Posts by Saloma Furlong
A Twenty-Year Visitor
Twenty seven years ago this night, I was going into labor with my first child. The nine-month (plus twelve days) gestation period was coming to an end. David kept saying throughout the pregnancy, “It’s like we are going to have a visitor we’ve never met show up, except this visitor will stay for the next…
Read MoreNovember
Much as I dread the oncoming winter, that the month of November signifies, November has been a month of many transitions in my adult life. Many, though not all, of those have been good transitions. In 1977, I left the Amish for the first time on November 7. Then it was three years later, to…
Read MoreRemembering Mem
Katie J. Miller December 14, 1920 — October 24, 2005 The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. ~ Cicero As I say good-bye to October, my thoughts go back five years, when my mother (Mem) had just died (on October 24, 2005, the same day as Rosa Parks). In…
Read MoreMore Kindred Connections
In my recent post “Kindred Connections” I wrote about my long-ago and lately rekindled connection to John and Pat Anderson. A friend of Pat Anderson’s named Lynn Kimmerle, recently called me about reviewing my book. She let me know she received a galley copy from my publisher a few days ago, so I thought it…
Read MoreLeaves of October
Today was a true Indian Summer day… we had Squaw Winter these past ten days or so, which makes Indian Summer official, according to my mother. My husband and I were painting trim boards for the outside of the house this afternoon. It got breezy at some point, so that the bright autumn leaves…
Read MoreKindred Connections
Thirty years ago, when I was living with the Jake Kurtz family and teaching in a one-room Amish school, the Kurtzes and I would get frequent “Yankee” visitors. (I’ve since found out that my home community is the only one that uses this term — most Amish use the term “English” or “Englishers.” I believe…
Read MoreAround the Mountain
I remember my mother singing or playing on her harmonica “She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes…” when I was a child. I had to think of her singing that song when David and I rode our bikes on the other side of Sugarloaf Mountain. (We live almost underneath the two Sugarloaf Mountains.)…
Read MoreAmish Peanut Butter
An Amishman in Indiana once explained (with a distinct air of gravity) that one thing which people who leave the Amish church always miss is the Sunday peanut spread. ~ Erik Wesner, Amish America My husband and I took a Sunday drive this afternoon, to southern Vermont and the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and now…
Read MoreSquaw Winter
My plan for my next post was to share photos from a quick afternoon bike trip David and I made around the mountain just two afternoons ago, but that now seems so very long ago. We were having perfect autumn weather that afternoon. Now we are having what my mother would deem “Squaw Winter.” She claimed…
Read MoreIn Remembrance of Dad
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens: A time to be born, and a time to die . . . ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1–2 Autumn is my favorite time of the year and always has been. I love the crisp autumn air, the bright colors of the…
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