Life in a Hutterite Colony: An Outsider’s Experience and Reflections on a Forgotten People in Our Midst

DONALD W. HUFFMAN [*] ABSTRACT. In this study of the Hutterites, an Anabaptist Protestant sect tracing its roots to 1528, an attempt is made to discover the qualities that have enabled their colonies to survive and thrive in North America. It is found that the Hutterite beliefs of community of goods and self-surrender to the will of God are central factors which explain their long-term survival and the high degree of social cohesion they have achieved. The incentive to work for the common good, which has enabled them to remain economically viable as a relatively small community, are also directly attributable to religious belief. The author, who lived in a Hutterite colony as a participant-observer, found these additional significant elements contributing to Hutterite colony stability and growth: religious ritual, the structure of the family, a well defined division of labor, and a well-developed strategy for founding a new colony when the existing colony reaches a critical mass of 120-130 people. The study concludes with a discus sion of what mainstream American society might learn from the Hutterites, including both critical and appreciative assessments of the life of this communal people whose members live quietly and effectively in our midst. I Introduction I REMEMBER the day well--having said goodbye to my wife in metropolitan Pennsylvania, I quickly traveled by air to another world. In a brief eight hours I had moved from a modern urban world of possessions and conveniences to a radically different subculture, which one scholar characterized in this way: "Probably no other group in North America is further from mainstream Western values than this one." That group was a Hutterite colony located in the western plains of Minnesota. But one hour from Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota, I entered a subsociety with a distinctive way of life. From my daily experience of the radio, television, and the newspaper, the automobile, the relatively isolated nuclear family, the once-a-week experience of congregational worship, I was now about to enter a radically different world of insulation and isolation from modern society. It was different in terms of mass media exposure and consumption, a tri-lingual world of Tyrolean, German, and English, a world of work trucks and vans, an everyday experience of extended family relations, a world where religious belief and practice permeate daily existence, from the spoken prayers before and after an afternoon snack and every meal, to a worship service each day from 6:00-6:30 p.m., and a one and a half hour service on Sundays. Truly this was a different social and cultural world, one from whose historical roots and experiences in modern society we can learn a great deal, and one that for ye ars has fascinated me, a professor of sociology keenly interested in cultural diversity and varied religious groups. It was late in October 1998 that I drove into the Spring Prairie Colony in western Minnesota with the intention to live with the Hutterites. A sabbatical granted me by my college had given me this rich opportunity. With relative ease I had located a number of rich secondary sources on the Hutterites. Then came the more daunting task, that of gaining entrance into one of the more than 300 colonies located in the Plains states and the western provinces of Canada for the purpose of conducting field research. Given the relative isolation of Hutterite colonies, both social and geographical, this was not an easy task. In the end, however, it was a very rewarding process. After several months of persistent detective work, the door to Spring Prairie Colony was about to open for me. Upon reflection, I know that this unique research opportunity would not have been possible without the assistance of the internationally recognized scholar in Amish and Hutterite studies, Dr. John A. Hostetler, to whom I am deeply indebted. …