The 'Amish Cook' Passes On

By: Barbara Bedway Her final column displayed her intimate tone, and reflected how little the outside world's news had intruded on her 19th-century way of life: "The veterinarian ... examined our aged horse and determined that the horse, which we've had many years, has what is called West Nile virus. ... Anyone out there know about this?" Elizabeth Coblentz, a farm wife whose syndicated column, "The Amish Cook," won her legions of devoted readers for its vivid chronicling of life on her 100-acre Indiana homestead, died Sept. 17 in Blue Springs, Mo.

The 66-year-old author had been making some rare public appearances to promote her cookbook, The Amish Cook: Recipes and Recollections from an Old Order Amish Family, to be published in November by Ten Speed Press. She collapsed after returning from a book signing held at a local grocery store, where 400 fans had waited for her while sampling party mix and chocolate-chip cookie bars made from her recipes.

Coblentz began writing 50 years ago, reporting community news for the nationally distributed Amish weekly newspaper, The Budget, but she was "discovered" as a columnist purely by chance only 11 years ago, when a 19-year-old college student with the idea of starting a syndicated Amish-cooking column set out to search the Midwest for a willing scribe. Kevin Williams happened to knock on Coblentz's door, she agreed to try writing for the non-Amish press, and a partnership was born. Williams eventually established the Middletown, Ohio-based Oasis Newsfeatures, which distributes the column to 105 newspapers, with more than 2 million readers, including The Indianapolis Star and The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.

"She was an Amish woman first, a newspaperwoman second," said Williams, which meant she adhered to the Old Order Amish practice of avoiding modern conveniences. She did not own a telephone, car, or computer. The weekly column that she penned by hand, often before dawn by the light of a kerosene lantern, was mailed in to Williams -- weather permitting. "If a bad snowstorm shut down the mail, I'd get in the car and drive the two hours to her house," recalled Williams. "If a hundred papers need their column by Monday, that's what you do." Because she did not permit herself to be photographed, no picture ever appeared with her column.

The column offered vignettes of Coblentz's daily life of cooking, cleaning, gardening, and sewing for her family of eight children and 36 grandchildren, offering details that evoked a life few of her readers could have experienced: "Verena and Susan took our horse to get him re-shod but the horse didn't act like itself. On the way home, not far from here, the horse fell head first down. It's a wonder the buggy shaft didn't break."

Each column ended with a recipe -- Amish favorites, such as potato candy, dandelion jelly, and sauerkraut bread - which could require some editorial adjustment. "I edited her column as lightly as possible," said Williams, "but the recipes could be extremely problematic." He pointed out her tendency to write, "Cook until done," and the challenge for most readers of slaughtering a hog to make a pork recipe. He eventually hired a food editor to revise the recipes for use in a modern kitchen.

On the last day of her life, Coblentz finally met the editor of the first newspaper to take her column, Mike Hilfrink of The Quincy (Ill.) Herald-Whig, who attended the book signing. "Elizabeth Coblentz was just what I imagined she'd be like. She reminded me of my grandmother," he told E&P. "Her column was unique, a window into a very different way of life. It ran like a good, old-fashioned serial novel, very much of the Midwest. People got to see good recipes, and also the lifestyle that lay behind preparing them."

The column will be continued by Coblentz's 31-year-old daughter Lovina, who shares her mother's values. "I told Lovina that her mother's death was reported on CNN," Williams said, "but she didn't know what CNN was."