Dreams Come True

Two nights ago I dreamed I went to visit Albert Kuhns son Noah. Albert was the family member who assisted me in the restoration of Amish Acres in 1969. He was torn between the farm becoming Amish Acres or an industrial park. He knew it couldn’t remain an Amish farm. He therefore sided with us to preserve and restore the original farm buildings. They are still here forty years later. He has been deceased twenty years. Noah, who taught Amish school for nine years, is now retired and lives in a new gross daadi house built for him by his son on the farm he sold to the next generation.

This afternoon I spoke to the Amish Adventures Elderhostel that arrived Monday and will be here all week. Just as I was leaving my office to meet them, Noah Kuhns was standing over by the cider mill talking to two visitors. He reminded me I had not seen him for three years. I invited him to sit in on my presentation which covered the history of Amish Acres, Amish history, society, and culture. It was a special treat for me and those attending.

When the Kuhns family held its reunion here in 2001 I realized what a special person Albert was. In the Kuhns family history book that was sold at the reunion, Albert’s submission was the only one with drawings, detailed ones, of the Milk Shake trains that used to run on the B&O Railroad directly across the road from the house. He had a memory like no other I have experienced. His stories were detailed and colorful. He practiced the art of oral tradition in which present day society has neither time nor interest.

About a year after Albert died Noah knocked on my office door one April Saturday when it was raining and he had driven the buggy to town. I invited him and his twelve year old son in to have seats. Noah said, “I thought you might like to know how dad died.” I said that I would. He set about telling me in exacting detail on what days Albert went to the hospital, who visited, when he was sent home, when he came back, and his final days. All at once I could see in Noah his father telling me similar stories about his father’s and his grandfather’s passing. Then I realized that the twelve year old was slumped in his chair paying little attention; he didn’t have to, because he had heard the stories time and again and they were etched in his memory and will be passed on when the time is appropriate. So the traditions of Amish culture in the Kuhns family are safe into the next generation.