Back when I was
a student, I hated doing research, but years later, once I became a novelist, I found that researching was one of my
favorite parts of the job. In fact, sometimes I get so immersed in it that I have
to force myself to stop researching and start writing instead!
Much of what I learn along the way never makes it into my books, of
course, but it’s all helpful in one way or another. And I especially enjoy it when I run across
some fascinating fact that I never knew before. I try to keep a running list of
such things as I go, and it struck me the other day that it might be fun to
share one such list with you.
Thus, here are five random facts I picked up while researching The Amish Quilter…
1. Women who eat
dairy and animal products are about five times more likely to have twins than
those who don't. (Google it if you don't believe me, and you'll see the research!)
2. If lightening strikes a barn, the bolt can travel down the rod and spread out from the footer, striking a horse through its shoes. (Side note: I shared this fact with a friend, who replied that he actually lost a horse this way. So sad!)
3. In the 1980’s, Hmong refugees who’d settled in the Lancaster County area began working with Amish women to make quilts, and they were so good and so fast at needlework that eventually they did most of the appliquéing while the Amish women handled just the quilting. Thus, quilts bought in the Lancaster County area in the 1980s that were assumed to be “Amish made” were very likely made jointly by Amish and Hmong women.
4. Baumkuchen is a really cool European dessert that’s made from cake batter poured, one layer at a time, onto a spit rotating near an open flame. Once a layer has browned, another layer is added, over and over again, until the cake has something like 20 layers. It takes hours to make, but it sure looks good!
5. In the nineteen century, Russian Mennonites tended to use the same first names over and over, so much so that in an 1860-1875 list of 1,328 Russian Mennonites, there were only 54 different first names!
I didn't know any of these! Pretty interesting facts!
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