A work Booklist called ଯving and life–affirming, Crossing Over is the true story of one woman's extraordinary flight from the protected world of the Amish people to the chaos of contemporary life. 
 Ruth Irene Garrett was the fifth of seven children raised in Kalona, Iowa, as a member of a strict Old Order Amish community. She was brought up in a world filled with rigid rules and intense secrecy, in an environment where the dress, buggies, codes of conduct, and way of life differed even from other Amish societies only 100 miles away. This Old Order community actively avoided all interaction with ೨e Englishߜ'96 everyone who lived on the outside. As a result, Ruth knew only one way of life, and one way of doing things.
 This compelling narrative takes us inside a hidden community, offering a striking look as one woman comes to terms with her discontent and ultimately leaves her family, faith and the sheltered world of her childhood. Unsatisfied, she bravely crosses over to contemporary life to fully explore the foreign and frightening reality in hope of better understanding her emotional and spiritual desires. What emerges is a powerful tale of one woman's search for meaning and the extraordinary lessons she learns along the way.

Crossing Over: One Woman's Escape from Amish Life

Biographies & Memoirs

Garrett, Ruth Irene

Community & Culture

HarperOne

Chronicles the author's departure from the Amish community in Kalona, Iowa, and how she escaped a lifetime of abuse and oppression to join the modern world while keeping alive her Christian faith.

Crossing over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish Life

Farrant, Rick

Thomas More Pr

Autographed by the author, this book tells about her life growing up in the Amish Church and culture and her coming out of it all.

My Amish Heritage

Garrett, Ottie A.

Leaders & Notable People

Turner

Born Amish

Ruth Irene Garrett fell in love with an Englischer at the age of 21 and left her Amish community to begin her new life out in the world. Deborah Morse-Kahn has been writing about this very special religious community in the United States. In Born Amish we learn aboutlife as a child growing up in the Amish farming community of Kalona, Iowa: school, games and chores; work, crafts and foods; clothing, farming and tumbling about with many brothers and sisters. We learn about the expectations for girls and boys, and then for young women and young men, in Amish families; of social roles and understandings about courtship and marriage; about adult baptism and the often wrenching decisions young Amish men and women must make to go out into the English world into mainstream Christian congregations, or to stay and make a life of faith in the Amish church.

Morse-Kahn, Deborah

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Books by Garrett, Ruth Irene