At 09:03 PM 11/25/04 -0500, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: > Given that the Amish tend to "keep themselves to > themselves", I wouldn't have thought it likely to spread to the rest of > the country very rapidly...
In a second-hand store I found a novel published by some church about the coming-of-age of a nineteenth-century Amish girl. The names on the title page revealed that it was actually autobiography, a la "Little House on the Prairie" -- and quite as good; pity it isn't better known. It was called "A Bonnet for . . . " (I can't remember the name). Ostensibly about the many obstacles in the way of a poor girl who wished to purchase a bonnet, it was really about learning to live in adult society. (The bonnet was necessary for an adult. Another sub-plot concerned her dramatic efforts to learn how to pin up her hair instead of wearing a childish braid. And, of course, she met Mr. Right -- the story ended before they got serious, but she was Mrs. Right on the title page.) In this story, the Brethren were regarded as little different from the other Christian churches in the town; she went to the public school, her friends were from other churches, etc. And the bonnet the girl wanted was different only in being a bonnet, where women who weren't members of her church might also wear hats, if they could afford them. I'll have to try to find the book so I can post the cites. -- Joy Beeson http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. where we got the first snowfall of the year the night before Thanksgiving. (Lovely day for the party, though.) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
