The Plain Values Podcast EP #02 – Dale Cramer and John Schmid on miraculous reconciliation

John Schmid:

My father got, Well, he got his girlfriend pregnant. Things got deathly quiet. Everybody’s on the barn Bank talking church was in the barn and staring, and all of a sudden Miriam said, somebody yelled Joe and I can’t even tell the story. She said she had never seen Amish people hug. They’re hugging him, Joe, you’re alive. They didn’t know what happened to

Dale Cramer:

and he told his wife that, okay, this is not my real name and I’m not really this age.

Marlin Miller:

We just got done having a conversation with Dale Kramer and John Schmidt. Now Dale is from Georgia and John is from 10 minutes from here just outside of Weinsberg, Ohio where we are. Dale came up to share his dad’s story of how he ran away from his home at 19, I think, or maybe 17, and joined the army, was in the Army for 23 years. I think he was Amish when he ran away. He got married, had kids, and his wife literally did not know that the man she married was not named Howard. His name was actually Joe, and that he was Amish. It is an incredible story of redemption and I think the best way to describe it is just God’s grace on a man’s journey. It’s an incredible thing. I tried hard to keep everybody straight. There are 17 uncles and aunts. There are tons and tons of family stories, and it was an incredible time with John and Dale and I’m so glad that we had the chance to sit and just share this story.

I don’t think that you would regret the time If you have a situation in your past that nags in the back of your mind that I really should make it right, take the time and watch and you’ll see how the Lord can use our decisions and can turn things around for good and for just for healthy, solid relationships that bring closure and healing to a family. It’s absolutely just an amazing story. This podcast is sponsored by my friends at Azure Standard. Around here we have tons of Amish bulk food stores like the Ashry, Seth, Seth, it was your grandpa, right? That began the Ashry many, many moons ago, and they’re actually one of the oldest bulk food stores around. Here’s my point. As Lisa and I have traveled more, we have picked up on the fact that not everybody, in fact, most other towns and families do not enjoy the luxury of being able to go to a bulk food store and gather up all the things that they need in mass. I mean, I guess you have Costco, but that’s different. Azure Standard brings that kind of food right to a drop in your town. You can also order household goods, garden stuff and books. Everything **@***********rd.com. Tell ’em Marlon and Plain Values sent you.

How do you even begin the whole story of your dad?

Dale Cramer:

Wow. Well, he was raised Amish and he left because of a situation that he got himself in is a bundling accident. My father got, well, he got his girlfriend pregnant. They were both old order Amish. They had were in that, what was it, the Tobe Church at the time, and they didn’t have a whole lot of options. They weren’t really associating with anybody outside that church anyway.

Marlin Miller:

Where did they live?

Dale Cramer:

Somewhere north of Fredericksburg, apple Creek. Maybe that was what I said in the book, but I don’t remember if it was factual.

It’s up that way. I can’t remember for sure if it’s Apple Creek. Anyway, his father was famous for being fierce and I think his father was too harsh. Harsh, yeah. His name was Harf and he was known for being heavy handed, especially with his sons, and I’ve discovered over time it’s hereditary runs in the family, and my father told me we had a long conversation about it and he told me that it was, the whole bundling thing was sort of a tool that was quietly used, not spoken about, but it was quietly used to keep the sons at home because they would eventually end up marrying the girls if they got in trouble.

Marlin Miller:

Can I pause you again?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah.

Marlin Miller:

Okay. When you say bundling, I think of bed courtship.

Dale Cramer:

Yes, same thing. That’s

Marlin Miller:

What I thought. I just wanted to make sure that I’m on the right page.

Dale Cramer:

Okay. Yeah. That’s what I’m referring to is bed courtship and there are a lot of myths about it, about the board and the being sewed up in the sheet. There’s none of that. It was a matter of convenience, first of all, because if they go on a date on a Saturday night and they’re in a buggy, it’s wintertime, they’re 10, 15 miles apart. It is much simpler and more convenient for him to stay there because they’re going to be in the same church the next morning anyway. Why do all that driving?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah, back and forth.

Dale Cramer:

It’s a matter of convenience. But anyway, dad left. Well, first of all, he left home because he was on his way to church that Sunday. He was coming down the stairs ready to go to church, and his father met him at the bottom of the stairs. Now his younger brother was with him. His father met him at the bottom of the stairs and tore into him again and told him everything he could think of about what a low life he was and worthless human being. And he stood there and took it until his father finally stomped off and got in his buggy and went on to church. And then he looked at his brother and said, I can’t do this. And it was the Sunday that they were supposed to repent and be accepted back into the church after being banned. He never went back and never had the band lifted, so he was banned.

Marlin Miller:

So he was in the band because of his girlfriend becoming pregnant?

Dale Cramer:

Yes. They had been in the band for the traditional six weeks, I believe it was. It was three Sundays, six weeks, and he had been in the band for that six weeks, and this was the Sunday that they were to go back and repent and announce that they were getting married

Marlin Miller:

And he takes off.

Dale Cramer:

His father succeeded in changing his mind about that. He said, I just can’t take any more of this. So he took off and his younger brother went with him, and this was south of, they were living south of Fredericksburg because I’ve been to the location where that house was, and there was a children’s home on the slope between them and the road. And you go past that children’s home and down across the road is where now there’s a bike trail there. It used to be a railroad, and the railroad was there at that time. He and his brother hopped at freight just there south of Fredericksburg, and they got off in Kentucky, Elizabethtown. And he immediately started using a false name.

He had known he had one good English friend in the little red schoolhouse when he went there through the eighth grade. And it was Howard Kramer who eventually became the president of the bank in Fredericksburg and a really nice guy, and he had been friends with him. He said that Howard would occasionally share his candy with him or something like that. And then nobody else, there was some friction between the Amish and the English kids, but this guy was nice to him and he didn’t want his father to catch up with him. So he stole his name and he ended up joining the army under an assumed name. Didn’t know that it was wrong. He didn’t know first of all, that he was over the draft age. He’d always been a conscientious objector. So he lied about his age when he joined the army.

Marlin Miller:

Let’s talk about that for a second. How old was he when he left?

Dale Cramer:

I think he was 19, which would’ve been, he was already illegal if he’s not, Howard Kramer was a draft dodger. Joe Miller was a conscientious objector.

Marlin Miller:

So Howard Kramer was a legitimate draft dodger?

Dale Cramer:

No, when he changed his name to Howard Kramer at the age of 19, he was no longer Amish. He became English. And that English Howard Kramer was a draft dodger because he was 19.

Marlin Miller:

I got it,

Dale Cramer:

I got it. And he recognized that. So he lied to him. He first of all lied about his name. He did that so his father wouldn’t find him because he had found his brother once before when he ran off. And he said,

John Schmid:

Let me interject here why he changed his name. My wife’s uncle did the same thing, ran off to join the army, and he was too young and they brought him back.

Marlin Miller:

Really?

John Schmid:

My wife’s uncle and Howard were in the same church. So when Howard, Joe, Miller Howard, when they ask his name, he said, if I say my real name, dad’s going to find me like Andy Byers did. So that was part of

Dale Cramer:

This. Is that Andy Byler that had tried to join the army?

John Schmid:

Yeah, my wife’s uncle was Andy, and he didn’t have a good home life, so he ran away, stepfather, stuff like that, and they brought him back. And then there’s more to this story about Andy and Joe or Howard, but I remember hearing that, I’m not sure your dad told me or somebody said, dad’s not going to find me. So he thought of the first name. You could think of his classmate, Howard Kramer.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah.

John Schmid:

See, the thing is I worked for Dale’s Uncle Eli, and I’d hear for four or five years I’d heard snippets of this story. So some of the things I knew that Dale didn’t know

Dale Cramer:

About, I didn’t know. Yeah, I didn’t know that Andy was part of that, the reason that he changed his name.

John Schmid:

No, I found out I can make up stuff, but I think I got this one. Right.

Dale Cramer:

Well, this is fiction.

Marlin Miller:

You’ve got the book to prove it. So your dad takes off, joins the army, lies about his name. Now he’s in a bind, but he doesn’t really even understand that he’s in a bind with his name because would that be, that’s a crime. Is it a It’s a

Dale Cramer:

Federal

Marlin Miller:

Offense. It’s a federal offense. Yeah.

Dale Cramer:

That’s Leavenworth. And there’s a conversation about that in the book that, well, I made it up, but

Because the book is fiction, but there was a conversation of that sort that he had with a first sergeant that he trusted and he presented it as a hypothetical. I think he didn’t know for sure when he got in. He may have known some of it. I mean, he wasn’t an unintelligent man. Right. But he had a conversation down the line with a first sergeant that he was friends with, and he put it to him, hypothetically, if a guy were to join the army under an assumed name, would that be a crime? Well, yeah, you could end up in Leavenworth. And he said, well, what would you do? And he actually did ask the guy, this was a true part of it, what would you do if it was you? And he said, well, if that was me, I would keep my mouth shut for seven years and let the statute of limitations run out.

Marlin Miller:

Would that have to be after he has now left the army seven years after that, or seven years after the

Dale Cramer:

Lie? After the lie, after actually signing under a false name? He would have to wait seven years.

John Schmid:

Meanwhile, back at Eli h Miller’s Carpenter gang, I heard the story. Eli told about some either FBI or big officials coming around the Amish church asking about this Joe Miller because these Amish boys would go right up the rank because they could talk German right after World War ii. They needed people that could talk German

Marlin Miller:

And they could probably shoot

John Schmid:

And they’d get high security. Well, as soon as he got high security, they’re going to find out he’s not really Howard Kramer. And that’s when, I’m not sure why when, but Eli remembers somebody coming to their door with a suit and a tie asking about Joe Miller because they wanted to verify the fact that he is, I don’t know if he had already confessed that he wasn’t Howard Kramer. I don’t think so. Well, but he remembers army people coming or government people asking about Joe Miller

Dale Cramer:

Back in the forties

John Schmid:

While Howard was still in the army. Because this must be when this high security thing, they start checking you out when you did that kind of thing.

Marlin Miller:

So this is in World War II time, right after very end

Dale Cramer:

Of World War II and right after

Marlin Miller:

Very end. So how long is he in the Army for?

Dale Cramer:

23 years.

Marlin Miller:

23 years.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah.

Marlin Miller:

I thought he

Dale Cramer:

Served a tour. No, he did really well in the Army. Wow. Probably because of his father. A basic training sergeant had nothing on his father

John Schmid:

After a little order. Amish church armies a breeze.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, the army was a piece of cake after dealing with his father all those years. And as far as work ethic, he told me that when there’s shocking to the corn, he said you were considered a man when you could do a hundred shocks of corn in one day. And he did it when he was 14. And that was one of the rare occasions when his father was proud of him. Wow.

Marlin Miller:

Was he a big guy? Was he a little guy?

Dale Cramer:

No, he admitted finally, later in life, he’d always said he was five foot nine. And he finally admitted very late, the tallest day of his life, he was five foot seven. He had always been five foot nine, but very strong and very work oriented, very, very strong work ethic, which I think was a gift from his father. But he did really well in the army. He was intelligent. He spoke German, he was loyal. He knew what to do and what not to do. And he made a really good sergeant. Trust me. He brought it home with him.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. What happened? John alluded to him confessing about the name thing. How did that go down?

Dale Cramer:

He did not confess that well, now they might’ve gone and asked questions, but this is the first I’ve heard of that. So I don’t know.

Marlin Miller:

I mean, he would’ve had to produce some kind of paperwork with Howard Kramer on it, right?

Dale Cramer:

Well, yeah, he had,

Marlin Miller:

Did he forge all that stuff, Dale?

Dale Cramer:

No, he didn’t have a birth certificate or anything like that. He was born in Mexico. He ran into some real issues when he started drawing social security. That was really fun because

John Schmid:

I heard that story. Well see, he had lied about his age that he was only 18 when he was 19 or 20. So now he wants to draw Social security at 65. And they said, you’re not that old yet. He had lied about his age to join the army.

Dale Cramer:

He said, well, Howard Kramer is not that old, but Joe Miller is.

John Schmid:

I can start adding stuff that I heard over the years, but I found they actually proved his age when they found the family Bible. And they had written in that old ink, which is hard to forge. They could tell. This is actually when he was born in the front page of the family Bible.

Dale Cramer:

And that was when he went for social security. What he told me that was how they verified who he was

John Schmid:

That proved that he was 65, not 63,

Dale Cramer:

And he was married and had two children when they came back from a tour in Germany. And that was when the statute of limitations ran out. And he told his wife that, okay, this is not my real name and I’m not really this age, and actually my family doesn’t live in Canada and they’re not all dead and we’re going to stop off in Ohio and visit them. And by the way, they’re Amish and

John Schmid:

She didn’t know what Amish was.

Dale Cramer:

No idea. Oh my

Marlin Miller:

Goodness. Not a clue. So were you one of the two kids? Yes,

Dale Cramer:

I was the younger of the two. I think I was a year and a half, two years old at that time.

Marlin Miller:

And you were born in Germany?

Dale Cramer:

Yes.

Marlin Miller:

You were born in Germany. Is your mom a

Dale Cramer:

German? No, no, she’s a Georgia peach. Really? Yeah. He met her after he was in the army. I don’t know what he was doing there, but he was at a base south of Atlanta when he met her there for some temporary thing before he went to Europe.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. So they get married. They have the two kids now, does your mom still live? No, they both passed now. Okay. What was that like for your mom? I cannot imagine. Oh, by the way, I mean a whole bunch of things are just being thrown at her. What did she do? How did that whole trip go?

Dale Cramer:

This occurred and I heard about it from my aunt. My mother’s sister told me that they came back from Germany and apparently this is when the statute of limitations had run out and he had all these pictures of her with me and my brother, and we were at Niagara Falls. They came into New York and while they were there, I guess waiting for their car to arrive or something, and they went to Niagara Falls for a few days. And every picture that I see of us, and I had seen this for years before I had any explanation, but every picture my mother had, she was holding me and then holding my older brother’s hand because he was walking and I was small. So she’s holding me and she’s looking at the camera and the look on her face says, come near me and I’ll kill you.

Marlin Miller:

And you saw this as a kid and just assumed your mom was always ticked off or something?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, I had seen that picture and it was every picture that was taken in Niagara Falls, that same look. And my aunt finally told me that what had happened was this was where he decided to tell her and just unload the entire train car full of baggage. Oh my goodness. And even then, I don’t think he didn’t tell her at that time that he had a daughter. Had he stayed in touch

Marlin Miller:

With the Amish girl?

Dale Cramer:

Not at that time. He had not. Okay. She ended up being raised by his sister.

John Schmid:

His daughter was raised by his, and she thought that was her mother,

Dale Cramer:

And I thought she was my cousin.

John Schmid:

Really?

Dale Cramer:

But

John Schmid:

Lemme give a little, my wife. See, my wife’s family was from the same church. And Andy, the guy who got brought back home when he was 18, he did join the Army and just like Joe or Howard Kramer went right up the ranks, he could talk German and they needed people. So Andy gets high clearance training in Berlin, Germany. And he was a cut up. He’s goofing off and all of a sudden he notices everybody’s at attention, but him and here an officer had walked in. So he jumps in line, and of course the officer goes right to the last guy that was goofing off, gets right in his face, looks at his name tag, and he says, Byler v Beast, how are you? And here? And Andy didn’t know who it was because the name said Kramer. He said, Joe, you sd, is that you?

Marlin Miller:

No way.

John Schmid:

And the first thing Andy said was, Sarah wants to know if you’re going to come home, she’s waiting on you. And he said, Joe just went on talking as if he hadn’t said anything. So he wrote to Sarah, you better just get on with your life. And then she married Heina, Shetler Heina. And I got, how is this? Now I get myself confused because somehow there was somebody died, but the first three children were my wife’s cousins. And then somebody died and Enis married your aunt. So the rest of the rest those, what were their 17 children?

Dale Cramer:

Sarah died in childbirth?

John Schmid:

Yeah. In other words, the girl who had Joe’s daughter. Your

Dale Cramer:

Sister? No, the mother of my half-sister.

Marlin Miller:

I’m

Dale Cramer:

Sorry.

Marlin Miller:

Okay. So she had

Dale Cramer:

Another child and then passed away. If you

John Schmid:

Can follow this, you don’t understand

Dale Cramer:

It. She married Enis Shedler, remember that then?

John Schmid:

But she had a couple children before she died in childbirth.

Dale Cramer:

Was Moose one of hers or was he married somebody else before?

John Schmid:

No, moose was not one of them. Let’s see, there was

Dale Cramer:

Was

John Schmid:

Miriam and there were three of them.

Dale Cramer:

Miriam, Amanda and Martha.

John Schmid:

Yeah, those are all full sisters then.

Dale Cramer:

But those were Mary’s, Mary’s kids by

John Schmid:

Henry Byler. Henry

Dale Cramer:

Byler.

John Schmid:

Yeah. My wife’s,

Dale Cramer:

He’s a hunchback. It’s a weird story.

John Schmid:

So anyway, she died and then she remarried to

Dale Cramer:

When Sarah died, it left Enis Single.

John Schmid:

Yeah. Then Enis married your aunt

Dale Cramer:

With Moose and Fannie

John Schmid:

Howard, Kramer’s

Dale Cramer:

Sister, he had moose and Fannie. And then he brought those two children. Moose was, he had, I guess by Sarah.

John Schmid:

That’s right. Ina sch. Hitler’s first wife died. Mary, your Ann’s first husband,

Dale Cramer:

Henry died.

John Schmid:

Henry died. So they married, when they married, there were like five or six children.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, she had three daughters. And she was struggling to survive at the time because Amish women don’t have job skills there. Housewives, she had Amanda, Miriam and Martha. And Martha and my half sister and Fannie, Fannie was with Enus. And then she married Enus so that she could raise Fannie. And Enis was, he was a strange character, but she married him just so she could raise my dad’s daughter. She was best friends with Sarah. The mother of this girl was another reason why she wanted to raise her. And she did. And when I was growing up, this girl was my cousin, but between them, between his and hers and ours, over the years, they had 17 children. And Fannie was just one of the older girls. And she was always my cousin. I had no idea she was my half sister until I was about 18 years old.

Marlin Miller:

What’s your mom’s name?

Dale Cramer:

Anne.

Marlin Miller:

Anne. So John, I am doing my best to follow all this. And this is crazy. It’s hard for us. This is kind of crazy. So your mom is glaring in Niagara Falls?

Dale Cramer:

Yes.

Marlin Miller:

And you’re an infant. You’re just

John Schmid:

A little year and a half, maybe two at Niagara Falls. Had they come home yet or were they on their way home? They were on their way. So it was

Dale Cramer:

After that they were waiting for a car or something. Traditionally, when you come back with the Army, if you had a car overseas, you’d have to wait in New York for your car to be delivered. That’s probably what they were doing. And they had some time. So they went to Niagara Falls.

Marlin Miller:

So they come home to Apple Creek, Fredericksburg

Dale Cramer:

Here in Ohio? No, they came home to Georgia. Well, they did stop off here and my mother had some really good stories to tell about that. She had no, she didn’t know what Amish were. She had no idea. So

John Schmid:

It was on the way home when they stopped in at church was at Mary’s Anus house.

Dale Cramer:

Yes, yes. And you probably know more about those.

John Schmid:

Lemme tell the story. I heard working for his uncle Eli and Miriam, my wife’s cousin would tell this. So here’s Miriam. Miriam would’ve been young. I’m not sure how old she’d have been, but she remembers, here’s the story I heard, which is not exactly the same as his, but the gist is the same. On the way home, he starts telling his wife, I’m not really an orphan, I have a family, and here’s the story I’ve been telling. So he let that sink in. And then he said, and my people are Amish. Well, she didn’t know what that was. So they go home and nobody’s there it Sunday church is at his sister’s place, and his sister married Enis Shetler, who was the stepfather of Fannie, but her mother died. Anyway, so see, when Howard joined the army, his brother Bill went on home and joined the Amish church. So here’s churches out. They found out churches. So instead of staying home, they went to Enis. Sher’s place started back the lane and people are leaving. Here comes two Amish guys walking down the lane. And one of ’em is Howard’s brother, bill.

And Bill told the guy with him, well, first of all, for a car, took him in that kind of a church. Anytime is unusual, especially on a Sunday. So that raised eyebrows. And here the guy in the car is wearing an Army uniform, totally unusual. And Bill says, I think that’s my brother Joe. So they turn around and go back in. And Miriam, the young Amish cousin of my wife, tells her story, here comes a car. And it’s like when the gunslinger comes into the bar, the piano player stops. Everybody stares. And then out Stepss a soldier and things got deathly quiet. Everybody’s on the barn Bank talking church was in the barn and staring. And all of a sudden Miriam said, somebody yelled Joe, and I can’t even tell the story. She said she had never seen Amish people hug. They’re hugging him, Joe, you’re alive. They didn’t know what happened to him.

Dale Cramer:

The story at Home everywhere was that he was dead.

Marlin Miller:

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Dale Cramer:

The story at Home everywhere was that he was dead.

John Schmid:

Really? They didn’t know where he was. I mean, his brother Bill didn’t know what happened to him. That’s why it doesn’t, it doesn’t add up because Lydia’s uncle Sarah said, if you see Joe, ask him what he’s going to do. I have this child. So somehow the stories get mixed up. But they didn’t know where he was, had no idea. And here he comes. And so Miriam says, out of this car with people hugging and crying steps, a lady with a red dress, she looked like Scarlet O’Hara going with the wind. And she’s looking around, who are these funny looking people? I just asked Dale today, but I understood Joe’s Howard, Kramer’s security was so high, his wife did not know he could talk German. So she’s thinking, who are these funny looking people? What language is that? And who’s Joe? I married Howard Kramer. Right, unbelievable. And then Miriam and Fannie Joe’s daughter, Fannie are in the milk house. I make up stuff. So I don’t know. I think they were hiding because soldiers kill people. They’ve been told all their life soldiers, and here’s a guy that’s going to kill somebody. And here this guy comes down to the milk house and they’re shaking in their boots if they had any. And he looks at Fanny, his daughter, he’d never met. Hadie, had never met her.

Dale Cramer:

No.

John Schmid:

And he says, you must be Fanny. She confessed. And then he looks at Miriam, which was her half sister. You must be Fanny. And oh, there’s so much. Anyway, they found out that this is their uncle. And I can’t remember now because Miriam was bragging to Fanny that this is my uncle, but not yours. Because you were from the first. Yes. And here it was his daughter.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, yeah. She didn’t know. Neither of them knew that he was Fanny’s father and Miriam was, she and Fannie were very close.

John Schmid:

Only Marion knew it. And

Dale Cramer:

Enm, I don’t think Miriam,

John Schmid:

No. Miriam didn’t know it. But I mean the mother, your aunt knew it. Enis. Schettler knew it. Fannie didn’t know it. Your mom didn’t know it. From what I understand. The way your mom found out was that after that visit, Mary wrote to her brother, Howard Kramer and said, if you think you’re going to get Fanny back, we’ve raised her, blah, blah, blah. And your mom said, what’s all about? Does that sound the right story?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah.

John Schmid:

See, Dale here has got Amish blood. I got none. But I know the story from being around his relatives.

Marlin Miller:

So that’s the next question I was going to ask. Your dad shared all this with your mom, but left out the whole thing of Fannie. I

Dale Cramer:

Don’t think he told her about Fannie at the time. I’m not absolutely positive.

John Schmid:

You know, I’m going to call Miriam today sometime and ask, because I understood that she found out by a letter from Mary.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, I think I have seen that letter. He had an ammo box that I found after he passed that had a whole bunch of letters between him and Mary. And I believe I saw that letter. I know there were several between him and Mary.

Marlin Miller:

So what, sorry to cut you off. What was life like for you and your brother as you got older? I mean, obviously Niagara Falls, you wouldn’t have had any idea what’s going on.

Dale Cramer:

No.

Marlin Miller:

But as you grow up, did you start picking up that there were things in your dad’s past that didn’t make a whole lot of sense? Or had your mom and dad, had they worked things out? Was there still tension there? What was it like for you guys as little boys?

Dale Cramer:

I don’t know that we were sensitive to any of that, but

John Schmid:

You wanted to hear what I heard from up here about that.

Dale Cramer:

Sure.

John Schmid:

After that letter from Mary, your dad slept on the couch for a while.

Dale Cramer:

That wouldn’t surprise me, but I wouldn’t know about it.

John Schmid:

I think Miriam told me that there was tension for a while until it,

Dale Cramer:

Well, yeah,

John Schmid:

It’d be a pretty obvious, yeah, when you find out your mate has another child had never told you.

Dale Cramer:

And I wasn’t told about it until I was 18 years old. I didn’t know that I had a half-sister. She was my cousin. She was one of 17 Shetler children. She was my cousin. And then she and Miriam came to visit us in Maryland in the mid sixties. And they were about grown then. And I still didn’t know. I mean, they were cousins.

John Schmid:

Well, that’s another story, because Eli was building a barn in Delaware, even Maryland or Delaware,

Dale Cramer:

Maryland,

John Schmid:

Wherever it was. Eli brother Eli was building a barn and what they called stay away job. And I worked free Eli, but this was before I worked for him that, so Miriam went along to be the cook with the carpenter gang. And Fannie says, tell Howard Kramer that I want to meet my dad because they never had a father-daughter relationship. So Miriam goes, and they’re staying at Joe’s house. Do you remember they stayed at your house?

Dale Cramer:

Yes, they did. They were there about a week.

John Schmid:

So anyway, Miriam kept waiting for a chance. And I dunno if they stayed a week at a time, she never said anything. So she comes home and Fannie says, what’d he say? What’d he say? I never ask him. And so they went back again and this time doing dishes. Miriam said, Hey Howard, I’d like to talk to you. And he knew right away, he said, come down after everybody’s in bed.

Dale Cramer:

Well, that couldn’t be.

John Schmid:

No.

Dale Cramer:

My father never washed a dish in his life.

John Schmid:

Well, anyway, see how I get my stories mixed up. Your dad and I are on one. We’re on one accord. There he was.

Dale Cramer:

You didn’t wash

John Schmid:

Dishes. I did once. Did you? Yeah. Well, you weren’t Amish though. That’s all it took. Anyway, whatever it was, Joe told Howard told Miriam, come down after everybody’s in bed. And she said they talked till five in the morning.

Dale Cramer:

Wow. Wow. Yeah. I never knew what was behind that visit. It seemed strange to me. These girls showed up out of nowhere and they were shetler cousins. I knew who they were, but we didn’t know ’em. Strange. There’s a lot strange about that situation. What I remember about those years is the darkness between me and my dad. I think he and the way, what I finally arrived at when I was writing this book, and it was an epiphany, but he was carrying this anger over his father’s rejection and disappointment and berating of him and that sort of thing. And it was that anger that caused him to do the same thing to me. And he didn’t even realize he wasn’t aware of it. There’s a conversation that took place later when we were much later when we were beginning to be friends. It was when Jake died, my uncle Jake. And I think that that’s a big part of this book was that was one point where we did a lot to reconcile the relationship between me and my father. But my mother, we were in Georgia and Jake died up here and he loved Jake, his older brother. And I was fond of him from what I knew of him and got along with his kids. But my mother was this southern woman. Jake died in the wintertime. I remember it was, I

John Schmid:

Can’t remember. I was good friends. I don’t remember.

Dale Cramer:

There was a huge snowstorm coming across the middle of the country, Tennessee and Kentucky. And dad wanted to come up here for Jake’s funeral, but they knew the weather was going to come right across and they were going to be going right through it. And they were kind of arguing back and forth about whether or not to go to this funeral. And I knew that my dad desperately wanted to go. And I knew that my mother was the sort who would eventually give in and say, okay, we can go to the funeral. But as soon as they hit an icy patch on the road in Tennessee or someplace, she’d make him turn around and come back home. And I didn’t have those kind of misgivings. I wasn’t afraid of it. So finally when they were at an impasse, I spoke up and said, why don’t I go with you when you can leave mom at home.

She’ll be fine and you and I can make it to the funeral. And I think that was part of the bridge building that was going on between me and him. That trip meant a whole lot. And I remember when we were coming back from that trip, he started talking about harf and what it was like. And he said he had described several things that had happened and he said, you just can’t imagine what it was like living in the house with that man. And he got stuck for words. And I said, I was driving, kept my eyes forward. And I said, he was just a dark presence in the house, something to be avoided if possible. And he thought about it for a second and he said, yeah, have I told you this before? And I said, these are my exact words. I said, no, I wasn’t talking about your dad. I was talking about mine. And he got quiet for about 30 minutes really? And thought through all of that. Neither one of us said anything for a long time, but that too was, I mean, you have to rip some scabs off at some point, but it was the same kind of relationship between us.

Marlin Miller:

He had no idea that he was the same.

Dale Cramer:

And I’m sure his father didn’t either, and probably his father didn’t either. It rolls down the generations. I think maybe that’s the sins of the fathers that the Bible talked about.

Marlin Miller:

So what’s your older brother’s name?

Dale Cramer:

Allen.

Marlin Miller:

Allen. Is he a year or two older than you? Is that right?

Dale Cramer:

He’s somewhere between two and four. I never can quite get it straight.

Marlin Miller:

How did your dad’s parenting style impact him? Was it the same as you probably Dale?

Dale Cramer:

No, because our personalities were vastly different. My brother was very quiet, very obedient, a lot more sedentary than I was. I was the Tasmanian devil,

Marlin Miller:

Just going all the time,

Dale Cramer:

Wide open, endlessly curious and full of mischief and low rules. And I was exactly the sort of thing that would cause a problem for my dad with his Amish discipline and military discipline and children are to be seen and not heard. I didn’t fit that mold. And then I had a younger sister who was the apple of his eye. So it felt to me to be the black sheep of the family. And I took it on with relish. It was part of my nature. Good job, man.

Marlin Miller:

And you kind of played the role. Yeah.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah.

Marlin Miller:

So you go to Jake’s funeral with your dad, just the two of you, and you’ve got hours. How was the year or two after that? Did you talk a lot more?

Dale Cramer:

We talked on the drive. There were a lot of things. He was a quiet man. I mean, he said maybe four or five words a year, and a lot of things weren’t said, but there were exchanges that I think he really appreciated that I volunteered to go with him because he would never have made it to the funeral if I hadn’t done that. He just wouldn’t have been there. And he was appreciative of that.

Marlin Miller:

Did he tell you stories about Germany? Did he tell you the stories of Fannie? And

Dale Cramer:

He had already told me that Fannie was my sister before that. I think he told me when I turned 18 and I, this was a year or two after that that we went to Jake’s funeral. And I knew the story, but I remember having no reaction to it at the time. Really? No, because he and I were not, when he told me this, he and I were not friends, and I didn’t know what to do with that information. I had no idea what to do with it. I wasn’t for it or against it, or it just didn’t mean much at that point. Later on it did. Later on, Fannie eventually became accepted in our family and we would spend Thanksgiving at her house or she’d come up and spend Thanksgiving at our house. And we saw each other pretty regularly and got to know the family and everything.

Marlin Miller:

Did she have her own family then too?

Dale Cramer:

Fannie?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Dale Cramer:

Yes. She married George Wingard and they had, I think six kids and they left the Amish and they had a farm down in South Georgia. So like three, four hour drive away from where we live. And I’m still in touch with, in fact, had dinner with my nephew and his wife. Not long ago they came through Atlanta and they stopped off to see us and went out.

Marlin Miller:

When you think back over that whole thing, Dale, what do you see as far as the biggest, I’m not even sure what the word is, but what are the biggest convergences or things that you look at and go, only the Lord could do that.

Dale Cramer:

This whole story from beginning to end, I felt like growing up that my father was my worst enemy. And we changed some of that, especially when I went with him to Jake’s funeral. And we had started to change things. But then when I was 32, I was in a serious accident at work. I was working in a mine and electrician, and I blew up the motor control center by accident, freak accident, but it was like a fireball about three feet deep, and I was at the epicenter of it. So I spent six weeks in the burn unit, almost died, had major burns over half my body and serious situation. And it changed everything for me. I think that was when I really first became a Christian right after that. And because of it,

Marlin Miller:

You shouldn’t have been here.

Dale Cramer:

No, you shouldn’t have been here. No.

Wow. But it was, and that was another big step for me and my father, because he lived on the other side of town and he drove past that hospital every day. And he would stop in every afternoon on his way home from work. He would stop in the hospital and spend an hour in the burn unit with me. And I’ll never forget, there was one day he was in there and we talked some, but for me it was a striking incident. I don’t know if he was thinking about it that way at the time, but I was trussed up in this bed, my hands were useless and they were tied up to IV poles and I was laid back in this bed and doing a lot of morphine. And my father was there and we talked some, and before he left one day he noticed I had been, they would let you walk up and down the hall and drag your IV poles with you,

And the floors were a little dirty and dad was there and he noticed that he’s sitting in a chair against the wall opposite me. And he noticed my feet were dirty and he didn’t say anything. He got up and went over to the sink and got a washcloth, wet it and came over there and washed my feet. And I found it incredibly moving for some reason that he washed my feet and they were just dirty. And he was doing it for practical reasons, but it had this huge significance for me. I think that was a turning point you’re talking about. There are things like that.

There’s a whole lot more to it than that, but every bit of it had God’s fingerprints on it. I think the whole hospital experience. I was telling John the other night that at that point in time I was 32 and I was asking myself, I’ve been in church three times a week my entire life. And then I heard these questions asked that were so childish that I thought, we are 32 years old and we don’t really know anything but rules and regulations. And I started thinking, what is a Christian? And part of that went, what’s a Christian? And then within two weeks I find myself in the burn unit near death. Really? It was

Marlin Miller:

Two weeks after you started thinking

Dale Cramer:

Within two weeks of that. And I’m in the burn unit, and I noticed that first of all, the nurses had to feed patients who, my hands were tied up. They were the bandaged, the size of footballs, and they were tied up to IV poles. So I couldn’t feed myself. The nurses were supposed to feed me. But I noticed after a while that the nurses never had to feed me. There was always somebody there. There was always somebody visiting family member or church. Somebody was there every mealtime for some reason. And the nurses never had to feed me, but it registered. And there were other things like that that happened, that things that people did for me. And I think the most striking thing. Another thing I didn’t know at the time was that while I was in the ICU in the burn unit, my wife’s mother in Birmingham, which is two hours away, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. And she was in the hospital and my wife was having to run back and forth and she didn’t tell me

She didn’t think I needed that, but she was there for visiting hours most every day. And toward the end of my stay there, there was an assault on a woman in the parking deck right after visiting hours ended and the next morning one of the security guards was arrested for the assault in the hospital parking deck. The security guard was arrested for this assault. And here I am, trust up, and my wife is at nine o’clock at night is going through this parking deck every night and I’m tied up. You’re completely, completely helpless. Nothing I can do. I think this was two weeks before I got out of the hospital, but you have to remember I had asked, what is a Christian?

And at that point I noticed the day after that incident took place, there was a couple from the church that we went to. They showed up at the door of my room and they didn’t come in and they had to get gowned up and everything, but they didn’t come in. They stood at the door and they waved around the door and I thought, well, I probably wouldn’t come in either. I have an idea what I looked like didn’t have much of a face at the time, and head was still swollen. I could understand why they wouldn’t that and the smell, they wouldn’t come in the room. And then they left and my wife left and I didn’t think anything about it. Visiting hours were over next day, exact same thing, different couple didn’t come in the room there. Right at the end of visiting hours, my wife left with them and after about three days I asked her, what’s going on? She said, well, a different couple every day drives me down here from 30 miles away where we live, A different couple comes every day, drives me down here and escorts me into the hospital, back to the car, takes me home.

Marlin Miller:

And you had no idea at the time?

Dale Cramer:

No.

Marlin Miller:

You had no idea that the assault had happened or anything?

Dale Cramer:

Well, I knew about the assault. I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I mean, the word was all over the hospital about the

Marlin Miller:

Assault,

Dale Cramer:

But there was nothing I could do. So the church

Marlin Miller:

Had set that up for your wife?

Dale Cramer:

Well, the people in that Sunday school class. Wow.

Marlin Miller:

How did that impact your faith?

Dale Cramer:

Completely. I think at that time I was one of those people who’d been to church all his life and still didn’t know what a Christian was. And now I knew what a Christian was and it changed everything. It made me start really looking and asking questions and talking to God about it because I had thought that I was a Christian, but never paid much attention to it. I think there are millions of people in that position, but once you start to have a conversation with God, and especially one like that, that starts with being slapped into the burn unit, with my goodness burned over half your body. I’ve got skin grafts on both hands. You can’t really tell it unless I show it to you. But I’ve got skin grafts and scars all over, and this is not the nose that I used to have. It burned away, then came back different. Everything came back different after that.

Marlin Miller:

How long were you in the hospital there, Dale?

Dale Cramer:

About six weeks. About, I’ve never actually checked, but I suspect it was 40 days and 40 nights. Right around there. Right around there, yeah. Wow. Yeah, because everything was different after that. And I eventually came to understand a great many things that I had not understood before. That faith and trust in God. We have to beware of the Levin of the Pharisee. It’s not about rules and regulations. It’s very simple. It’s about love. There’s a place in this book that I marked that I was telling John, I don’t really think I wrote this. I typed it, but I don’t really think, I mean I, I know where this came from, but it ends up being like the backbone of the book. It’s when Will, which would be my father’s character in this book, is coming back to the states. He’s escorting a chip load of coffins right after the war. 2,400 American soldiers. He’s bringing them back home to their families and he’s been awarded this prize of being able to come home on this ship. And once he is assigned all these people to their families, he can take two weeks off stateside. And he runs into this priest on the ship, which is somebody, I don’t know, he just showed up and wrote himself into the story.

And it turns out he had been in a concentration camp and he says when he’s trying to explain to will about this anger that’s inside him and what he can do about it and what will change it. And he says, well, it starts with the priest’s side, turned his palms up and examined them as if he hoped to find some answer written there. When he looked up a great compassionate sorrow deepened the lines in his face, my eyes have seen too much of man. He said quietly, I’m not as wise as I once was or perhaps wiser. And answers do not come easily anymore given all that you’ve endured. No penance I could assign would be very meaningful to you. But somehow you must come to understand that God is love, that love is the proof of God and that forgiveness is the proof of love. This is the seed I can plant. Only God can make it thrive. That’s the heart of this book. And I, I’m not sure I wrote it, I typed it. But that was a powerful thing that I was given an understanding that I was given. How did,

Marlin Miller:

After your time in the hospital, how long did your dad live after that?

Dale Cramer:

Oh, let’s see. He died, that was in 85 and he died in 2012. So he was, that would’ve been like what, 27 years? Yeah.

Marlin Miller:

Long term. Did your friendship continue to grow?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah. Yeah. We became good friends. The whole thing completely changed. I think it changed both of us.

We enjoyed the same things, woodwork, fishing, baseball. I mean, we had all those things in common and we started doing those things together. I remember when he was it, it was a year or two before he died, I was building a porch swing out in his shop and I was routing the edges of the slats. And he came out and was standing there. He had gotten quite old. I think it was only a year or two before he died. And he was standing there with his cane cold weather. He is wearing a hat and coat. He just watched me for a long time and I remember I stopped what I was doing at some point. And he smiled and he said, that’s exactly the way I would’ve done that. And that was a milestone. That was the sort of thing that matters. But we had gone pretty much full circle.

Marlin Miller:

How old was he when he passed?

Dale Cramer:

He was 86. 86? Yeah. He lived a good full life. He had heart trouble there at the end, and they did something to one of his valves and it didn’t work quite right. And within a couple of years he was gone.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. My dad died in 2011 at 55. Oh, wow. So yeah, I remember going through the funeral, all that stuff. And that’s what everybody was saying was, oh, he’s so young. He’s so young. And I’m the oldest of our three, and I was focused on taking care of mom, and I didn’t really don’t think I let myself grieve anything for a year and went through that whole process. And around that year, year and a half, mark, a friend of mine, I’d asked him, I said, Hey, whatcha are you guys doing this weekend or something? And he said, we’re going to Boston to be with my dad for his 90th birthday or his 91st birthday. And that’s when it hit me that that’s an entirely second lifetime that I missed out on. And that’s when it really,

Dale Cramer:

Yeah. The other thing about all of this is the writing. I mean, I was a lifelong construction worker. It’s all I’d ever done. I started working on Bridges when I was 15, and by the time I was 19, I was in the electrical trade and stayed there for what, 25 years. And in the mid nineties was when all this other stuff, the changes I went through after getting burnt and starting to follow the directions I was given, led me off in this strange direction where I ended up staying home, being a stay at home dad and taking care of my kids. And my wife was working. I had been injured in some way, but it was originally going to be, I was going to stay home for a summer, but it seemed like the right thing to do. And I ended up staying home. And because of that, I ended up, I started writing for whatever reason, well, it was because of a conversation I had while I was doing a night job building an office in a friend’s house. We got in an argument and it turned into an article and I suddenly turned into, I was John Steinbeck.

But all of these things, this whole chain of events was because we were following a different set of directions than we always had. It wasn’t about money anymore. It was about family and doing the right thing. And that’s how I ended up staying home. And that’s how I ended up starting to write and thinking that I could do that. And that led to actually, I spent three years learning to write a novel. And then just because I didn’t want to waste that three years, I sent it to an agent and lo and behold, she accepted it and sold it. And I got a two book deal. So I had to write another book. And all of this happened almost by itself. And the third book was this one. And I think now looking back on it, I think this was the whole reason all of it happened.

Marlin Miller:

Do you feel that that book was an end in itself or part of the healing process? Did your dad have a chance to read it?

Dale Cramer:

Yes. In fact, I told him about it before I even started on it. And he had some misgivings, but he said, well, I told him, I said, I’m not going to send anything to the publishing house until you’ve read it. And if there’s anything you object to, we’ll talk about it and settle it one way or another other. But I said, I’m not sending something off that you haven’t looked at. And so he said, okay. The only thing he ever complained about was he said in the book, it describes him wrestling a Russian soldier away from an officer and tossing him over a bridge railing. And the guy eventually drowns because of it. That was the only thing in the book that he objected to. It didn’t happen. It was the only thing in the book that he objected to. He said, I never killed any Russian. He objected to that until the day he died. He really didn’t want me to put that in there. But other than that, he didn’t have any complaint.

John Schmid:

But like everybody in that Amish church and your dad included, they want you to write the real story. The real story is more unbelievable than this fiction.

Marlin Miller:

Well, let’s go back. Let’s go all the way back to the ban. He took off that Sunday. Was that ever resolved with the Amish church?

Dale Cramer:

Yes. After. And because of this book?

Marlin Miller:

Because of the book?

Dale Cramer:

Yes.

Marlin Miller:

You’re kidding.

Dale Cramer:

No, it wasn’t my doing.

Marlin Miller:

Sorry.

Dale Cramer:

Wow. My aunt, the one who raised Fannie, my half-sister had 17 children between her and Enus, they had 17. So they grew to be quite a large family. By the time this book came out, we’re talking well over a hundred people, I guess, in the family. And so the book comes out and it’s fiction. And she had a really hard time with that to begin with because Amish don’t generally read fiction and they don’t do well with abstract. And

John Schmid:

Plus, those of us who knew the real people got all mixed up which one’s which.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah. And I can see that now when I read the book now, it confuses me because the names are changed and everything, but I think somehow it had to be that way.

John Schmid:

Well, I asked you about it when it first came out and you said there was too many people still living

Dale Cramer:

That

John Schmid:

Would be hurt, and most of them are now gone. So I give you permission to write the real story.

Dale Cramer:

And Eli was the real impetus behind that. The problem is, I don’t know the real story that Eli was talking about. I know it was bad, but I don’t know how bad. But anyway, after the book came out, all these generations after my Aunt Mary, of course, I think they bought one book and they all read it The Amish Way, one book, a hundred people. You’re good. Yeah. Frugal. And I heard there was a piece of paper like this passed around. It was inside a copy of the book like this, and it had Sylvia Is Bill Mary, like

Marlin Miller:

This index

Dale Cramer:

And this it was an index of who all the characters were, the names were, here’s the fictional name, here’s the real name, and it made the rounds. And everybody in the entire Amish community had this directory of, oh my goodness.

Marlin Miller:

What year was it published in?

Dale Cramer:

Oh five. Oh five, okay.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Dale Cramer:

And anyway, there was a whole lot of talk in that huge family, and the younger ones had always known my father as a nice man. Even we didn’t stay for meals at their house because Mary still observed the band. And somebody asked her then why she still observed the band against my father, and she said, because he never went back and asked for forgiveness.

Marlin Miller:

Mary’s his sister.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, right. Yeah. He never went back to the church and asked for forgiveness. And eventually, with all these conversations, this had never, I mean, they don’t talk about things. This is something that was swept under the rug and wasn’t discussed. This was her best friend who had Fanny, and so she knew in great detail everything that went on, but she was the only source. And so all of these children started asking questions when they read this book, and they finally figured out what this real story was. And because it was fiction, they needed all these explanations of why this and why that, and did this really happen? That really happened?

It opened up all these old wounds and some of them healed. Finally, it was a couple of my cousins, and you may have heard something about this, who it was, I don’t know, but a couple of my cousins wrote my dad. He came down and talked to me about it and said that they had written him and said that they thought that he should write to the bishop and ask for forgiveness and see what happens. And I asked him then I said, why have you never done this before? And he said, well, because before Enus was alive, Enus had passed away. And he said, as long as Enus was alive, there’s no way I was going to be absolved of anything. It wasn’t going to happen. And so after Enus was gone, and this all took place after Enus was gone, and they wrote to him and said, you should send a letter to the bishop. So I sat down and we helped him. He wrote a letter and it took about six weeks to get an answer. As a young bishop.

John Schmid:

Yeah. The young bishops never heard of him.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah,

John Schmid:

I heard that story from this side because the young bishop, in fact, the bishop when he was a baby, his caretaker was Fanny.

Marlin Miller:

Oh my goodness.

John Schmid:

His ma. Yeah, sure. The Amish GI Ahma or somebody to help take care of the baby. Fannie took care of this little kid who grew up to be the bishop. He did not realize Fannie was the daughter of this person who’s now writing a letter to see if he can get the band taken off.

Dale Cramer:

There’s another thing about that, Bishop, I found out later in one of the last chapters in this book, there’s a young bishop, he’s one of the ones that speaks at Jake’s funeral, and he’s reluctant to do it, but he preaches in English. And after the funeral, I asked my dad, I said, have you ever heard an Amish preacher speak in English before? And he said, not that I can recall. I said, that guy went out of his way because he struggled with it. He was having to translate on the fly to say what he wanted to say, that that was a lot of trouble for him. And I asked him, I said, best you can figure how many people in that building didn’t speak Dutch. And he thought about it, thought about it, and thought about it. And he finally said, pretty sure it was one. Yeah, it was you. Yeah.

John Schmid:

The same bishop. You mean this really happened or is this in the story?

Dale Cramer:

It’s in the story, and it really

John Schmid:

Happened. They preached in English at

Dale Cramer:

Jake’s funeral. He preached in English at Jake’s funeral.

John Schmid:

Yeah. I wasn’t there.

Dale Cramer:

I don’t really remember that. No. I don’t know if he was the bishop at that time, but I know that that was the guy who spoke at Jake’s funeral.

John Schmid:

But at your Uncle Eli’s funeral, I was in Ireland, and I got word that Eli died, my old boss. And I came home early for that. They had asked me to do something and I said, I won’t be there. Well, I changed my schedule, came home and went to the family there before the funeral. And then I sat, we in the back and here the guy comes over and said, we’d like you to read Psalm 91 as they go past the casket. And I said, well, I didn’t anyway in German. So I read Psalm 91 as they went past the casket. The funny thing is the bishop preached in English. Really? I’d never been to an Amish place where they, anyway, so in the budget it said the Amish bishop preached in English. The English guy read the scripture in German.

Marlin Miller:

And

John Schmid:

Thankfully they don’t allow cell phones to take how my accent was.

Marlin Miller:

So how did you guys connect on this whole thing? Because Dale, I am assuming you know this, but John and I go way back. He was friends with my dad for many, many years. He sang on our cabin’s porch multiple times for big, big get togethers.

John Schmid:

Yeah, they had singings at their place once, several times a year.

Marlin Miller:

Oh yeah. It was a lot. And John mention you one time and said, Marlon, have you ever heard of Howard Kramer? And you ever hear the story? And totally blew my mind. Right? I grew up Amish for the first five years. I’ve got hundreds of family I can identify with a lot of what you’re talking about. And he starts telling me this story, and I immediately said, oh, okay. If we can get Dale up here from Georgia, we have to get on it. How did you guys figure out that you knew parts of each other’s family story?

Dale Cramer:

Well, John, first of all, I think he lies about his age. I think he’s really about 312 years

Marlin Miller:

Old. I was going to say 225, but yeah, and I’m six two and you’re six two,

Dale Cramer:

And he’s six two. But he knows everybody in the Western Hemisphere and about 60% of the ones in the Eastern

John Schmid:

Hemisphere, I owe him all money.

Dale Cramer:

He’s on a first name basis with most of them. He knows a lot of people. The first time I met John was at the family reunion. One of the things that happened over the years, I don’t remember what year that was.

John Schmid:

Was it at Henry’s place?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah. I don’t,

John Schmid:

There’s three or four Amish families that when they have a family reunion, they invite me.

Marlin Miller:

And you’re not even family.

John Schmid:

No. You’re just, you’ve been God’s hope. I’m totally not Amish, but God’s ho. I’m

Dale Cramer:

Friendly. But Henry’s family is always treated us

John Schmid:

Well. Henry and I lived together. I mean, he was the hired hand. And when my parents moved to Worcester, I boarded with this guy. So we lived in, no, we didn’t live in the same house. He was the hired hand and I was living in the farmer, the old single farmer’s house. So we worked a lot together. And

Dale Cramer:

You’re practically an uncle to me.

John Schmid:

Let me tell you about that. I’m in Sarasota, Florida, and the waitress says my name. And here she’s one of Eli h his grandchildren. And I knew everybody, but I didn’t know that generation. And so the next day, she’s a waitress. And I told the guy with me, I was just joking. I said, how was it? I said something crazy to make my wife roll her eyes. But I said, yeah, what did I say? I said something like, back when I was Amish, I worked with her dad, something like that, whatever it was. They all laughed that very same day. The waitress came to me and said, you mean you were never Amish? She thought I was her uncle. No kidding. Wow. So I have several identities that I could. So

Marlin Miller:

When you say that John is practically your uncle, what do you mean by that?

Dale Cramer:

Like part of the family in a lot of ways. And he knows more about my family than I do.

John Schmid:

Well, one of my classmates was Jake Gingrich, which is my wife’s cousin. His sister married Eli H. So when I worked for Eli, I was actually working for my future wife’s relative. And even though my wife didn’t even know him, because when my wife’s family left the Amish, that cut everything off. So at our wedding, a lot of Amish came and I had to introduce my wife to her cousins. To her own cousins. Yeah. They came because they knew me. Wow. Now, even though that generation doesn’t do anything with the boycott, they didn’t know each other. Yeah.

Dale Cramer:

Eli’s wife called my house one time, got ahold of my wife, and she said, this is E Katie. And my wife who a Katie, my wife turned around to me and said, who is E Katie? Said Uncle Eli’s wife. Katie.

John Schmid:

Eli’s Katie.

Dale Cramer:

Yep. But back to where I met John, there was a reunion at Henry’s house up off of Carr Road, north Moreland Road, Moreland Road north of Fredericksburg. Anyway, they had a family reunion, and he specifically, Henry’s always been very kind to us, and he specifically wanted us to come to this family reunion and

John Schmid:

Us Meaning you or your dad? Also

Dale Cramer:

The family, the whole family, dad and me. And I don’t remember if my mother was there. It may have been just me and my father. He and I made several trips up here at different times for different things. But anyway, we went to this reunion at Henry’s house, and I’ll never forget, he got this long drive. And right down at the end of the drive, there’s a sign at the end of his driveway that says Miller slash Kramer reunion. No kidding. He actually put No kidding. And there were only two Kramers there that I know of. But he put dad’s name on that sign. And that was the one where dad stood up

John Schmid:

Everybody in themselves.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah. They start in order of the oldest sons. And it came down to my dad, and I think he was stunned when they actually said his name and he was supposed to stand up and talk. When he stood up, he told who he was and who his family were, did those things. Then he talked about he had a daughter. She was there as a matter of fact, and he said that he told the whole thing, you might remember it better than I do.

John Schmid:

I was there and all I remember was it was the first time he publicly acknowledged that Mary took care of his daughter

Dale Cramer:

And did a better job than he ever could have was what he said. It was a breakthrough. And it publicly acknowledged the whole thing and apologized and said that he knew that his daughter was well taken care of. He was sorry for what trouble he had caused and whatever. But it was a breakthrough moment when he did that. And I was sitting there listening to it. And so was John,

John Schmid:

Especially for Mary.

Dale Cramer:

Yes. I think it meant the world to Mary.

Marlin Miller:

So then what happened with the band

Dale Cramer:

That after the book came out and two, the two of the cousins wrote My dad.

Marlin Miller:

Wait, so the reunion happened before the book came out?

Dale Cramer:

Pretty sure it did. I’m not positive. I don’t know when

John Schmid:

Old people can’t remember order of things. I was there, but it That’s interesting. I don’t, can’t remember. Okay.

Dale Cramer:

Jake was there. Jake was alive, and he’d been diagnosed with cancer. That should date it. I don’t when, don’t know when Jake passed away though.

John Schmid:

I can’t remember either. I don’t think I was at the funeral. I was at most of those funerals, but I must’ve been away. But I do remember that when they lifted the band, the shunning, I think the first meal was at that restaurant here in Berlin, wasn’t it? Or was it at home on Thanksgiving? I think the first time Mary ate with her brother Joe, I was at the restaurant when I just saw I wasn’t part of the deal. I just happened to see your dad, Mary, some of the LER family, and Jake Chu was there. Is it an uncle?

Dale Cramer:

Dan Chu,

John Schmid:

Dan Chu. And later on I round out, that’s the first time they’d eaten together for 60 some years. Wow. So it’s either that or it was the same

Dale Cramer:

Trip the first time that dad ate with her, she, as soon as they lifted the band she wrote and come on. It was only a couple of weeks later that Thanksgiving happened, and the first time that he ate at his sister’s table was Thanksgiving Day.

John Schmid:

So it was the same trip then probably that they ate at the

Dale Cramer:

Restaurant. The same trip. Same

John Schmid:

Trip.

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, same trip. But I drove him up there and the two of us went to Thanksgiving at her house and I took, my son, dusty was with me. So there were three generations of us went to Mary’s house because she had, I mean, as soon as they lifted the band, she fired off a letter and said, come for Thanksgiving.

And I love it. That’s what that piece was about. That described that whole thing. But that was the first time that he had eaten at her and they didn’t threw away the seating order. They seated the two of them next to each other, and they stayed there all day long. And I’ll never forget that the older daughters were lined up. I was sitting on this side of the table and Mary and my father were on that side, and their daughters were lined up on both sides of ’em. And they were all sitting there like this, listening to them. You’ve seen pictures of the last supper? Yeah, this is the first supper. Yeah, it looked like that. But I asked them at some point, everybody, you’re all leaning in and smiling. What’s going on? They said, it’s the first time we ever heard him speak Dutch. No

Marlin Miller:

Kidding. That’s amazing. So Dale, with all of this, how have you parented your kids differently? I mean, has it impacted the way you and Annie have parented or

Dale Cramer:

Anne? No, that’s my mother’s name. I’m sorry. My wife’s name is Pam.

Marlin Miller:

I’m sorry.

Dale Cramer:

Unfortunately, I think I wasn’t as bad as my father and he wasn’t as bad as his father. But that strain still, I lost patience. I was writing, I was trying to meet deadlines, and I lost patience with my sons the same way he did with me and had some of the same issues, I have to admit. And it’s had its effects ex, but I’m aware of it now. And I don’t see it in my sons. I don’t see them parenting that way. So maybe it’s finally trickling out. But that sort of thing, I don’t know. Somehow it gets in the blood.

Marlin Miller:

It has a deep roots, doesn’t it?

Dale Cramer:

Yeah, it does. Wow. And I hate admitting it because now I see it, but it was there and I hope it doesn’t go any further.

Marlin Miller:

Do you believe in coincidences? I mean, how do you look at that

Dale Cramer:

At everything that’s happened? I don’t see much of it as coincidence. How do you go accidentally from being a lifelong construction worker with no college education to being an award-winning author, writing about your father’s story in something that changes lives?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah,

Dale Cramer:

Brings people together in

Marlin Miller:

Ways you could have never even comprehended.

Dale Cramer:

And I know from my side, I know it’s because I changed direction at some point and started following a different set of rules, doing instead of what’s most profitable, let’s concentrate on what’s right, what’s the right thing to do regardless of whether it pays or doesn’t pay or whatever. That’s not what’s important in life. And it was after that sea change that all these things happen. And I think that’s kind of how it goes. And I wouldn’t describe it as coincidence. Wow.

Marlin Miller:

John, did we miss anything?

John Schmid:

Oh yeah,

Marlin Miller:

I know we did.

John Schmid:

I got to be home by tomorrow. There’s so much. I was out at Lydia’s uncle’s place in Arizona. The other brother, the one that didn’t join the army, and we obviously were talking about your book because I think I called your dad. I said, I still have his phone number because your dad and this uncle would’ve also been in the same church. In fact, uncle John Byer remembers being in the Amish church waiting for the confession when Joe Miller showed up and he never showed up. That’s the Sunday,

Marlin Miller:

Really.

John Schmid:

They see, the story I heard was after Grandpa Harv raked him over the coals. One more time. He looked at Brother Bill said, I can’t face those people now. So instead of going to church, they drove the buggy to Homeville, threw their hat down the outdoor toilet and went down to the railroad where you were talking about, and jumped the train and went out of state. And I understand that they’re standing around in this town in, I didn’t know where it was, Kentucky or Tennessee or someplace. Elizabeth town dad told me that. And this farmer came by and said, you guys looking for work? He said, yeah. And took ’em home. And they were very good with mules down. They still farm with mules in Kentucky at that time.

And Joe and his brother Bill, they knew how to handle mules and they did real well. And one morning, a week or two later, the wife says, I think I know what kind of people you are because they’re dressed Amish and people now would know what they are. But back then, so she said, I’m not sure what she said, but she said, I think I know what kind of people you are. So they went out and did chores and never came back. And that’s when somehow after that, Joe joined the army and Bill came back home and joined the Amish church.

Dale Cramer:

They migrated south. I think

John Schmid:

They went south from there anyway,

Dale Cramer:

Followed crops or jobs or something.

John Schmid:

They did not want to be found out because Harvard come and get ’em.

Dale Cramer:

Wow.

John Schmid:

That’s how scared they were of their dad. Wow. It’s an

Dale Cramer:

Unusual story.

John Schmid:

And Uncle John ER’s talked to your dad. Your dad couldn’t figure out who he is.

Marlin Miller:

My dad.

John Schmid:

No, no. This phone call from Arizona. He’s talking to Dale’s dad. I’m John Byler. And you could hear, he said, remember I used to date your sister? So he dated Mary. I didn’t know that until that phone call, but once they found out it was Yap, yap, yap. Yeah,

Marlin Miller:

Going to town,

John Schmid:

They caught up with each other. Wow.

Marlin Miller:

Guys, thank you. I hope you know how much I appreciate the time and to just sit and just hear and just listen and think together. How can we pray for you and your family and

Dale Cramer:

Just pray for my sons. My wife and I have, of course, we’re empty nesters have been for years. We’ve got a wonderful marriage, we’ve got wonderful neighbors. I’ve got wonderful friends and we’ve really been blessed. I don’t see how things could be any better.

Marlin Miller:

How many grandkids do you have?

Dale Cramer:

Only three at this point. We were late having children. We didn’t, had some difficulties. Didn’t even try for the first 10 years. And then we had difficulties, physical difficulties for the next five years. So it was a long time. We were in our thirties before we started having children, but we’ve got three grandchildren now. Wonderful little children. I think the oldest one is like six, so

Marlin Miller:

They are, yeah, just little boogers. Well, we definitely will. Thank you again. Thanks for making the trip up. John, thanks for driving the 10 minutes. This has been great. This episode is brought to you by Homestead Living Magazine. Homestead Living is a monthly print magazine that interviews all the big names in the homesteading world and they focus and educate in a wonderful way. You can learn more and su*******@*************ng.com. If you got anything out of this podcast, you will probably love plain values in print. You can go to plain values.com to learn more and check it out. Please like, subscribe and leave us a review. Guys love. Thanks so much.