me more, and I think the ministers knew that.” “That was one of the hardest things for me, not really knowing what the rules are and that the ministers could bend and enforce those rules based on who it was,” she said.

For Miller Furlong, that arbitrary nature hung on her heaviest. However, shunning practices vary, sometimes even within communities. Unlike common perceptions about strict and total disassociation, most Amish allow some interaction with those who have been shunned. We would then schedule to arrive right after lunch or leave before dinner.” “She was chastised for that, and after that we didn’t eat together at all…. “The next time my mother put a card table six inches from the table, and David and I would sit there and they’d pass the food to us,” she said. When Saloma Miller Furlong left the Amish for good, one of the ways her shunning manifested and evolved was around the dinner table during return trips to visit family in Ohio.Īt first, she and her then-boyfriend David Furlong sat with the family, though it was against the rules to eat with a person who is shunned.

Why I Left the Amish by Saloma Miller Furlong