CAPTION: Â This is a door to an Amish home in the Conewango Valley of New York where doors are typically blue, but they aren't blue in every Amish settlement. Â Just a matter of local tradition.
By Kevin Williams
Betty asked me a question about why the Amish paint their doors blue?
Good question, Betty.  My answer:  they don't all paint their doors blue.  In fact, only in certain areas do they do this and I once asked an Amish woman why, hoping for some answer rich in history and tradition.  But she just sort of shrugged and said "tradition."  And I believe that is likely the case.  We "English" try to ascribe all sorts of meaning to Amish traditions:  the curtains in an Amish home are tied a certain way it means they have a single daughter, celery on a wedding table symbolizes fertility, a blue door is a courting ritual.
"Well, how do you get that exact same blue color for all the doors," I asked.
"We just take some to the hardware store and they do a color match," the woman said matter-of-factly.
I've asked many Amish in many places about the significance of this or that tradition and am often met with the same shrug type answer. Â Made customs are just tradition and their original meaning, if they ever had any, have been lost to time. Â Some Amish traditions may have had meaning originally, like I've heard a plausible reason explaining why the Amish of Berne, Indiana have open carriages, such that early on a covered carriage seemed very "aristocratic", but that meaning doesn't resonate with Amish today. Â So, yes, most of these quirky traditions are just that: traditions.
Sorry for the unexciting answer.
Nana
There may be a different answer to the blue paint as I learned when visiting in Louisiana and Texas. The natives tend to paint their porch ceilings blue and sometimes the door as well. The theory offered was that insects , especially wasps, thin it is sky and do not attempt to make wasp nests in the corners nor fly through the door. I have no idea if this works or is folklore.
I no longer get a newspaper and I do miss it. I not only read it thoroughly , especially the Sunday papers, but I used the paper for wrapping glassware against chipping., wrapping peelings for the garbage can, drop clothes for cleaning and painting, washing windows, packing boxes. I think people were more frugal years ago. Use it up and make do.
Kevin
Nana, very, very interesting about the blue door-wasp theory. See, that is exactly what I was talking about in that there may well have been a reason years ago for the start of the tradition, but the reason has been lost over the generations...