My Amish father was paralyzed when I was a teenager

My father and I worked at several places when I was growing up. and one of the jobs I had was at a chicken place, feeding 1000's chickens. Earlier in my life, mom had this business of butchering 100s of chickens a day, with all of us kids chipping in to pluck them.

But as a teen, after I had given up on education (I had a 4th grade Amish school education), I was working with Dad at Midwest Wood Products, a company that made stair and chair parts. I enjoyed it somewhat, with my one brother and a couple of cousins working there.

Well on December 11, 1997, I and my father were going to work in a buggy when we were hit in the back.

That video above has my Dad talking about the accident that paralyzed him and gave me a head concussion. I had quite a few of those, as I write about in my book, Amish Memories.

That morning was as any other, although we had a flashing light on the back of the buggy that our church would not have approved of, and should have helped save us all of this from happening, I guess the nurse that hit us was not paying attention.

In fact, she said she thought she had hit a deer, which, that area does have a lot of deer, but a deer is generally smaller than a horse and the impact of hitting a deer is not as hard as when you hit a buggy and horse. I should know, having since that time hit or been hit by 19 deer.

After the impact, it took me a bit to realize what had just happened, with us both going from relaxed in a buggy to laying on the ground beside the road, with a bar poking me in the side. My father was beside me, laying on that bar. It was the buggy breaks, and Dad had a slipped disk between his 4th and 5th vertebra. After the accident, we were both taken to Wooster hospital, the same hospital that the nurse worked at, but Dad was taken to Cleveland by helicopter. I was released almost immediately, but Dad was in there for 3 months.

One thing I can clearly remember was the one year anniversary broadcasts about JonBenet Ramsey's murder in the hospital TV when I was there to visit my Dad.

One thing that still hurts me about this is that my uncle thought he was this all-powerful man and he believed he, with his money, could control my parents any way he wanted to. My parents had gotten a lawyer to help with the insurance settlement, and that was unusual for a Swartzentruber Amish, but I believe it was not the first time it had become necessary to hire one.

My Mom told me later that the insurance woman came in and tried to settle the claim for 25,000 dollars, and that the woman had 50,000 dollar coverage, but Mom had told her no, we will wait till the lawyers can hash out the details. But the woman from the insurance company came into my father's hospital room with my uncle John there and brought up the settlement again.

What my uncle did hurt my parents financially. He picked up my dad's paralyzed hand and signed the papers.

I still think my uncle owes me and my parents a small fortune for that act; making him completely dependent on the church. But my sister Amanda tried to help out by getting them some social security checks, even though he was exempt from paying in and from collecting the retirement checks. They apparently got those checks for 11 years before the church found out and told them that they had to shut it off.

My parents were both born in 1936, Mom died 2 and a half years ago, and Dad is now living in Indiana. He's still paralyzed, but his life partner is not around anymore. It was so sad seeing him by her casket. But she had dementia for the last few years before she died, so it was a mercy that she no longer had to suffer.

I put her photo on the cover of a cookbook I published called Yoder's Country Cooking to remember her by, and its sold around a 1000 copies online.

I miss them both. I wish I could go visit my Dad sometime, maybe when I get enough money I'll head that way.

Yoder's Country Cooking and Amish Memories are available on Amazon.