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Tobias of the Amish: A true story of tangled strands in faith, family & community. Ervin R. Stutzman. (Herald Press, 2001, 352 pp.) (Review by Helen L. Lapp) This book tells the life story pieced together by Tobias' own son as he searches for personal understanding about his unknown father described as "an Amish entrepreneur." In the foreword to the book Katie Funk Wiebe (who wrote of her own father in The Storekeeper's Daughter) describes Tobe as competing "in a non-Amish commercial world. This meant a shop not hooked up to a public power system, no telephone, no car to solicit business, no trucks to transport products. Lacking an understanding of cost accounting, Tobe undercharged his customers .... In pursuit of his dream, he stretched the patience and good will of Amish church leaders by skirting the boundaries of Amish regulations." The story shows clear evidence of Tobe's sharp inventive mind. The reader wants to know how "entrepreneur" fits with being Amish. We learn from the back cover of the book that it grew out of a son's loving desire to know his father, an Amish entrepreneur. The quest was daunting, since Tobias J. Stutzman died in a car accident when the son Ervin was three. Ervin delved into a pool of communal memory and peeked into closets with shelves of family secrets. The search revealed tangled strands of relationships, woven by father Tobe's ambition through the warp and woof of family, church, and community. "What difference does knowing Dad make?" asks Ervin the son in the epilogue. "Have the results been worth the effort? Yes, I'm convinced the journey has been well worth undertaking. First of all, I've learned a good deal besides family history .... I am more alert to the influence of family systems, the web of relationships that shapes generational behavior in nearly inexplicable ways .... I understand more fully the challenges my ancestors faced in their generation and I have gained a greater determination to face the challenges in mine."