Historian David “Titus” Luthy (1941–2025): A Principled Convert, the Personification of Academia among the Amish

Cory Anderson

Abstract

David Richard Luthy—Amish historian, bibliographer, editor, and the founding steward of the Heritage Historical Library at Aylmer, Ontario—died on Oct 21, 2025, in North Carolina, where he had gone two weeks earlier to be near his children after spending a last summer at his home in Aylmer. He was 84. Worthy of a New York Times obituary, his passing drew little notice beyond Amish and Plain Anabaptist circles, yet few figures of the past half-century did more to shape how the Old Order Amish remember themselves or what primary materials scholars have been able to access. By any reckoning, he ranks among the greatest historians of Amish life the field has produced, or as Mennonite historian John Roth put it, he was “a most unusual Amishman.” [First paragraph.]

Recommended Citation

Anderson, Cory. 2025. "Historian David “Titus” Luthy (1941–2025): A Principled Convert, the Personification of Academia among the Amish." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 13(1-2):40–57.