Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-07-04
More Gradual.

snip.
More Gradual.
The migration from Ebenezer was
gradual AS the property there could be
sold The seven villages which have
been built in Iowa now wear weather
beaten look, for the buildings are en-
tirely without paint. A few of the old
est are of sandstone quarried in the
bluffs on the Iowa. and some of the
newest are built of brick, but most of
them are frame and in 1854 the elders
were too economical to furnish paint
for such colony Of new houses that
had to be put up all at once In con-
formity with that none have been
painted. To cover the old ones now
would take fortune, and the new
must not be made to look any better
than the old for every mans house
must be like every others.
The villagers found wagon roads and
trails across their land and built their
first town beside one. From the win
dows of the wooden mill at Amana YOU
can look up the winding street, the
main one, to bubbling spring. Cattle
and oxen and horses found the spring
and turned away again at an angle
with their first path, and so now the
street turns.
The houses are not strictly alike, but
what variance there is is not con-
cerned with beauty. The yards are
full Of fruit trees, and the odd looking
trellis, which in winter show bare on
all the houses to the height of the first
story windows, are in summer heavy
with grape vines and roses. Each man
may make his home as beautiful as he
can by his own efforts, if he does not
modest it as society property, so for
four months In the year these beauty
loving Germans hide the gray of the
walls beneath vines and circle them
around with blossoms. All the houses
are fenced and just outside is the two
foot walk allotted to the passerby.
On Sunday morning or on holiday
at few minutes before 8 o'clock. a
neat looking burgher. with nothing in
his dress to distinguish him from any
other American citizen of moderate
means and good taste, steps from his
gate and follows in the direction of
score or more of other good burghers,
who, like him, with their frauen and
kinder, are making their way to the
church. A minute later the wife he
took to himself against the rules of the
society energies from her door and
turns her quick step toward her hus-
band. If the weather IS cold she will
wear heavy shawl drawn over her
head and held tightly down by her
crossed arms. Every woman on the
street will wear the shawl and every
woman's elbows, wound in her shawl,
will stick out sharply at her sides.
The Simple Life.
If this man and woman have been
long and have faithfully lived
pious lives they will go far up the
street to their own meeting house,
where the few choice spirits like them
selves do congregate and worship.
Here are the elders and the veterans
in the good fight. In second meeting
house not in any visible way different
from the one most sacred, those who
through youth and inexperience have
not yet attained the purest life and
those who through lust of the flesh
and worldliness are climbing the weary
way a second time, assemble for their
prayers. Through still third door
may be seen troop of little boys and
girls who are only learning to be good,
with now and then man and woman.
These last are doing pennace.
Theoretically, the followers of Chris
tian Metz and Barbara Landmann
frown upon marriage as worldly and
unholy ordinance, to be punished by
sending the offenders back to begin
anew and worship with the children.
Yet the unmarried man or woman is
the exception in the colony, and the
leaders themselves are married. The
homes in Amana are holy ground and
unhappy married life does not seem to