He received a traditional Amish education supplemented by participation in one of the "singing schools" that became popular in the Big Valley during the 1890s.
He later attended the Elkhart Institute (later Goshen College) in Indiana, also teaching English and music there.
He additionally attempted to achieve reforms within the Amish and Mennonite churches in the Mifflin and Huntingdon County areas.
He commenced his writing career in reaction to the harsh depictions of another writer, Ruth Lininger Dobson, whose 1937 novel Straw in the Wind, written while she was a student at the University of Michigan, received that school's Hopwood Award.
He later wrote a sequel, Rosanna's Boys (1948), as well as other books presenting and recording what he regarded as a truer picture of Amish culture.