Magazine Article

One lovely summer day we were pleasantly surprised when a vehicle drove in the lane and Daddy's brother Ezra  got out. Daddy quickly went to meet him and they stood there visiting for a little while and then Daddy noticed that Ezra's wife and children were waiting in the van so he invited everyone to come into the house.

It was a short day as we played with our cousins and Mom and Daddy visited with Ezra and his wife. Their driver, Jerry, spent most of his day with them which we all considered annoying. A good driver never tried to follow his passengers around or sit with them when they were visiting with family and friends.

Several weeks later we received a letter from Jerry and we were surprised to find out that not only did he do a little taxi work for the Amish but he was a professional photographer and would often write articles for different magazines. He had been impressed with our woodworking shop and wondered if Daddy would consider allowing him to come and interview him, take a few pictures and do an article for the WOOD magazine about our shop. Mom and Daddy talked it over and decided to do it, since it would be some free advertising and Jerry had assured them that he wouldn't take pictures of them.

Several weeks later Jerry came and set up his cameras in the shop. He asked lots of questions and took even more pictures. He got Daddy to go ahead and work and he would take pictures being careful to only get his hands. As the day passed Daddy started getting suspicious that Jerry was taking pictures of more than just his hands as he worked. Jerry assured him that he wouldn't even dream of taking advantage of this opportunity and take pictures that we didn't want to have taken.

It was a long day and when he finally wrapped everything up and left we breathed a sigh of relief.

Almost a year later the article was published and we felt betrayed and insulted when we read it. Not only had he lied and taken lots of pictures but the entire article held almost no truth. He even had our address wrong where people could write to for more information about our furniture.

 

Daddy assembling a chair with John's help and David watching.

 

Daddy hid the magazine and told all of us that we would take this as a lesson and never again allow anyone to do an interview or write an article about us unless we know them personally and can trust them. Over the years he would look at the pictures again and enjoy them, but time never did remove the sting of  what Jerry had written in the article.