Families open homes to let tourists taste Amish culture

BALTIC, Ohio — A 2-year-old Amish boy plays on the front lawn with a pinwheel, barely noticing as 40 tourists shuffle past and into his grandparents' home.

After all, tourists are a common sight at the Hershbergers' home.

Although their faith requires a distance from the outside world, a dozen Amish families in northeast Ohio welcome visitors to their homes to give them a taste of their culture.

Serving meals to the public has been a way of life for 15 years for the Hershbergers, who like many Amish have left behind farming for more profitable ventures.

The Amish are a deeply religious group whose simple clothing and tradition of traveling by horse and buggy symbolize a yielding to a collective order.

The Hershbergers acknowledge there were many skeptics in the tight-knit Amish community when a few families started opening their doors two decades ago.

But even among the Amish times change.

"We enjoy being around people," Mrs. Hershberger said. "Most people tell us this is the highlight of their trip."

On the way to the Hershbergers', the busload of tourists rolled through the rural, hilly region that is home to the largest settlement of Amish in the world.

The Hershbergers don't own automobiles but have a wide concrete driveway that can accommodate at least two buses at a time. Their neat, white vinyl-sided house is three stories high with five bedrooms on the top floor.

The tourists pass by well-kept flowerbeds and a well-worn pair of work jeans hanging with the rest of the day's laundry, then enter a dining room big enough for 60. The room was an addition to the house in 1995.

Wearing a green dress with her brown hair pulled back under the traditional white Amish head-covering, 18-year-old Amanda Hershberger takes instructions from her mother, who speaks in their native Pennsylvania German dialect.

Amanda and family friend Emma Sue Troyer hustle from table to table serving plates heaped with roast beef and chicken that's so tender and moist it falls off the bone.

Carol Glessner of Country Coach Adventures, who has been bringing tourists to Amish homes for 10 years, warned on the ride over that the roast beef would be the best anyone had ever tasted. It was.

"The beef was so good I didn't bother with the chicken," said Ralph Sandoz, 85.