Can Phoebe find happiness as a single Amish woman?

Is this God’s will for her?"

Phoebe Schwartz had tried her best to remain faithful while resigned to living a single life within her Amish community, surrounded by friends and family, many of whom have large families and seemingly endless babies. She had accepted that this was all part of God’s plan for her, at least until Fate or Divine Wisdom deemed otherwise. Her friends at the nursing program, Susanna, Leah and Hilda—also members of the Plain churches in the area—are seeking to live holy lives too, ‘while in the world, but not of it.’

Phoebe’s life changes forever when the district’s Amish bishops ask the seemingly impossible of her. Never in a thousand years could she have imagined this would be required of her. Does she have the faith to follow through on their request? Could she ever have imagined the blessings this fiat, this Yes to God’s will brings with it?

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Release Date: March 21, 2023
Genre: Amish Romance

~ A White Satin Romance ~

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Excerpt

Chapter One

Finally, everyone was tucked in, flashlights by their beds ready should anyone need to get up during the night to head to the outhouse. Phoebe bid them all a guten nacht before returning downstairs to join Stephen in the dawdi haus, the little addition on the main house built for the grandparents. They would live there until she finished school and then swap places with her parents who were still in the larger main farmhouse. Hilde was in the narrow cot and Susanna and Leah shared the double bed in the upstairs room.

“This is amazing, really,” Hilde began as they all waited for sleep to take them. “I didn’t really have any idea.”

“Me either,” Leah added. “It’s like going back to olden times.”

“But they aren’t old fashioned,” Susanna pondered. “Do you know what I mean? Not simple or uneducated. They’re where the rest of the twenty-first Century is in some ways, but the culture is back in the first part of last century in everything else. They educate themselves and they are aware of the rest of the world in many ways, keeping up, but choosing not to follow the trends, the styles.”

“Or all the inventions and progress. So, it makes for a very interesting interpretation of Plain. By choosing which ways to modernize as a group, they’ve retained a whole way of life. It is fascinating,” Leah concluded.

“But,” Hilde began, “we’ve chosen not to have TVs or computers or radios at home and live together, sharing everything—values, church—but the Mennonites have chosen to modernize and we can still live a Plain lifestyle.”

Susanna agreed, “And as Hutterites, we have too—modernized—to keep up with the farming and all. It makes it easier to compete in the market, but the Amish have sort of shot themselves in the foot there. That’s why they are so much poorer, economically at least, than we are. They can’t compete when Big Ag is taking over, so they have to think up other ways, but then loads of them end up catering to tourism and such, which is a pretty poor trade off if they want to be left alone to practice what they believe, if you ask me. It must be a constant struggle. It's gotta be.”

“But it makes for good romance novels, huh?” Leah added. “Even with the tourists, they’ve kept their home life private, and that’s made for all the mystery about them. It isn’t all rosy, for sure. Well, we know that now, but everyone who buys the romance books doesn’t and they think it is all just dating and getting married, baking and eating pies and having babies. And then the Amish don’t get a penny off the publishing business. I read, don’t you know, that some of those authors have sold over thirty-four million books so far? That’s almost criminal. And that each year half of all the paperbacks sold in this country are romance, and Amish romance books are in there too.”

Susanna said, “Do you know what I once read? The publishing business calls them ‘bonnet books,’ because they say, ‘just put a bonnet on the cover and it will sell.’ I wonder if I wrote one of those books and put my Hutterische kopftuch on it if it would sell. Maybe we are in the wrong profession, ladies.”

“Well, good night. I’m done in,” Hilde spoke from the cot. “Do we get to sleep in?”

“Yeah,” Leah answered. “Good night,” she whispered.

Then, as an afterthought, Hilde asked, “Will Phoebe get us up to help milk the cows?”

“Good night, Hilde!” Leah repeated.

 

* * *

Phoebe didn’t sleep in but got up when she heard Mamm rummaging around in the kitchen on the other side of the dawdi haus door. She would be starting breakfast for when Dat and Stephen came in from chores and the girls all came down from upstairs. Phoebe wanted to help.

She had returned to school after the horrible tornado that had decimated the old college. All the students had been absorbed into other colleges throughout the state. The three other Plain girls in her LPN program, who together called themselves The Four Musketeers, had become best friends during their first year together. They had been invited to visit Susanna’s Hutterite colony last month, which had come as quite a revelation to Phoebe who is Amish and Hilde and Leah who are Mennonite. It was Phoebe’s turn to host the others, and she couldn’t be more excited.

“Morning, Mamm,” Phoebe greeted her. “What can I do?”

“Well, for one, go out to the chickens and get all the eggs there. Should be enough for everyone. Oh, and get me some big leaves of basil for the top of the breakfast pizza. Denke.”

Phoebe slipped on her mud boots in the entry room off the kitchen, picked up the basket on the shelf there and headed out to the chickens. They were all pecking about the ground out in the yard, so it was a good time to catch them off their nests. They were free-range chickens, which they could then advertise at the farm stand, charging buyers accordingly. She went into the dark little hen hut, feeling into each box for eggs. She was taken aback when she found a chicken in one of the boxes. She must have surprised the hen too, who lunged out and pecked at her, warning her off the precious eggs she was guarding. Mamm hadn’t told her there was a broody one this late in the fall, but the hen definitely had sitting in mind and staying put and defending it no matter what.

“Well, then. Don’t worry, henny. You can keep your eggs. Just don’t peck me,” she cooed to the chicken. I wonder if mamms get broody when they’re expecting, Phoebe thought to herself. I’ve heard about ‘nesting’ toward the end of nine months, getting everything ready. I doubt chickens get morning sickness, though she chuckled as the thought occurred to her. And basil, she reminded herself as she went to open the kitchen door. Spinning around, she went back out toward the garden and plucked a handful of the shiny leaves, sniffing the spicy goodness on her way back.

She came in, kicking off her boots at the door and brought in the eggs, setting them by the sink.

“Mamm, did you know the Sussex chicken is broody? She pecked me when I went to check for eggs.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you. She’ll have some fine chicks,” Mamm answered. “Nine eggs, I think.”

Phoebe washed her hands and started setting the table. “We’re going to the singing tonight. I think that will be gut fun for them. Don’t you? So don’t make us supper tonight. We’ll eat there.”

“Quiet, I am reading this recipe. I haven’t made breakfast pizza for a while,” Mamm said as she ran her finger along the list of ingredients on the recipe she had cut out of The Budget newspaper, the ‘Cookin’ With Maudie’ column in particular. The Budget is a Plain newspaper serving the Amish and Mennonites throughout North and South America and Canada. A scribe in each colony or settlement contributes a weekly recap of any news in his or her community. Without the use of computers or phones, it has become a very sought-after means of keeping up with others near and far.

“The dough is over there if you want to roll it out. Use the biggest square pan with grease and then sprinkle it with corn meal and garlic salt, would ya?”

Phoebe rolled out the pizza crust and then quietly set the table before putting on a fresh pot of coffee.

“I was going to make a batch of pumpkin whoopie pies this afternoon. Want to take some to the singing? Mamm asked.

“No, Emily said they are all set for snacks. You’ll need them for when the boys come with their families for dinner tomorrow noon,” Phoebe reminded her.

“Yes, true,” Mamm agreed, continuing to nod her head as she resumed reading the recipe.

“No church tomorrow, so we can help with dinner before we take off visiting in the morning,” Phoebe said.

“Just don’t be late for Sunday dinner,” Mamm scolded. “And come with an appetite, ya? Don’t fill up on snacks all morning.”

“What are you making for it?” Phoebe asked.

“Well, Abe’s are bringing all the pies—Fiona is making her famous lemon meringue, and Isaac’s Hannah Mary is bringing bread and a corn pone,” Mamm told her. She continued, “I’m going to make the chicken and dumplings from the last of last year’s canned in the root cellar, and then pickled beets, fried sweet potatoes, and coleslaw.”

“Don’t outdo yourself, Mamm,” Phoebe reminded her. “We don’t want you all worn out when they come. Let us help in the morning, ya?”

“Ya, okay. I was going to do the potatoes and the coleslaw ahead, today. Should be gut fun to see them all.”

“I’ve been so busy with school I haven’t really been with their kinner for ages. At least I see them at church every other Sunday, otherwise I’d never see them at all and they wouldn’t know me. I can’t wait till I’m done with college. It seems like that’s all I’ve done for my whole life,” Phoebe reflected.

“But you’re getting toward the end, and already helping folks around here, too,” Mamm added. “That was sure a mind wave when the bishops asked you to become a nurse. It had never been done before but turned out to be really brilliant, eh?”

“I think you mean ‘brain wave,’ Mamm.”

“It’s the same thing, and you know that. Don’t always go correcting me now that you are educated. Do you do that to Stephen, too? I hope not. It is intimidating,” Mamm scowled at her before turning back to the recipe, adding, “and that’s no way to keep a husband!”

Phoebe changed the subject. “Did you know that Annie Gingerich is actually telling people they can kumm to their place on Mondays after school if they want me to tell them what to do about their ailments and find out what I think? She has a whole list of names of who I should see. Can you believe it? She’s keeping the kitchen clear on Mondays, too, so I can visit with them in there. She’s setting up a whole clinic, for goodness’ sake. Telling who can see me next, keeping the others on the porch or in the living room till it’s their turn. Can you imagine? All I can do is tell them what I know and tell them to see a doctor. Don’t they already know that Mamm?” Phoebe pleaded.

“No, they don’t. We’ve only had that evil man, Dr. Adams, all these years. He has built up his own little kingdom, that hospital, on Plain people’s money. We don’t trust a word out of his mouth anymore,” Mamm said.

“I know. I told my teacher about him, that he seems to be doing C-sections for all the mamms who come in to have their ninth or tenth bobbeli, which gets him ten times more money; that he’s even sterilizing Plain women without their knowledge or consent when they go in to have bobbeli, thinking he is Gott and deciding to take the so-called ‘population problem’ into his own hands. He just tells the dats that their wife started bleeding and he had to do an emergency C-section and saved her just in time, but she can’t have any more kids, but then they thank him! They thank him! Thinking he saved their wives. She promised to look into it and get to the proper authorities to help us. I can hardly believe what’s he’s done. Right under our noses. How does he think he can get away with that?”

“He thinks we’re all stupid cows. That we don’t know any better, that’s what I think,” Mamm answered, shaking her head.

“I think our cows are probably smarter than he is, too.”

The girls came down the stairs at that point.

“Mmmm. Something smells wonderful!” Susanna explained. “Can we help?”

“No, all done,” Mamm said, smiling as she picked up her mug of coffee from the counter and settled in her chair at the table.

“Let me do the serving at least,” Phoebe begged.

“Fine with me,” Mamm answered, sipping her cold coffee. “Is that new pot ready yet?”

 

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