When Measles Came to an Amish Community, Many Suffered and One Died

On a recent Saturday morning in New York’s North Country, there were signs that work had fallen behind.

Standing on his porch in suspenders and shirtsleeves, 32-year-old David Stoltzfus pointed at a heap of logs, some thicker than telephone poles and stacked two stories high. He needed to saw them into lumber. But Mr. Stoltzfus was still playing catch-up after falling ill.

“You see the big pile of wood that all got piled up?” he asked, pointing to hundreds of logs. “That’s because of the measles.”

The viral illness ripped through his house five weeks ago, sickening him, his wife and their six children. “I was sick in bed for about four days,” he said. And it was weeks before he felt healed. Work lagged. “It was hard for a couple of weeks until I got energy,” he said.

All across Lewis County, N.Y., where the trees are already bare and stands selling maple syrup dot the roadside, Amish families — Mr. Stoltzfus’s included — have stories of measles sweeping through their homes in recent weeks, their community disproportionately affected by the virus. One man described how it had attacked nine of 10 people in his house. Another said it had infected eight of nine people.

“Right now, just about everybody” has recovered, said Samuel Stoltzfus, 23, a distant cousin of David’s who lives about eight miles away.

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