The document provides a first-person account of attending an Amish wedding in Kingston, Wisconsin. Some key details include: - The wedding took place on a farm, with buggies arriving at sunrise and aromatic foods being prepared on wood stoves. - Young men and women helped with setup, cooking, stock duties so the families didn't have to work. - Practical gifts were given like dishes, towels, tools. Men sang prayers from sunrise to sunset. - A large communal meal was held at noon, with potatoes, gravy, homemade bread and pies, followed by the women singing.

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Walnut Hill <br /> By Val Little Wolf<br />High on a hill down a lonely bit of road sits and old brick house,<br />Seeking refuge wandering down a road of dirt and stone,<br />I happened as if on an adventure finding an old familiar friend.<br />The turn off the road of Valley Burg heading toward Stony Man,<br />A small hamlet wasted from time it stands.<br />Upon Walnut Hill Road a mere rock throw upon this road the turn lies,<br />A home once own by a family name of Prince.<br />The lane whines gently like a melody of Chopin’s not like a cadence from a long forgotten war.<br />The road starts toward the brick home that calls me from a time in another re-incarnation.<br />I know this place, I feel it serge through me like a forgotten call.<br />My hand rests, gently upon the wall of the little cemetery.<br />The most predominate stone close to the earth rises the intensity of power held earthbound the grand old lady’s protection for her home still guards this land.<br />Back in Georgia my little Geo we ride the 70 feet toward the house fierce and Private,<br />She shouts, but not “Go Away”, <br />I feel welcome Home; I know this house from the ground I stand upon;<br />To the stairs curiously pulls me up the steps as mystery plays within my senses.<br />The death that occurred here spirit holds this house.<br />Touching a window pain, “Bam it was as if I was forced back from the pain of the window.”<br />A Jab had tingled it’s way through my finger tips. Upon the wall many pictures hung.<br />I haven’t these three years traveled by this grand ole Virginia home.<br />Delight of her holds me captive, This Grand ole lady has known much.<br />Over two hundred years she has stood, proud, faithful waiting her fallen dead.<br />Of all the homes near Luray, VA; it held me spell bound it is she who has captivated my soul and spirited me away.<br />This house, peacefully bound to the future held by the past. It is here that I long to sit upon her porch. To be one in spirit with the one that still remains here.<br />“Walnut Hill”3/24/2005 7:22:50 PM<br /> <br /> By Val Littlewolf (2001)<br />She stands<br /> <br />Smell of the fall all around,<br />Leaves blowing circles,<br />Squirrels storing nuts,<br />The old house built in 1779,<br />Stands the test of time, a reminder of years gone by,<br />Like a castle, my castle!<br /> Towers watching towers keep.<br />The wind rustles throw a pulled apart old tattered from age curtain.<br />In the quick of my eye as if within a breath, she stood.<br />Etched within a moment in time,<br />My air stopping in gulps, she was naked from head to toe.<br />Her eyes rested on something, but...<br />They saw not the wandering poet standing upon the ground looking up,<br />People the day before had spun a yarn to me of a Grand ole Lady,<br />Who with held much in the story of a house?<br />She wasn’t located upon Beacon Hill,<br />The cliffs around her weren’t called Dover.<br />Here’s built this house where time did not fare well,<br />They told me of her lady and her lost love,<br />I was told much but not of the beauty that hailed her unseen visitor,<br />They told of a spirit who could not fine rest.<br />She stood, with closer inspection near the scrap of curtain one nipple exposed,<br />Sorrow forms into a frown upon her lovely dark brow,<br />Ebony as evening, lovely, taut breast tantalize my gaze,<br />Then as if a door shut she was gone.<br />So realistic was my vision and memory so clear when I reached my door,<br />Grabbing paper and pen I sketched this lady,<br />Darlene, beautiful, black woman captured my heart and soul,. <br />It was as if the memory of her had been lost to me now to return,<br />New and fresh,<br />An irrational realty holds me, wet with thoughts of her within my bed,<br />I would wait and watch, more praying for her to return then not,<br />I finally came to the truth of the matter I cared less to look upon her then I did,<br />The dream of touching her, the mere thought of this colored my pale cheeks.<br />A fortnight had pasted nothing, no vision did I view.<br />Then as if she knew what I wished for, hoped for she bid me enter her home.<br />For as surely as I wanted to see her again, I had no desire to enter her home,<br /> Mustering my courage I lightly stomped up the stairs.<br />The eeriness that beckoned to me with the dampness of closed windows and old air,<br />They Compelled me to feel physically sick.<br />Weirdness ran throw my body, down arms to my very fingertips.<br />Then I shook and realized that I was just on the porch and the coldness I held was an old, doorknob.<br />It was like Halloween had returned; CREEK went the big old oak door.<br />It was magic there I stood where time had just STOPPED!<br />Somewhere deep in the house music played 1920’s flapper, The Charleston”,<br />“What fun, I thought, why I didn’t know!<br />The sound of an Edison early twenties record player,<br />Candles stood as if naked soldiers protected from aging,<br />I lit one the light of it magically filled the entire hall where I stood.<br />The house appeared alive,<br />My teeth started to chatter, heart pounding trying to burst out!<br />My hair tingled like it does when someone is near,<br />My mouth that felt like to this point it had held the Sahara Desert, Went Wet,<br />The again so, so very dry,<br />With an invisible WHOOORRROOSH the fire sprang to life.<br />Boy howdy I was in need of a seat,<br />The needed chair was made ready to ketch me as I naturally sat down,<br />A near piano’s keys rippled to life.<br />I never to that point in life felt the real sense of belonging that that one instance;<br />It filled within me to my very soul.<br />I now felt the spirit; she stood so very near me,<br />Her cold yet surprisingly firm fingers slid over my closed hand.<br />She wanted the companionship I so longed for.<br />With that one simple touch I saw how life had wronged her.<br />A cold chill briefly consumed me then I rose and engulfed her to me.<br />I had forgotten or thought not of her not feeling me,<br />Thought nothing that she might vanish and leave me lost in this world.<br />Within that one moment I felt all the love I had never had.<br />She caressed my face, words raced in my mind it’s not real, it can’t be!<br />But, then I had, had this internal battle waging within for decades as well,<br />The cold, loneliness’ of being in someone else’s world, empty and alone,<br />My own fingers gently brushed her cheeks, funny I thought her face hot,<br />Burning my fingertips, the fire still blazed.<br />A salty tear ran from her eyes, just one,<br />It bridged our souls; she was no longer a ghost,<br />No longer a figment of my imagination,<br />This was beyond believe, what great fun I thought the spirits were having with me.<br />I watched her lovely mouth as I not gracefully mind you fell backwards to land in a heap.<br />Recalling the soundless word,” Don’t go! Please Stay!<br />It was as if the air around us changed.<br />She hadn’t felt any emotion for a very long time, and then she was gone.<br />Looking up I felt a hand upon my shoulder, rising from the dirt keeping my eyes upon the ground I hastened up.<br />I feared looking upon her for if she was just a memory I wanted her to stay,<br />More then I wanted life itself,<br />Life held no charm for me if she were out of my grasp.<br />How could I vanish the pain and tears of another in another time?<br />With a thunder to beat all others and a crash stronger the any the Great Spirit had done the impossible.<br />The choice had been given to her,<br />The kiss was mine she stood so near,<br />So sensuous the kiss mine, hers, ours,<br />Steps behind us were heard; bright candles white and pristine filled the room.<br />My knees buckled as if kicked in the stomach I wished for death,<br />Faintly, I heard, “Hello, Hello!”<br />Slowly I looked up,<br />She stood there, “Thank God I said”,<br />“I’m dead!” I wasn’t my angel was human,<br />She said that she had just inherited the old house,<br />The sun filled the moments earlier fire warmed room.<br />Upon the far wall a wall hanging hung of a standing portrait,<br />Painted in 1900,<br />Elizabeth Barrette Duggan, she went over and gently touched the plaque,<br />It’s me Echoed through my mind,<br />Standing slightly behind and to the left, there I stood,<br />How can that be!<br />My lady stands with me, hand in hand.<br />My eyes returned to the plaque it needs a good cleaning I barely make out<br />These words, “Not knowing what tomorrow will bring, our hearts will share,<br />It made no sense; once again I looked to the woman who had bought my Old Lady.<br />She smiled a smile of knowing,<br />Was my illusion mere fancy or did it bare more truth then fiction.<br />This Lady, new, not different came to me, with tenderness and care brushed a fleck of dust from my brow.<br />Leaned in close and whispered the future is ours the past is gone,<br />Today as I stretch arms folded behind my head with a smile piercing upon her face as she looks naked from our window now only seeing me.<br /> I remember less and less of our second meeting when I looked upon me in my maids uniform standing behind and to the left of my lady love in the painting that is now seen only in private.<br />Our in a sense Dorian Gray,<br />History true in all its beauty does have a wicked sense of humor,<br />Those that are together with love will always seek out each other and the only power stronger then death,<br />Is love!<br /> The Sock <br /> Written November <br />1998<br />Upon the Car rests, one shoe,<br />Standing upon the hill memories flood past my minds eye,<br />I remember the sound of metal,<br />Memories of that tragic night,<br />With tears in my eyes,<br />Hurt of his UN -wiliness to accept, unable to understand,<br />Memories of his words,<br />Echoing in my ears,<br />The cold look in his empty eyes, <br />Unable to accept our love,<br />She was my heart, my PASSION,<br />Searched long for finely we found hope,<br />Then like HELL breaking loose,<br />Peace was gone,<br />Trying to fight for her,<br />Thorough his anger he pulled the revolver he carried,<br />Funny you don’t hear the gun,<br />It seems to be bigger then the moon,<br />Blocks out all else in your vision,<br />When it rips its way home, its more shock then pain,<br />I heard her scream!<br />When I came to, they were GONE.<br />GONE, GONE!<br />Holding my side, tears in my eyes,<br />Blood seeping from me, my life slipping from me,<br />Nothing matters anymore,<br />Alone again,<br />So Alone,<br />Then I know not how I stood upon that hill,<br />Bending down I picked up a sock,<br />Standing up, I felt her hand in mine,<br />Tears burst forth; it was like coming home,<br />Both dead, peaces forever,<br />No one could object, or hurt us again,<br />No longer alone,<br /> <br /> Val Littlewolf<br /> Copyright ©2004 Val Littlewolf <br />Thanksgiving Day<br />Today, do you ever wonder what if you were dead? What would have occurred,what or who would have hurt more for it? Today I found myself wondering, I had to assist mom who is 83 and in need of a new knee to stand up, then I had to help her as she leaned on her lesbian daughter for support to simply get out of a chair. I found myself wondering if she ever thought maybe it is time that I support her for being the terrific daughter she is whether Gay or straight. I bet she will never have such deep thoughts.<br />The day I was reborn <br /> I was baptized into the Methodist church and raised Lutheran felt haunted by loneliness a kind of emptiness that crawls into our hearts when we are at our bleakest. Joined the Catholic church at 26 was surprise that it was while standing in the Dinnigroom where I worked at Mount Rushmore in the black Hills of South Dakota that I first met a servant of God. She presented herself to me in a manner of speaking while I was serving coffee the year was 1994 and I was 36. She wore a black dress and her granddaughter was with her. We had a lovely vivacious conversation wherein she told me that she had always dreamed of becoming a Baptist minister and so at the ripe age of 85 she had finally become ordained.<br />She told me of her children and how they had struggled and had still all in all become fine upstanding adults and that they indeed did a honor to their race. <br />It was there in that Dinnigroom that Val Heike seized to be and Val Littlewolf was born because it was there that I was baptized by a minister full of God’s love. She asked me if I thought it would be ok if she blessed me. She hadn’t thought that on her trip to Mount Rushmore the place she had wanted to come to since she first saw North by Northwest the Alfred Hitchcock movie. <br />I had often heard of the premise to be born again and thought it an abnormal occurrence and yet here I was only a week before I had, had a vision quest and now to be blessed in the light that she carried as most people carry a walking stick, it just was a part of her and not an extra something to be used and then stuck in a closet till needed once more. There I stood I had to bend my head some for she was a tad shorter then I was but it was cool. I at first shut my eyes thinking that if I did that no one would see this short woman blessing me, then nearly as fast as I shut them I open then due to the fact that no one else was being so honored and I was swell with that.<br />It is as simple and as hard as that, a putting on or a taking off that is how it is to be born a Christian to be reborn is more intense but possible.<br />When I told my boss or started to tell Allen Dumbroski he patted me on the shoulder and said you do need a vacation don’t you Val? They never understood that she might have been a messenger sent to show me that God is near and he does live. I never saw her again and so no one logically can tell me she wasn’t a carrier of the Holy Spirit.<br />Amish Wedding<br />On September 10, 2010 I was employed by Susie Bortrigers to drive to Kingston Wisconsin to collect Mattie Bortrigers . There was a wedding in the wind. David Yoder is the community outside of Waukon and over by Rossville’s Bishop. It is a secreted private thing that only the people in the congregation of the Amish community know; to have such distinction in the Amish community brings no adulation as if a person was a bishop in another church says a Catholic or even a Lutheran Church.<br />It is like a secret and having been told while visiting the free clinic in August I was as if proud enough to bust at my adopted nephew David. I said nearly as much. When I told him I was happy for him I saw distain and annoyance. There are a very as if un-proud full sect. Kingstown isn’t actually large enough for the Wisconsin map so I guess it’s enough to say that it the town is over in the vicinity of Amherst. I drove four hours over and four hours back Mattie in the back seat gave me $100 I charge .50 a mile.<br />Mrs. Bortrigers paid nothing I guess she thought she rode free. She had invited to other people to ride along with us but they had abstained from riding all that way with me. Mattie’s youngest two a 4 and a 5 and her eldest as well as Mattie filled up my back seat. Mattie David’s cousin told me that I was cheap. I charge nothing for my time so like a friend of mine Matthew would say that’s 8 hours of my life I will never see again. But it all lead to the morning’s wedding.<br />It was my second wedding within the Amish community. The buggies start to arrive at sunrise, As the yard fills with buggies and van’s from across the United States the aromatic aroma’s from the wonderfully yummy foods being prepared all by hand on and in wood stoves fill the air and rise toward heaven . The wedding party is secluded from the drivers and the helper’s. The helper’s set up tables; they love Volleyball so nets are put up. Fire wood is brought in and the fire box is continuously filled. Without wood the stove cools and the cooking stops it isn’t as if they can just plug in a plug and walla electric power. The helper’s are young men and young before marriage girls, the older women maybe friends of the family do all the cooking for the entire wedding party which includes cooks helpers, wedding party and drivers. The young men who are helper’s are also responsible for the care of the stock and any chores of both sides of the wedding parties milking or stock chores so that neither side of the in-laws have to rush off and do them on their day.<br />Gift’s given to young Amish couples by their family and friends are those that serve a practical purpose. Example wash cloths, spoons, plates, paper towels, mixing bowls, sewing baskets, hammer’s lanterns, kerosene, load of wood for stove useful practical are the Amish. They are different in many ways and yet we are so very alike. <br />The men of the community as well as men of both families not at the ceremony sing prayers’ from sunrise to sunset. Before the meal at noon after the private prayers and the men singing is the only time the women sing in praise of the celebration is at the noon meal. The bridal party and their folks eat separate from us the helpers and the drivers’. The food consists of mashed potatoes, gravy homemade bread, meat, vegetables, tapioca, lots of homemade pies and cakes. The tapioca has strawberries in it is fantastic! You will also find lemon aid, cool aid, milk, coffee, tea and water. The bathroom or “outhouse” is usually behind the house only on rare occasions will it be located inside the house.<br />Kerosene lamps aren’t seen being light by the helpers till it has gone past what I would think of turning on a light. The Amish are very conservative. Being allowed to view even a small glimpse of an Amish wedding makes me feel special. Guest when leaving to go to where they will stay the night are usually farmed out that way it is also least expensive on the wallet.<br />After the wedding and the volley ball’s game watching about 10 pm we left to go home or to where we were staying. This time which was different then when I was simply in Kentucky and took what I got which was my chair in my vehicular. So since I was thirty miles from home I took my passengers to where they were staying the night and simply went home.<br />The Little Shepard Lutheran Church<br />Being a lover of British Comedy I found the need to belong to a church that would actually welcome me not for the money I either had or might come into or had the prospects of giving to an organization that I belonged to but simply because I’m a good hearted individual and see me as just that. The fact that I’m also Gay having nothing at all to do with the fact that I know Jesus loves “Everyone”!<br />I was born and baptizes Methodist and raised such till we moved to Waukon, Iowa and my family joined Saint John’s Lutheran Church, a building where I found peace lacking. At twenty-six I struck out to find welcome in the people that loved Jesus in the Catholic Church in Waukon. I was blessed with two older pals that marked my life in ways that bring me joy and still on the whole I found the church not the people putting me in mind of a brick empty walled home cold and benign in heart. God and Jesus only a whisper heard and felt in the hearts of the parish elderly.<br />I found work at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church but a ungodly like priest stole the thought of a place to love Jesus in from the coldness I found as I was immerging from the cocoon as it were to the Gay woman I had known I was since I was 8 years old. This man sewed fear and hate in those I worked with because he saw it for what it wasn’t<br />With the last church most present in my mind that of Luray Virginia’s First Espisical Church I sought out another Espisical church within the area and not to far from Luther College it was a duel reason I wanted to sing again in a choir and being lame after being struck for the second time in my life by a car, I needed a church without a choir loft, and I missed human warmth gained from belonging to a organization that like PFLAG <br />First I thought a UU (Universalized church they as well as the Quakers know people and though I’m unsure don’t judge till they know who we are.) I went one morning and never found it. The next week I went with a ex-friend to “Little Sheppard Lutheran Church”, located on the back side of my future school.<br />I knew I was home even though the fact that the person who claiming to be Christian chose to judge my friendship wanting and stated that we couldn’t be friends because we didn’t clique. I felt as if I belonged. You know that warm fuzzy feeling of just awakening after a long summer’s nap when you’re still sort of dopey and maybe a bit of drool on your chin.<br />On IPTV, on Saturday night before “Red Green”, there is a comedy show with French and Saunders. She plays a vicar. Well anyway they at Little Shepard haven’t any Stained Glass. Only the beauty of the Iowa weather flows in and either warms or chills our hearts and bones. Our or my new minister speaks 6 or 7 different languages and she simply loves. It flows from her as the sun floods the church allowing us to lap in Jesus within every pore. I have sat in churches that one beheld outrageous and outlandish panes of splendor and in this day and age when things are outrageously so expensive it sometimes seems lavish to eat a burger here is a church where the people make even outsiders feel blessed and warm and at “HOME!”<br />The church also has a band that plays every other Sunday and I felt like I was checking out a prospective future home the best or one of the best parts of the church their isn’t an upstairs and the choir/band is right there on the same level as the congregation. To place my feelings in a word used by my youngest nephew Craig Ryan Mathis “Sweet!’<br />All the members celebrate: children to elderly all are able to receive communion. I’m sure on the last supper Jesus who had said “Suffer the little children to come unto the lord didn’t say except when we have wine!” <br />Sunday will be my first Sunday back in church and I’m glad really glad that I didn’t locate the Decorah, Iowa Epistipalian before I first was blessed by having gone to this church. It’s a wonderfully feeling to think Jesus cared enough to allow a place for me even after my long absence from his presence.<br />Thought on Life and Religion<br /> I believe that death is a step like all steps in life from beginning to end. I believe in doing my best includes caring and going out of my way for others is always more important than doing for myself. This past semester I missed three Human Biology classes with Scott Miller. Thursday his class was missed by me for two reasons as a homeless individual who has done for my mom since I was 9 and who owes her my life and this month $250 just for gas to go to school. She needed me, she is 83 and her rotor cups in her shoulders are gone and had the day before had a shot of cortisone.<br /> I had taken a take home exam and was given a poor score so I retook and cited where I found the information and instead of 18 wrong came up with 11. I sent to my professor my old test and the cited corrections in order to change my grade. This schooling will give me back my life so that I can be of service not only to me but others. I received a letter /email telling me how if I cared about the test I should have been in class on Thursday because they went over it then. I always either call or send an e-mail explain that I won’t be in class. His annoyance with me will never stop me from putting others first, facing a bully as an instructor has no hold on whether I give of myself to others or not I have dealt with bullies all my life one more or less won’t change that.<br /> I learned more from Florence Fitzgerald and Beatrice Regan and Laura Padlo, and Harriet Duggan (Florence’s cousin) about the kind of person I strive to be these are all women I loved and except for one are is gone is deeply embedded within my heart and soul. Florence and Bea were my employer’s before they became my very, very best friends. Florence for instant came into my life when I didn’t think I could deal with the pain that is life any longer, she returned me to God, I was 26. Her family were concerned about our deep friendship and had her inquire if I were a homosexual. I had never heard the word. She (Florence stood up for me when I became Catholic, she was so proud where as my mom of birth hated me choosing love of Florence and willingly becoming Catholic to the Lutheran church.) She never understood, much that way where I felt at peace was in Florences company not the Catholic Church. I still cross myself when I pass it not because of a lingering need to but because Florence lives in my heart and spirit. I lost her physically in 1987,in the fall I believe.<br /> Beatrice Regan had called me to dig her flower bed. I was sort of Waukon's answer to Jill of many trades and I worked pretty much for tea(hot) tea mind you. It was much like Florence. She Bea a retired priest housekeeper trusted me more in many respects then she did her nieces to do things for her. she was as Irish as Florence many of the old Irish in Allamakee County came from county Cork in Ireland or their family a ways back did. She is as much in me as Florence and yet they bother were different and sure as A power more then all of us mere mortals created us she will always live within my heart. I lost her my first season working at Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota.<br /> From Harriet a friend of 40 years’ took the gift of standing for myself when I was right. If you don't stand up for at least yourself being right, no one else will. You also have to fight for those afraid to take a stand. Sitting in the den at 137 am I feel a chill and I know my friends are near. They keep me on my path even when people think I have nothing to add or are of no worth I'm not done fighting for the little guy afraid to stand for what is right. Sometimes after years of being told your opinion is of no value people start to see they have no worth! These 3 women and a few others have instilled in me faith that a power stronger than mine knows of my worth and he and they shall grant me determination to continue to gain the degrees I need so that I can teach and counsel. I believe I can because some wonderful ladies showed me, I hope to show others that anytime we no matter who we are try it isn't incorrect.<br /> My path to salvation is in the hands of someone else it is out of my control just like some place there is a book containing my life and a small note at the bottom of the column for my departure time.<br /> I believe that when life has been accomplished for me few will morn my passing; many don't understand the subject matter. I believe that life is a continuing like a long running television show. Sam one of the most important fellows in my life while I have been at NICC likes the word continuum; I like the thought that our caporial bodies seize to function. <br />I had a wolf<br />I had a wolf/cross that held me heart and soul,<br />I had a wolf mix his grand sire was pure wolf and mother rockweiler and dad husky cross Sherman was a dear pal.<br />No, the human parents of Sherman's mother who was a rockweiler was the sweetest character people natural think dread and mean spirit, He had so much heart even as a puppy. I had gotten a job in Virginia and had been staying with elderly parents. Sherman needed to be with me but I was going to be living in a dorm while working for Aramark so I had come to the conclusion I had no choice and would have to put my best friend to sleep.<br />I dug the hole I knew that if I had to this was the only way I could keep my friend safe you see I didn't think anyone would see his heart like I did since he was a pup. My youngest sister feared him because of his size and the fact that his pristine white teeth were large. Just as I, was nearing March's end in 2000 when I was to depart from the Amtrak station in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. I cried every night I’m connected spiritually with wolves and I think my cats.<br />We had one call when I placed an advertisement for a home for a guard dog extraordinary. Felicia Fish (fish was her maiden name)she was the head of Domestic violence in Allamakee County in Northern Iowa. She had a 3 year old son, they gave my friend a wonderful 4 years before he was put to sleep due to severe arthritis. Her son called Sherman the Big Sherm. I know he is with me and will be till I breathe my last as are all those human and animal I have loved throughout my life.<br />