One influencer risked everything to create a new life.
Lovina Hershberger, a former member of the Amish community, fled in the night in 2021 from her family’s home in Iowa, ten days after her 18th birthday. She had $24 to her name and left behind her parents and eleven younger siblings, penning a goodbye note to her family before fleeing to a nearby farm.
“Something about, ‘Sorry. And I’m OK,’” Hershberger told People in an interview published Nov. 15. “I did not tell them where I was or anything. They had no way of getting a hold of me.”
As Hershberger explained, she had never used a phone or the Internet before and first got the notion to leave behind her Amish lifestyle after her father forced her to quit her teaching job in favor of working on his sawmill.
“The parents always decide what you do with your life until you’re 21,” she explained, “and my dad told me that they’re not going to allow me to be a school teacher again because it doesn’t pay enough.”
Additionally, Hershberger noted, “I was tired of having everybody tell me how to dress, what to wear, how to wear it.”
Luckily, Hershberger’s older brother Joseph, who had previously left the Amish community, was able to help her.
