The Day a Hutterite Girl Becomes an Adult (She Is Only 15)

On the evening of her fifteenth birthday, a Hutterite girl stands up at supper in the children's dining room and tells the German teacher how old she is. He gives her a short admonishment. The next morning she walks into the adult dining room, and she never eats with the children again. No cake. No party. On the colonies one researcher studied here in Alberta, the only thing a girl was handed at fifteen was a scraper. And the older women, that researcher wrote, envy her. I'm Eva Wurz, head cook on a Hutterite colony of 150 people in southern Alberta. This is what changes on that day, and the part of it I'm least sure we get right. IN THIS VIDEO • From the children's dining room to the adult dining room: "from fifteen to old age" • The supper-time announcement and the German teacher's admonishment • Why she prays alone from that night on • Leaving school on her fifteenth birthday, not at the end of the year • The scraper, the paint, the dish teams, and the bell • Why cooking and baking weeks start at seventeen • "The highest degree of independence, which is envied by the older women" • My own fifteenth birthday, and my daughter's • Grade twelve on the colonies: what has changed, and what my daughter asked me • A correction: fourteen or fifteen? Tell me in the comments: How old were you when somebody first treated you like a grown-up, and what was the sign of it? A key, a chair at the big table, a job, a word from somebody? If you could say one sentence to a girl at supper on her fifteenth birthday, what would you tell her? I read every one. SOURCES Hutterian Brethren, "From Child to Adult": https://hutterites.org/day-to-day/chi... Hutterian Brethren, Grade School: https://hutterites.org/day-to-day/edu... Hutterian Brethren, Education: https://hutterites.org/day-to-day/edu... Hutterian Brethren, Secondary Education: https://hutterites.org/day-to-day/edu... Hutterian Brethren, Courtship: https://hutterites.org/our-beliefs/co... Hutterian Brethren, Recreation: https://www.hutterites.org/day-to-day... Patricia Lorene Looney, Hutterite Women and Work (MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1986): https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/items/... Mary-Ann Kirkby interview, Amish America (2011): https://amishamerica.com/?p=13519 Linda Maendel interview, Amish America (2011): https://amishamerica.com/manitoba-hut... Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, "Hutterites": https://plainshumanities.unl.edu/ency... The Canadian Encyclopedia, "Hutterites": https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c... Pembina Hills School Division, Hutterite Colony Schools: https://www.pembinahills.ca/schools-p... Foothills School Division, Hutterite Colony Schools: https://foothillsschooldivision.ca/pa... Palliser Regional Schools, first-time colony teachers: https://www.pallisersd.ab.ca/about-us... Spokesman-Review (1994), harvest and courtship near Spokane: https://archive.seattletimes.com/arch... Camilla Macpherson, "A Simpler Life: The Hutterites of Southern Alberta," Nowhere: https://nowheremag.com/2016/12/a-simp... Lethbridge Herald (2024), "SACPA gets a look at Hutterite life": https://lethbridgeherald.com/?p=982765 The Roundup (2012), "Harvest with the Hutterites": https://www.roundupweb.com/story/2012... LawNow (2020), "Education laws in Alberta": https://www.lawnow.org/?p=17945 About the narrator: Eva Wurz is a composite character. Her voice and image are AI-generated. The facts in this video come from the sources above. Customs differ from colony to colony, and the video says so.