Eichacker novel gives picture of historical Amana

AMANA — R.C Eichacker’s first novel is as much a history of the Amana Colony as it is a fictional tale.

“I wanted answers to what happened in our community,” said Eichacker. “People talked about marriage rules, church rules. I wanted to put it together in a story form. He hoped to give people a feeling of the past.

The book, “Marriage By Committee,” is based on his mother’s experiences as a kitchen worker in the Colony, Eichacker said. His maternal grandmother died in February of 1926, and her daughter Alice, Eichacker’s mother, who was 13 at the time, was ordered to report for work in one of the community kitchens.

Eichacker said his mother didn’t have time to grieve. That story and others became the inspiration for the book which Eichacker described as “a historical novel about three girls from West Amana who would like to get married.”

The story is set in the mid to late 19th century.

A resident of Middle Amana, Eichacker was born and raised in Homestead. He attended Iowa State University and other universities, returning to Amana Colony in 1976.

Eichacker has been a school counselor, a therapist and a woodcrafter. He even worked on a cruise ship for a time.

Eichacker’s woodworking shop was in the Powder House in Amana, “which was my great uncle’s laboratory,” said the 93-year-old author. “He was a pharmacist.”

Eichacker is a fifth-generation grandson of the founder of the Colony, Christian Metz, he said. He notes in his book that while contemporary references to the seven villages use the phrase Amana Colonies, the settlement was originally called The Amana Colony.

“There’s a lot of history in there concerning how the Amana Church controlled the marriageable population,” Eichacker said. He reveals many church rules in the novel, he said.

Metz had a lot of control, said Eichacker. When he died, decision-making was passed to the elders, Eichacker said.

The novel follows three girls who work in the same community kitchen and ask the three elders for permission to marry. Eichacker is represented in the person of Jacob, he said, and his experience as a marriage therapist shows up in the novel.

  Buy Photo

Eichacker came up with the idea for the novel about five years ago, he said. He worked on it for about three years. He wrote the manuscript by hand, typed it into the computer and edited it, with help.

“This is my first attempt at publishing,” said Eichacker. “I am selling [the book] mainly through the Amana Heritage Society Museum, but the General Store has them.” The book is also available through Amazon.

Eichacker references research by his friend, anthropologist and professor Jon Andelson in the novel, he said. He also gained significant knowledge of the Colony and its structure through Barbara Selzer Yambura’s “Change and the Parting” a historical novel set in Homestead and published in 1960.

Eichacker also read Bertha M.H. Stambaugh’s “Amana That Is and Amana That Was,” a book about the transition from communal living to private ownership published in 1932.

Eichacker found additional information from Emilie Hoppe’s Wilkommen newspaper. “She encouraged me to write the book,” Eichacker said of his second cousin.

“But I also used the Amana Heritage Museum for information … which I quote in the book.”

Eichacker’s own curiosity drove his research. “I wanted to know the disciplinary system in the church,” he said.

“I was also interested in birth control, population control, sex information, peer group misinformation.” There’s nothing in print about those issues, he said, so he had to make things up for the novel.

“I tried to compare it with other societies,” Eichacker said, though Amana was — and is still to some extent — unique.

Eichacker’s mother lived in Middle as a teenager. About 95% of girls went to school only until they turned 14, said Eichacker. Then they were assigned to a community kitchen.

“And the book idea came from my mother’s experiences in the community kitchen.”

Middle, the last village build for the Colony, had about seven kitchens. They were named for the families that were living in the adjoining buildings.

Eichacker’s mother was assigned to the Rudy Kitchen in Middle which is now part of the Communal Kitchen and Coopershop Museum. That’s what Eichacker saw in his mind as he wrote the book, he said.

“This is the dining room of the Dittrichs Kitchen,” said Eichacker of the sitting room in his home.

Eichacker’s father, Carl, was a secretary of the corporation, was involved in county politics and served as the town mortician. His sister Rosalee is deceased; sister Dorothy lives in Vinton.

“Basically what I was trying to do was to make it realistic,” said Eichacker. “The basis of the whole thing was that Christian Metz … made marriage decision after interviewing the candidates.”

After Metz died, marriage decisions were made by a committee. Eichacker questions their degree of success, “because they were not therapists.”