MILWAUKEE, Wis. ‐ It is 5 degrees below zero and a light powdering of snow swirls across the roads of Vernon County. A few horses and buggies clop through the chill morning air, but Perry Hochstetler leaves his buggy at the family farm and has a driver take him to his doctor’s appointment.
The Hochstetlers are Amish. With no health insurance and a modest income, they cannot afford most doctors.
They can afford James DeLine, once the lone doctor in the western Wisconsin village of La Farge. Population 750.
When he became the village doctor in 1983, DeLine had no experience treating the Amish and no idea the crucial role they would play in his work. Today, about 20% of the doctor’s patients are Amish or Old Order Mennonite, part of a Christian population called Plain People. They are known for their separation from the modern world and adherence to a simple lifestyle and unadorned dress.
Something of a throwback himself, DeLine, 65, is a short, bespectacled man with a walrus mustache, a doctor who carries a brown medical bag to house calls. For years, he carried his equipment in a fishing tackle box.
He knows the families on every local farm and their medical histories. He knows who’s been born, and calls on the mothers and infants to make sure they are healthy. He knows who’s dying, and looks in on them in their final days, sitting by their bedside, talking in a gentle voice, making sure they have what they need for pain.