Still Called by Faith To the Phone Booth

"I had to make an emergency farm visit," veterinarian Chris Runde recalled.

Since arriving in St. Mary's in the 1940s, the Old Order Amish and Mennonite families have held true to conservative ways, eschewing automobiles, electrical utility power, radios and televisions. (The Old Order Mennonites in St. Mary's are Old Order Stauffer Mennonites. A third group -- members of the car-driving Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonites -- also resides in St. Mary's.)

As their businesses grew, Old Order Amish and Mennonites needed better ways to reach customers and suppliers. By the 1970s, they increasingly turned to Ben Burroughs, who is neither Amish nor Mennonite but has deep roots in the county. The former sheriff owns many ventures, including a bail bonds business, farmers market, motel, construction company and laundromat.

In an interview at his office -- as he simultaneously fielded a half-dozen calls from recently locked-up inmates -- Burroughs, 73, recalled how, at the request of Amish and Mennonite families, he asked the phone company to erect public pay phones in the area. Because the phones were in his name, he was eligible for commissions. But Burroughs rarely made much money, he said -- a fact confirmed by phone records he provided for the month of July 2003. His total haul from phones in heavily traveled Old Order areas: $1.52.

This year, Burroughs heard from Verizon Communications, which told him he would have to subsidize two of the phones himself, for up to $75 a month, along Thompson Corner and Budds Creek roads, or Verizon would remove them. He refused.

Verizon spokeswoman Sandy Arnette confirmed that the company plans to remove the two phones. In general, she said, Verizon removes pay phones that can't pay for themselves, unless someone is willing to pay a monthly fee. She stressed that the company has plenty of pay phones, particularly in such high-volume areas as airports and outside convenience stores. Arnette declined to say how many pay phones Verizon has in St. Mary's, saying the company doesn't regularly track the phones by county. Even if it did, she said, the company probably would not release the totals because it doesn't want competitors to know.

In Loveville, after a nearby public pay phone was taken away, Ethan Brubacher and other Mennonites wanted something to replace it. The shed-builder offered to build a shanty, outfitting it with vinyl siding, two windows and a shingled roof.

On a recent 95-degree afternoon, a young Mennonite farmer rode his bicycle up to the shanty. He declined to give his name, citing Old Order concerns about appearing boastful. He unlocked the door, went inside, took a seat, picked up the black Radio Shack phone and called a farm-supply dealer. "That Manex fungicide, do you have that?" he asked, ticking off an order for delivery.

In the shanty, callers had pinned up a buggy-shop calendar, a business card for a taxi company, random doodles and phone numbers, including one for Floyd's Weather Station, a local forecasting service.

Later, Irvin Gehman rode up on a red 10-speed bike, wearing a straw hat, wire-rimmed glasses, a shirt, suspenders, jeans and solid black leather sneakers. He owns the buggy shop and lives nearby with his mother, wife, 10 children and a son-in-law. Gehman used the phone a lot recently to check on medications for his mom. "Nobody actually has a phone," he said of the compromise he and his neighbors struck. "But everyone has the convenience of having one they can use."

Donald Kraybill, a leading scholar of Mennonites and Amish, said the groups have long seen phones in their homes as a way for the outside world to come in too strongly. His book, "The Riddle of Amish Culture,'' devotes eight pages to telephones. "There's a lot of symbolism with the shanty," he said.

At Samuel Stoltzfus's dairy operation, the negotiations the Amish make with technology become clear. A diesel engine powers vacuum-operated pumps he attaches to 37 cows. After collecting the milk, he pours it into a refrigerated tank.

Still, Stoltzfus, his wife and their 10 children travel by horse and buggy. Unlike Mennonites, they don't even ride bikes. They receive no electricity from utility lines and use kerosene lanterns for light. To make a phone call, Stoltzfus walks about 1,000 feet, past his mother's house, to a private phone shanty.

Taking a break from an evening of milking, with three of his children nearby, Stoltzfus pondered the question of bringing a phone into his home. It could lead to television and radio, he said, or endless yakking by his teenagers.

"If you keep them at a distance," he said of telephones, "they're not misused."