Ruth Irene Garrett was the fifth of seven children raised in Kalona, Iowa, as a member of a strict Old Order Amish community. She was brought up in a world filled with rigid rules and intense secrecy, in an environment where the dress, buggies, codes of conduct, and way of life differed even from other Amish societies only 100 miles away. This Old Order community actively avoided all interaction with ೨e Englishߜ'96 everyone who lived on the outside. As a result, Ruth knew only one way of life, and one way of doing things.

This compelling narrative takes us inside a hidden community, offering a striking look as one woman comes to terms with her discontent and ultimately leaves her family, faith and the sheltered world of her childhood. Unsatisfied, she bravely crosses over to contemporary life to fully explore the foreign and frightening reality in hope of better understanding her emotional and spiritual desires. What emerges is a powerful tale of one woman's search for meaning and the extraordinary lessons she learns along the way.

Now, working with co-author and friend DEBORAH MORSE-KAHN, we learn in Born Amish about Ruth Irene Garrett's early life as a child growing up in the Amish farming community of Kalona, Iowa: school, games, and chores; work, crafts, and foods; clothing, farming and tumbling about with many brothers and sisters. We learn about the expectations for girls and boys in Amish families, of social roles and understandings about courtship and marriage, about adult baptism and a life of faith in the Amish Church.

Born Amish is richly illustrated with wonderful color photographs of young people and families in Amish life throughout the American Midwest.