Questions answered
Happy Wednesday, everyone! Thanks to Donna and Connie for their excellent questions. Here are the answers:
Donna asks: I am wondering why the clothes lines in some of the pictures are so high? Is it so they can get equipment in and out of the farm? Do they use some type of pulley to hang the clothes and then get them out of the way? Just curious and I have never seen this addressed in reading the Amish books, however I see it in pictures I view on the internet !!
There are a variety of reasons why the Amish (and English/Yankee too!) position their clothes lines high. One is that the bedrooms are often upstairs. By having the clothes line stretch from an upstairs room to a barn/outbuilding across they yard, they can just pull their dry clothes inside and quickly put them away. They do use a pulley system, which makes putting the clothes out and taking them off easy to do. Also, having the clothes line suspended prevents them from having to put posts in the yard, which is a hard and time-consuming task, especially when having to dig the holes with manual post hole diggers.
Connie asks: What is the Pennsylvania Dutch names for the primary colors, ( Blue, green, red, black, brown, orange, white, purple, pink and yellow). I would like to know what they call them. Also do they have special name for Holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. I know they have Second Christmas Day.
According to the Revised Pennsylvania German Dictionary by C. Richard Beam, these are the Pennsylvania Dutch words for:
blue: bloh
green: grieni
red: rot
black: schwatz
brown: brau
orange: aarensch
white: weiss
pink: pingschtblumm or pingschtnaggel
yellow: gehl
(purple isn't listed in the dictionary)
Christmas: Grischtdaag
Merry Christmas: En hallicher Grischtdaag
Easter: Oschderdaag
Thanksgiving: Betdaag or Dankfescht
Not all settlements celebrate Second Christmas--for example, Middlefield doesn't.
Thanks again for the questions!
'Til next time,
Kathleen
Donna asks: I am wondering why the clothes lines in some of the pictures are so high? Is it so they can get equipment in and out of the farm? Do they use some type of pulley to hang the clothes and then get them out of the way? Just curious and I have never seen this addressed in reading the Amish books, however I see it in pictures I view on the internet !!
There are a variety of reasons why the Amish (and English/Yankee too!) position their clothes lines high. One is that the bedrooms are often upstairs. By having the clothes line stretch from an upstairs room to a barn/outbuilding across they yard, they can just pull their dry clothes inside and quickly put them away. They do use a pulley system, which makes putting the clothes out and taking them off easy to do. Also, having the clothes line suspended prevents them from having to put posts in the yard, which is a hard and time-consuming task, especially when having to dig the holes with manual post hole diggers.
Connie asks: What is the Pennsylvania Dutch names for the primary colors, ( Blue, green, red, black, brown, orange, white, purple, pink and yellow). I would like to know what they call them. Also do they have special name for Holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. I know they have Second Christmas Day.
According to the Revised Pennsylvania German Dictionary by C. Richard Beam, these are the Pennsylvania Dutch words for:
blue: bloh
green: grieni
red: rot
black: schwatz
brown: brau
orange: aarensch
white: weiss
pink: pingschtblumm or pingschtnaggel
yellow: gehl
(purple isn't listed in the dictionary)
Christmas: Grischtdaag
Merry Christmas: En hallicher Grischtdaag
Easter: Oschderdaag
Thanksgiving: Betdaag or Dankfescht
Not all settlements celebrate Second Christmas--for example, Middlefield doesn't.
Thanks again for the questions!
'Til next time,
Kathleen
Posted by Kathleen Fuller at 10/6/2010 3:00 PM 
Categories: Hearts of Middlefield, A Hand to Hold
Tags: Hearts of Middlefield Kathleen Fuller A Hand to Hold
Categories: Hearts of Middlefield, A Hand to Hold
Tags: Hearts of Middlefield Kathleen Fuller A Hand to Hold
Hi Kathleen, Enjoyed the info, I did not know that either.....about the clothes lines......
I have a question, why do the Amish only wear dark clothes? You never see them in white, pink, yellow, purple....etc...?
Also, I have noticed some of the recipes call for oil.....I did not know they used oit.....I thought they baked with lard.....did they change to oil for more healthy eating????? Thanks
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Great questions! The women wear muted colors because they're considered "plain". Bright colors would draw unwanted attention to their clothing and their appearance, which is unimportant to them. They do wear purple, although its more of a dark lavender color. The cover of A Hand to Hold shows the accurate shade of purple.
As far as using oil v. lard--I don't think its a health conscious decision, it's just how the recipes are developed. It could be that oil is cheaper than lard or more readily available in the grocery store, or the food tastes lighter with oil rather than lard. In my Amish cookbooks there are recipes that use one or the other, so they do use both depending on the recipe.
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