Well, nearly everything in the freezer thawed (sorry for the dramatics ...
no fires or anything), except for stuff at the evaporator area at the
bottom. The refrigerator also became essentially room temp. The fan that
was working periodically is the condensor fan. I didn't know until recently
that the "coolness" is distributed from the evaporator to the upper freezer
and the fridge also via another fan ... controlled by the defrost thermostat
apparently. I spoke with an Amana repairman and he states that it is common
for my particular fridge, since the water reservoir is at the bottom of the
refrigerator, to freeze the reservoir if the defrost thermostat or, less
commonly, evaporator heating coil, has gone bad ... just because of it's
proximity to the frozen evaporator. Anyways, after having it defrosted and
plugging it back in, the water dispenser works ... so I must assume that it
was frozen somewhere between the intake and my glass of water. The new
defrost thermostat also brought the fridge back to life.

So, my contribution to this thread, aside from taking much away from it, and
having a fixed refrigerator, is that if the water dispenser stops working at
the same time as the defrost system fails, it's likely because the water
line is frozen somewhere along it's path near the frozen evaporator. At
least on my fridge the defrost thermostat not only controls the heating coil
on the evaporator, but the evaporator fan itself. I'm not sure if every
system is like this, though.

Thanks again everyone!