A former Amish woman is giving readers an inside look at her struggle to leave her community not once, but twice, in her second memoir, “Bonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds.”
Saloma Miller Furlong opened up a painful chapter in her life in her first memoir, “Why I left the Amish.”
It detailed her upbringing in a strict Amish community in Ohio, where she suffered mental and physical abuse at the hands of her father and sexual abuse from her brother.
“I reached my wit’s end and I needed to escape the situation that I thought was unbearable,” Furlong said.
She finally left her community at the age of 20 and settled in Vermont, only to be brought back to Ohio by a group of community members just a few months later.
Her struggle to leave again is the story chronicled in her second memoir, “Bonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds.”
It’s also a love story. The book includes chapters written by Furlong’s now-husband David, whose persistence and patience gave her the strength to leave the Amish for good.
“What am I doing? Trying to fit myself into this community where I will never fit,” she said. “And here is the hand of love, being offered to me.”
Lancaster County is always an important and successful stop for the author, because she has found interest in the Amish community is immense here.
“You have, not only, the Plain communities, the Mennonites and the Amish, but you also have a lot of people who have left that community and know the story, which I write,” she said.
To read more about Saloma Miller Furlong’s story and to purchase her books, visit: http://salomafurlong.com/