Last weekend we were up in Decatur, AL, we made a quick trip up to Ethridge, TN to visit the Amish community that Rob had heard about. We did it on a bit of whim after putting gas in the car, so we did not know exactly where to go. We followed the signs to the Lawrenceburg Visitor Center until had driven all the way through to Ethridge. We ended up seeing this sign, where we turned down a dirt road that dead ended to a quaint house and shop building.
As we got close to the house a young lady with a black cap (bonnet), a denim blue colored dress, with a white apron, wearing black tie up boots, came out to meet us. Rob told me he didn’t feel comfortable talking to her as we got out of the car, so I said hi, and told her we were there for their homemade jams.” She responded quietly in an accent like nothing I’ve heard before. Two little dogs followed us over to the shop, one an English Terrier, the other a Beagle mix. We walked over to the shop where there was a table covered in jars of homemade jams, chow chow, slaw, apple butter, and other spreads, jellys, and the like.
I was very curious to hear the young girl speak some more, so I picked up one of the jars of Chow Chow and asked her what was in it. I found her accent to be so interesting that I would have loved to have heard her speak more. Teenager picked out the Watermelon jam and Rob picked up the apple butter and blackberry jam. I eyed what looked to be airfreshner. I picked up the Baked Apple Pie, took a sniff and decided I had to have it.
On the other wall hung the handmade saddlebags ranging in fabrics from camouflaged to neon pinks and yellows. We noticed a very large roll of insulating fabric that they cut out to make the body of each bag. A man sat over at the other end of the room with a manual sewing machine, making more saddlebags.
After making our purchase we headed back to the car where we circled around the tree where 2 horses were tethered. We noticed a very large tank of some type of gas, either propane or natural gas. We saw another lady, wearing a white cap (bonnet) doing laundry on a concrete area just off the main house.
We needed to stop at the nearest gas station. We were happy to see this store on the corner called Marshall’s Grocery. This store was not just any gas station. When you entered they sold all sorts of goods, housewares, etc. You could tell they catered to the Amish.
After leaving there we attempted to find the visitor center again, but it was closed. I had hoped to find some more signs to Amish goods, but the boys were bored so we abandoned the idea and drove back to Alabama. I’d like to come back to find more Amish. Ginger has a couple posts about Amish in Ethridge and a route map as well.