Friday Read: My Amish Roots by Shawn Smucker

I enjoy connecting with other writers online and it’s great when they live close enough that we can actually meet in person. I’ve been reading Shawn Smucker’s blog for a year or two and he lives nearby, so we’ve met a few times.

Along with blogging, Shawn has written or co-written a few books. His most recent book, My Amish Roots, explores the roles of family, death, life, tradition, and legacy against the backdrop of his Amish ancestry.

In my younger days, I would never have read a book like My Amish Roots, but I’ve become more interested in learning about history to a certain degree, because I like to learn how we got to where we are today … whether that is our personal history or the history of a group, organization or other movements.

Shawn has done a great job of writing a book about history in an entertaining way. My Amish Roots is not a book with dry historical records, instead Shawn shares his family history through well-written stories, excerpts from an ancestor’s diary and more.

If you are one of the many descendants from the Nicholas Stoltzfus family, you want to get this book for yourself or for a family member. (perfect Christmas gift!) Along with enjoying a great read, you’ll learn about your history through Shawn stories about Nicholas, his move to America from Germany in 1766 and his life here in the ‘new’ world.

Here’s a few questions I asked Shawn about My Amish Roots.

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Janet: Tell us about your book. 

Shawn: I took the passing of my great-grandmother and my return to Lancaster (after having lived away from here for fifteen years) and used it as a framework through which to view my family history from 1624 to the present. I’m beginning to think of it more as a family mythology or a family fiction, because much of what I wrote was based on generations-worth of hearsay and legend. The skeleton is all based on history, but I added to it.

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Janet: It was interesting reading about your family history from earlier centuries. Do you ever want to travel to Germany and see where the Steltzefuss families lived and/or maybe do more research?

Shawn: I would love to travel there, but my researching days are done, at least for a time. It was so much work over the last two years, doing interviews and reading histories and looking for old journals. I need a break! Maybe someday.

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Janet: You write that your grandparents left the Amish church… do you know why?

Shawn: Both of my grandfathers were ornery guys with a bit of a wild streak tempered by a large dash of independence. If someone told them they couldn’t have something, chances were they would want it. I think that mainly it was due to their personalities that they left the Amish.

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Janet: With this book, not only have you preserved some of your families’ stories, but you have given your descendants stories about who you are. To make sure other stories of your life aren’t “black-topped over” do you journal and/or write stories about your own life so that your descendants 400 years from now will ‘know’ you?

Shawn: I have kept a journal for the last 15 years or so, but in the last few years I have focused more on blogging. I need to get back to the pen-and-paper journal because there is something intensely personal about reading someone’s life in that form. My great-great-grandfather’s journal is included in this book, and reading through that was almost a spiritual experience. I felt like I was sitting beside him, candlelight flickering, as he wrote about each day. I’d like to leave that kind of thing behind for my own descendants.

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Shawn lives in Paradise, Pennsylvania with his wife, four children, four chickens, and a rabbit named Rosie. He blogs daily at shawnsmucker.com about writing, the strange things his children say, and postmodern Christianity. Along with his blog, you can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

You too can read My Amish Roots by ordering one on his website (he’ll autograph it) or on Amazon.

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Have you explored any of your family history and/or are you  preserving any of your story for your descendants?

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