The Hope in Me by Katie Miller

December 13, 2024 / Saloma Furlong /

Katie Miller and I have been in touch over the months since the Symposium at Elizabethtown College. She was not able to attend, though she has offered part of her story to publish on the blog. Today I continue the series of former Amish who went on to college after leaving their respective communities. I bring you:

The Hope in Me

By Katie Miller

I grew up in a small village called Charm, in the green rolling, farm hills of Holmes County Ohio. My family was Amish, as were most of the people in the community. There was my mom and dad, an older brother and a younger sister. My dad died when I was fifteen years old from internal injuries he received from a fall out of the attic window. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was on medication that drugged him up so that he didn’t know what he was doing.

My mom had a fabric shop that my sister and I helped in. It was our livelihood because my dad wasn’t able to hold a steady job to support us.

As is the tradition of the Amish children, my siblings and I just went to school until eighth grade. After that, the children are expected to get a job to help bring income for the family.

I got married in the Amish faith, but later became born again and we left the Amish. We went through being excommunicated, and being shunned by our former Amish church.

My mother passed away in 2005, and at that time I went to the local High School and took my GED test.

I started college that fall in nursing. I had to do all of the prerequisites since I only had an eighth-grade education. I loved learning about everything and did quite well in my academics.

It took me four years of going part-time, juggling motherhood, and working at a nursing home to finish those and to enter the Nursing Program. Two weeks into those classes, I found out my husband had an affair.

Naturally, I was devastated. I continued my classes, but didn’t make the grade. I didn’t finish or re-enter nursing, but became an EMT the following summer instead.

By this time our two sons were grown, one moved to Florida, and the other to Arizona. We took some counseling and tried to make our marriage work. But decided to make a start fresh and move to Arizona as well.

We had been on Arizona for about eight month when my son told me, “Mom, you make a date and tell dad it’s over. You deserve better.” Don’t think that your children don’t see and hear everything. They do. It took my then 25-year-old son to tell me what I had known for a long time, but chose to ignore, or chose to live with. The unknown is much harder then living with the known.

May it be enduring to get beaten up physically, mentally or emotionally. We are not created to by on this earth to endure abuse, no matter what form it is.

I know it can be difficult to leave, especially if you don’t have the means to support yourself and your children. I lived in a huge, busy, dirty, crime-ridden city. I didn’t know anyone. I did not have a degree.

But I left. I stepped out. I found myself. I took Phlebotomy classes, then Medical Lab assistant classes. Found a job in a lab. I had 56 credit hours from my nursing classes years ago, so I took 4 more online ones and received an Associate of Science. I now have a great career with as a Lab Technician in Toxicology for the Phoenix Police Dept. Crime Laboratory.