The simple joys of time with family
Darla Weaver shares a year in the life
of her Old Order Mennonite Family
Once a week Darla Weaver hitches up her spirited mare, bundles
her children into the buggy, and drives six miles to the farm where she grew
up. There she gathers with her four sisters and their children for a day with
their mother. In Gathering of Sisters: A Year with My Old Order Mennonite Family (Herald Press/September 25, 2018/ISBN: 978-1-5138-0337-1/$14.99), Weaver writes about her horse-and-buggy
Mennonite family and the weekly women’s gatherings that keep them connected.
“Our
Tuesdays happened more by accident than by conscious planning. We never sat
down and planned for Tuesdays, but after I moved six miles away to my own home,
I gradually acquired the habit of going back to the old home place and spending
a day each week with my family,” Weaver writes. It was a tradition that caught
on and continued after all the other sisters married and started families of
their own.
On warm days, the children play
and fish and build houses of hay in the barn. In the winter, everyone stays
close to the woodstove, with puzzles and games and crocheting. No matter the
weather, the Tuesday get-togethers of this Old Order Mennonite family keep them
grounded and centered in their love for God and for each other, even when
raising an occasional loving but knowing eyebrow at each other.
As for the sisters, “We don’t exactly play,
yet Tuesdays for us are also about relaxing. Of course, there is always work to
do—just making dinner for such a group is a big job—but the day is more about
relaxing, reconnecting, visiting, and sharing. We talk a lot, we laugh a lot,
sometimes we cry. Tuesdays is about being sisters, daughters, moms. It’s about
learning what is happening in each other’s lives. Every day is different, yet
every Tuesday follows a predictable pattern that varies with the seasons.”
Over the twelve chapters of the
book, Weaver shares the activities and time spent together spread over the
twelve months of the year. Together the sisters cook, laugh over cooking
disasters, share in the sewing, work in the gardens, swap books, work puzzles
together and enjoy time as a family. She even shares some tried and true family
recipes that didn’t “flop.” The rest of
the week is full of laundry, and errands, and work that never ends. But Tuesday
is about being sisters, daughters, and mothers.
When asked
what her sisters thought about her writing Gathering
of Sisters, Weaver notes their initial reactions varied. Her mom thought
maybe she should change their names. One sister suggested, “Maybe you’ll have
to Sunday-us-up a bit, make sure we all use our best manners when you write
about us.” Another pointed out since she would still have to claim them as
sisters she wouldn’t make them sound too odd or ornery. “I promised not to. One
of my nieces, who at fourteen has graduated from eighth grade and is again
spending Tuesdays with us, considered staying home for the entire next year to
keep her name out of the book. But on a whole, no one really objected. Like
Laverne and our children, Mom and my sisters are almost used to my compulsive
scribbling. Almost.”
Gathering of Sisters is the sixth
book in the Plainspoken series from Herald Press. Each book is written by Amish
and Mennonite people about their daily lives and deeply rooted faith. Each book
includes “A Day in the Life of the Author” and the author’s answers to FAQs
about the Amish and Mennonites.
About the Author
Darla
Weaver is a homemaker,
gardener, writer and Old Order Mennonite living in the hills of southern Ohio.
She is the author of Water My Soul, Many Lighted Windows and Gathering of Sisters. Weaver has written for Family Life, Ladies Journal, Young Companion, and other magazines for Amish and Old Order Mennonite
groups. Before her three children were born she also taught school. Her hobbies
are gardening and writing.
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