HAZLETON, Ia. – The iconic photo of Amish children fleeing into Iowa cornfields to escape school and law enforcement officers there to enforce compulsory public education laws turns 50 this fall.
The image taken by Des Moines Register photographer Thomas DeFeo was picked up in Life magazine and other publications and historians credit it with rallying a national public outcry. It resulted in a religious liberties movement that substantially shifted Iowa's public education requirements, granting wide exemptions that remain in place today. The Register in the past month returned to the site as part of its yearlong "Lost Schools" project and spoke with some of the key players in the 1965 incident. It found:
• Second guessing. Arthur Sensor, Oelwein's former superintendent, now 94, says he regrets his actions. Sensor said he was following state orders but, if he could go back, would allow himself to be fired rather than to try to force Amish children to attend his district.
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• Memories. Andy Raber, believed to be one of the fleeing boys in the photo, described himself in 1965 as a scared 9-year-old, but credits the act with saving the Amish way of life; Sarah Swartz, Raber's neighbor, recalled a harrowing scene as she attempted to block the bus to keep her children from public school. Later,
authorities emptied the Swartz family's corn crib to pay fines for their civil disobedience, the now 87-year-old Buchanan County resident said.
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"It was a momentous sort of thing," said Erik Eriksen, a now retired education consultant for the state who spent years documenting Amish school teachings and befriended several of the families involved in the 1965 scene.
Eriksen continued: "It cast the state of Iowa in a very, very bad light. It was a black mark from coast to coast and border to border and I'm sure beyond that. It was a situation in which the state found itself saying: 'We simply can't allow this to be.'"
Religious showdown between state, Amish
Amish, particularly Old Order Amish like those who attend the Hickory Grove School, generally view the classroom as an extension of their daily lives and do not embrace education beyond the eighth grade. They reject worldly ideas or behaviors. Some teachings such as theories of evolution and the study of human anatomies run counter to their beliefs.
Amish believe that public schooling is problematic because it embraces outside influences that can weaken religious ties, ultimately leading to large numbers of young people leaving their communities. They believe that people who leave the faith are in danger of losing eternal salvation.
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On Nov. 18, school officials notified Amish parents that buses would pick their children up the following morning.
Parents like Sarah Swartz refused and the highly emotional cornfield chase ensued. Register file photos from that day show law enforcement and school officials trying to force students at Hickory Grove onto the bus.
Sensor recalls hearing one of the Amish parents scream "lauf," which is "run" in German. The children scattered and the school's effort failed. Within days, the photograph of the children scrambling into the cornfield was plastered across national publications.
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Raber, one of the children who ran from school and law enforcement, said his parents had instructed him to flee. He recalls being scared as he ran through the cornfield.
Raber also recalls that his father refused to pay a fine levied against the family for refusing to send him and his siblings to public school.
County officials eventually seized three hogs to pay the fee, he said.
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http://www.desmoinesregister.com/sto...tion/27018725/
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