Jeanette Harder (“Five Discoveries about Amish Families, Communities”) highlights what my wife and I are experiencing at Fairmount Homes near Ephrata, Pa. Fairmount is a creation of the Old Order Mennonites. We treasure the values of caring and responsibility we find here.

Our Amish connection includes preserving the Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead in Berks County, Pa. All of the Stoltzfuses and many Smuckers (Smokers) are his descendants. Baptized Lutheran, Stoltzfus chose to become Amish in Zweibrucken, Germany. His choice gives a predominance of those names among Pennsylvania Amish.

Pennsylvania Gov. George Leader, who died in 2013, made the homestead’s preservation possible. He intended to annex the site and had ordered the demolition of the house but withdrew his request when he learned it meant much to the Amish. Leader became governor in 1955 at a time when Amish fathers were being sentenced to prison for their values. He resisted the school officials who were about to dilute these values by requiring attendance at consolidated schools. We do well to consider these “very different” values, as Harder notes.

Paul S. Kurtz
Ephrata, Pa.