Saloma Furlong, author of the memoir, Why I Left the Amish, will be speaking at the Springfield Free Public Library on Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 1 pm. The Springfield Free Public Library is located at 66 Mountain Avenue, Springfield, NJ; phone 973-376-4930. For more information, visit http://www.springfieldpubliclibrary.com/joomla15/.
In Why I Left the Amish, Furlong recounts how she made the difficult break with the strict religious community she grew up in. She will tell her story in the upcoming PBS American Experience program, “The Amish,” which premieres on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 8 pm ET.
“There are two ways to leave the Amish—one is through life and the other through death,” writes Furlong, who grew up in an Amish community in Ohio. “To leave through life, one has to deliberately walk away.” Furlong’s return to the Amish community for her father’s funeral frames the story of how she came to leave 24 years earlier. One of seven siblings in a dysfunctional family, Furlong endured the violent outbursts of her mentally ill father, lack of protection from her mother, and physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her older brother Joseph. She recounts a life defined by the austere traditions of the Amish and the pressure to obey and conform.
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“The Amish life is not about saying no, Furlong says. “It’s about going along.” Furlong’s desire to further her education—Amish children leave school after eighth grade—and her resistance to the oppressive strictness of Amish life, led her to run away from home at age twenty. She turned to an “English” neighbor (the Amish term for people who are not part of their community) for assistance. With $450 in her pocket and newly shorn hair, she took a train to Vermont, where she began her new life of freedom.
After leaving the Amish, Furlong married and had two sons. She graduated from Smith College in May 2007 with a major in German Studies and a minor in Philosophy. While she was at Smith, she completed an internship with noted Amish expert Dr. Donald Kraybill at Elizabethtown Colleg. During her thirty-year struggle of coming to terms with her Amish past, Furlong has gleaned a better understanding of herself and of her heritage. She brings a nuanced and balanced perspective to her memoir, which offers a rare look behind the organdy curtain that separates the Amish from the outside world.
If you'd like more information, or to schedule an interview with Saloma Furlong, please do not hesitate to contact me.
