tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-139284172024-03-12T21:16:22.759-05:00'Village Life in Kreis Saarburg, Germany'My ancestors, peasant farmers and craftsmen, came from small towns in Germany’s Rhineland. In the 19th century, like villagers all over Germany, they left their homeland to immigrate to America in search of better lives. This blog shares information I gathered since 2005 from all types of German sources. Traditions, home life, daily labor and political events create the backdrop for an eventual exodus. I wrote HOUSE OF JOHANN, a novel, imagining how my own family fit into this history.
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-63591864490195371922018-02-25T22:01:00.003-06:002018-12-16T14:09:16.081-06:00About Blog Post Comments<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvcTs4XO6jPX2Zy1xYjmAsdLq6ne74G5rS5N23I5gURFMbPvWWwLXrVq63tZJO17odgrcQILFQnOXKajEYhHMmGDOfAhbwNoNXBqfE1WF3YJrC4QJL2FrdbFyq2KbtBRtaQNAUFA/s1600/German+jigsaw-puzzle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvcTs4XO6jPX2Zy1xYjmAsdLq6ne74G5rS5N23I5gURFMbPvWWwLXrVq63tZJO17odgrcQILFQnOXKajEYhHMmGDOfAhbwNoNXBqfE1WF3YJrC4QJL2FrdbFyq2KbtBRtaQNAUFA/s400/German+jigsaw-puzzle.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Family History Jigsaw Puzzle</td></tr>
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I’ve written over 100 blog posts since I began “Village Life in Nineteenth Century Kreis Saarburg,” and I really enjoy it when someone leaves a comment. I am especially happy when someone says the equivalent of "good work" about a post. What a pleasure to find a "thank you" as was the case with this one:<br />
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<i><span style="color: #e06666;">"Thank you, Kathy, for sharing all this information. I am reading your blog posts and also starting to read your book which I recently purchased. You have done a great service to those learning about their German ancestry. Danke, danke, danke. Curtis"</span></i><br />
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In addition to compliments, people write a comment because they are happy to find the answer to a question they have never been able to find before. Others want to tell me their ancestors and mine may have been relatives or neighbors or want to know about a picture I used with the blog. Occasionally I get a comment that tells me I made a mistake and being human, I don’t like hearing that. Still I’m glad to know about it so I can correct my post. Most surprising is that some curious readers also check the entire list of comments from others and generously answer a question which I couldn't.<br />
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However, it has always bothered me that when I or some reader leave a reply to a comment, I don’t know if the commenter ever finds it, especially if it is posted months or even years after it was made. Most commenters do not leave their e-mail address and so there is no way to notify them.<br />
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That is a long explanation of my reason for writing this post; to try to prevent good information from getting lost. The following is an example of a recent comment that solved a problem mentioned by a <b>much</b> earlier commenter/questioner:<br />
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From <u>A LOOK AT LE HAVRE, A LESS-KNOWN PORT FOR GERMAN EMIGRANTS </u><br />
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<i><span style="color: #cc0000;">“Wow, this is great. I am working on some of our genealogy and am really running into a lot of stumbling blocks. One relative, now deceased, thinks that our Miller family came to the US (New Orleans) from Le Havre but I am having a hard time confirming it. All indications are that they were from "Kirberg Bavaria Germany" but I can't find a Kirberg in Bavaria, but only in Hesse.” </span></i><br />
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Sometimes I will be able to help with a problem like this, but in this case I evidently didn’t find Kirberg Bavaria either. The original comment was probably asked a short time after I wrote the post. In January of this year, 2018, I received a surprising comment on that Le Havre/Kirberg question from Klaus in Germany:</div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><span style="color: #cc0000;">“Hallo, just found this utmost informative page in search for passenger-lists from LeHavre to USA. I think I can help to the Kirberg-Issue: There is a Homburg-Kirberg, part of the City of Homburg, Saarland (see: </span><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirrberg_%28Homburg%29">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirrberg_%28Homburg%29</a></span><span style="color: #cc0000;">)https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirrberg_%28Homburg%29). It belongs to the Saar-Pfalz-Kreis (Saar-Palatinate). Palatinate was bavarian from 1816 til 1920. </span></i></span><i><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">(see: </span></span></i><span style="color: #674ea7;"><u><i>https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saarpfalz-Kreis)</i></u></span><br />
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Thank you Klaus! I am sorry to say that well-known genealogical speakers, never give more than lip service to the port of Le Havre. My post on Le Havre is one of the few places to get information about the circumstances which caused ancestors from certain parts of Germany, Switzerland and Austria to choose the Port of Le Havre in France when sailing to America. (My Bavarian ancestors left from Le Havre too). Since the Le Havre passenger lists can't be found, web searches continue to find my articles on Le Havre. Klaus didn't find it until seven years after I wrote it. Unfortunately, the links he gives are in German. But if you want to know how Kirberg became Bavarian around the time these ancestors came to America, this website in English gives an explanation: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatinate_(region)#Bavarian_rule">Kirberg in the Palatinate</a><br />
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Any of the comments about the 100 plus posts I've written, especially those that answer questions or give additional information, can be valuable but do they ever find the family history searchers who need them? I think the chances are slim, but they may be a little more findable if I highlight them.</div>
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That is why I’ve decided to post such comments as a separate entity; i.e. a separate post with the picture above, whenever I receivethem. It may make for a very short post, but at the very least, the regular readers of my blog will see them. There is also a good chance that Google and other search engines may turn them up as separate subject entities. That will be one more way to help searchers find another piece of the family history puzzle.<br />
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So thank you for reading comments and helping whenever you can.</div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-59444240010832885942017-11-20T20:52:00.000-06:002018-04-12T00:10:11.551-05:00Kirmes Celebration<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix_mvvtG6GlU4FkUW6RLDzU7HyNWTCwuGJzuPGh_k7mH63KFB4W58s7in_ymjsu5bcrYOyqnBDC5FQVCn9Jj0FinmcIHyDpFFB6N4mrIDaozaqPG5q2W3ZQXozn-Axw6Jp1BGVMg/s1600/St._Laurentius_in_Zerf_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="678" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix_mvvtG6GlU4FkUW6RLDzU7HyNWTCwuGJzuPGh_k7mH63KFB4W58s7in_ymjsu5bcrYOyqnBDC5FQVCn9Jj0FinmcIHyDpFFB6N4mrIDaozaqPG5q2W3ZQXozn-Axw6Jp1BGVMg/s400/St._Laurentius_in_Zerf_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Laurentius Church in Zerf</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qh_ifVTaLvDKE71TAJYL1f5Ic_9VxIjQ3E9BSYDLyJ1ywkYZpn0P8Vy8PnnQJ1Uoq7VL18ZhRH9bhmNse9a_oxmrqD8fhI2q7gsaDStcPWSOhnQbMTngJz-Z6crhPjyK9Ps8TA/s1600/Oberzerf+Chapel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qh_ifVTaLvDKE71TAJYL1f5Ic_9VxIjQ3E9BSYDLyJ1ywkYZpn0P8Vy8PnnQJ1Uoq7VL18ZhRH9bhmNse9a_oxmrqD8fhI2q7gsaDStcPWSOhnQbMTngJz-Z6crhPjyK9Ps8TA/s400/Oberzerf+Chapel.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Wendalinus Church in Oberzerf</td></tr>
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<b>What is Kirmes</b>? Growing up in Calumet County in eastern Wisconsin, I seldom heard the word "Kirmes" until I began my first librarian job in the public library in Green Bay. People there knew it as a yearly celebration in two smaller towns to the north, Brussels and Luxemburg, obviously originally settled by people from Belgium and Luxembourg. <br />
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It was quite a surprise when my research on my ancestors' Rhineland culture and customs told me there were Kirmes celebrations in my ancestors' villages of Zerf/Oberzerf, Irsch, and Serrig as well as almost every village in Kreis Saarburg. Considering the proximity of this part of the Rhineland to the borders of the small country of Luxembourg, I realized it was not surprising to find that my ancestors' part of the German State of Rheinland Pfalz, I began to look for a description of how the villagers celebrated a <i>Kirmes</i> in my 2nd great grandmother's time.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNhImApKfRyC_uOqF99-wAqowFkL0qNdQLsaLvR6Q7EwHp6-boh7jJwGK6yeHYvM3YVbbf0gcM2X34zvosP2yio52fcrLTGMAiDV3xjE_xAglgfcfvPb7HlTWpHIiP9PDCvHeqw/s1600/HOJ+Cover+Front+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="895" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNhImApKfRyC_uOqF99-wAqowFkL0qNdQLsaLvR6Q7EwHp6-boh7jJwGK6yeHYvM3YVbbf0gcM2X34zvosP2yio52fcrLTGMAiDV3xjE_xAglgfcfvPb7HlTWpHIiP9PDCvHeqw/s200/HOJ+Cover+Front+.jpg" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Cover, House of Johann</b></td></tr>
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I began each chapter of <b>House of Johann,</b> my historical novel with a cultural or historical background paragraph to help explain the lives of the family of Johann Rauls my 3rd great-grandfather. and his family. It was meant to help the reader understand the events in each chapter. <br />
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Here is some of the material I used to write that paragraph plugged into such a paragraph.<br />
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<b>HOUSE OF JOHANN</b><br />
<b>Chapter 19 - </b><b style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 115%;">Kirmes Celebration
– October 1845</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the nicest celebrations of the year was
the Kirmes (Church fair). It was an opportunity to once again see friends and
relatives, for feasting and for high-spirited dancing and celebrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wife of the house cleaned everything to a
high luster: the walls of the kitchen were freshly whitewashed; windows and
floors cleaned spotless; the copper polished and the furniture washed down. The
husband thoroughly cleaned stalls, stables, and farmyard and moved the manure pile
out of the area.* The Kirmes guests arrived on foot or by wagon. They were all
dressed in their Sunday finery. The table in the 'Stube' was laden with good
food, there was lively conversation and everyone felt refreshed and happy with
life". </span></i></b></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Not all of the information I found would fit into one paragraph. Here is a bit more about he Kirmes festival. The celebration was closely tied to the villager's religion and the Catholic church of the village. It was celebrated on the Sunday closest to the feast day of the church''s patron saint. In the case of Oberzerf, location of the house of Johann Rauls for instance, the celebration was on the October Sunday closest to the feast Saint Wendalinus. In nearby Zerf Kirmes was celebrated in August, on the Sunday that was closest to the feast of Saint Laurentius.<br />
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As I wrote in the Chapter 19 introduction, Saturday was an important part of the Kirmes festival. There was no celebrating on this day. Everyone worked from morning to night in preparation for visitors on the next day. <br />
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The Kirmes meal was served in the sparkling clean Stube; the table full of the special foods which had been planned for and partially prepared on the day before. Family and friends sat down at a typical dinner feast such as a large ham, potatoes, and sauerkraut, with wine or <i>Viez </i>to drink; then perhaps a small <i>Schnapps</i> to aid the digestion.<br />
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The young were especially anxious to make their way to the church grounds for their customary competition. A common type of contest was a bowling match with a fat goose as a prize. By late afternoon, music for dancing began, often continuing to the early hours of Monday. This was what the young men and girls had been awaiting and while older couples also enjoyed the dancing, it was the young ones who seemed never to tire and danced into the early morning hours.<br />
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Some of the guests who had traveled to attend the village Kirmes left in the evening or stayed overnight with family or friends who lived in the Kirmes village. Before anyone left for home, the women of the house would present, wrapped in a clean napkin, a small packet of food from the Kirmes dinner for the guests who were leaving and also for any one of their family had not been able to come to the Kirmes celebration.<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">I' come from a small Wisconsin village and remember the "Church Picnic" held in summer each year. Our Wisconsin Village of Sherwood near Appleton was probably 90% German at that time, almost 100 per cent Catholic, and surrounded by outlying farms whose resident made up a major part of the church congregation. There were beer, hamburger/brat, and ice cream stands, a church social dinner with three or even four repeat settings, games kids could play, and the music of a polka band. Our relatives and friends from nearby townships or cities sometimes joined us. It's very possible that those church picnics descended (with quite a bit of Americanization) from the Kirmes celebrations so common in the villages of Kreis Saarburg in the nineteenth century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*(In case you were wondering, the manure pile usually was usually kept in the front of the house barn. The explanation for what to us seems unusual was a matter of convenience since all of the barn doors, just like the house doors, opened to the wide street which was already littered with dung from the horses or oxen that trod on it on raw way to distant fields. A farmer's fields did not surround his house)</span></div>
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Sources:<br />
<b style="text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 16.100000381469727px;">Ollinger, Josef, </span></i></b><i><b><u><span style="font-size: x-small;">Geschichten und Sagen von Saar und Mosel</span></u></b></i><br />
<b style="text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 16.100000381469727px;">Morette, Jean, "<u>Landleben im Jahreslauf</u>"</span></i></b><br />
<b style="text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 16.100000381469727px;">Croon, Maria, "<u>Die Dorfstrasse</u>."</span></i></b><br />
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-46232504630450638112017-09-24T00:03:00.000-05:002018-10-13T14:24:12.418-05:00The Usual Question<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7kYeRR-MtdspyBIIXWS_OvEhwKM9DM7Arw2HrIEiC85CbRfQmg-d0Lp1BQC8_AxRddPW4ufjh3xdcv5h7_-A793LCvSD-PkBHlMYCjOK-Wz4q9Y7KECiSiGGK2L9Z4inwfuf9g/s1600/Book+Review+of+HOJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="871" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7kYeRR-MtdspyBIIXWS_OvEhwKM9DM7Arw2HrIEiC85CbRfQmg-d0Lp1BQC8_AxRddPW4ufjh3xdcv5h7_-A793LCvSD-PkBHlMYCjOK-Wz4q9Y7KECiSiGGK2L9Z4inwfuf9g/s400/Book+Review+of+HOJ.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Review of HOUSE OF JOHANN by Emma Burns<br />
<b>Huntley Happenings</b>, Sept, 2017</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I began this blog, VILLAGE LIFE IN KREIS SAARBURG, RHINELAND, it was with the intention of organizing my research on the history and culture of German families in the 1800s and from information accumulated (and also shared in my blog) to write a historical novel about my ancestors and their lives before they emigrated to America.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Why are you doing that? " Some people could not understand why a genealogist would want to turn genealogical facts, discovered after laborious searching and careful recording, into a novel; a piece of fiction. They seemed to believe that fictional touches to the genealogical facts somehow changed the facts. But my intention was always to makes sure that did not happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When given a choice, I have always preferred to learn history by reading a well-researched historical novel rather than a history or biography. A historical novel will imprint a previously unknown place and time on my memory by giving life to the people who took part in those historical events, especially their very human reactions to the conditions of the time and place. I wanted to learn even more about the events that brought joy or difficulty to the characters that I had come to think of not as names on someone's family tree but as real people I cared about. For instance, after reading "THE CYPRESSES BELIEVE IN GOD," and meeting brothers Ignacio and Cesar and their sister Pilar and aching with them and their whole family as they found themselves divided by loyalty to many groups; the conservative Catholic Church, the socialistic Republicans, anarchists members of the Falange, and Catalonian separatists, they began to turn away from each other and take different sides. After I finished that historical novel, I read all I could find about the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to1939 to help me fully understand a complicated situation that still causes discord now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Naturally I set out to find a good historical novel about rural Germany before my ancestors immigrated to America ) from 1826 to 1872. The histories or biographies could wait. I wanted to get to know my ancestors as real people and see the views they saw through their windows.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My search for a novel about life in 19th century Germany was a failure because there weren’t any such novels in English. There weren't any non-fiction books on the culture of that time either, </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">not even in German</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or at least none that I could locate in libraries, bookstores or on line. But there were some almost unknown local histories and the wonderful stories of Maria Croon who lived in the Rhineland in the early parts of the 20th century that gave me a lot of what I needed to know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I took the advice of the brilliant author Toni Morrison who has said, “<i><b>If there is a book you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.</b></i>” Since the bookshelves in libraries and bookstores in America and Germany could not give me what I wanted to read - a novel about the generation that decided to emigrate to America - there was still one option open to me: to research and write "HOUSE OF JOHANN" and perhaps the continuation of their story in a "Yesterday's Rhineland" series.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I decided to use my 2nd great grandmother Magdalena, her parents, siblings and her future husband as my characters, since Magdalena and her husband Johann were immigrant ancestors. I included parts of family stories about them. Every date and place, including field, forest and stream names, are accurate enough to be safely taken from my novel to fill out family group sheets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We all have had relatives who slowly backed away when Aunt Emma began to explain how her husband Norbert was related to great Aunt Anna who married the son of Hans Fischer, a double cousin of Peter Fischer. However everyone would listen and laugh at the story about the time Aunt Kate climbed up on the teacher's desk and turned the hands of the classroom clock ahead when the teacher went outside to have a drink from his flask. She and her classmates left the one-room schoolhouse an hour early that day. I used family stories like that one in the "HOUSE OF JOHANN" and also made up some new ones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My favorite step in writing the novel was to let my imagination tell me how all of those ancestors felt as they spoke, worked, played and dreamed moving through the days, months and years between 1827 and 1845. It changed none of the genealogical or historic facts, but like an unverified family story, added something anyone could read with pleasure, as did a reviewer, Emma Burns. Her non-genealogist reaction to the book are given in the picture of her review at the beginning of this post. I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> know from that book review of "HOUSE OF JOHANN" that the story convinced a person who regularly reviews all kinds of books that a historical novel about ancestors can be a page turner. She appreciated my novel just for the pleasure of the story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">NOTE: Since the picture I took of the review of HOUSE OF JOHANN by Emma Burns in the weekly newspaper, "HUNTLEY HAPPENINGS, is somewhat difficult to read, here is a typed copy:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">"<i>House of Johann" </i>is the story of the
struggles of a rural German farm family in the</span> <span class="s1">1800s.
This newly released book is available on Amazon<i>.</i></span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b><span class="s1">Kathi Gosz, a former librarian and avid genealogist,
captures the difficult life of Johann and Maria Raul,</span><span class="s2"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></span></b><span class="s1"><b>and their seven
children. </b> The reader quickly gets caught-up in the lives of each family
member, from childhood through marriage, as they encounter the everyday
challenges of life in Germany's Rhineland. The Rauls are Gosz ancestors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="s1"><b>Gosz writing is crisp, charmingly descriptive, and
informative</b>. Each chapter begins with a brief description of German
history and culture made alive within the chapter. Details ranging from
meal preparation, farm work, and everyday chores are not overlooked. If
you are of German decent, you will particularly enjoy how Gosz works in holiday
and family rituals within this fascinating story.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="s1"><b>The crux of this historical fiction is the
relationship of father Johann and his children after the death of Maria.</b>
Johann's inability to cope leads him to seek the help of Maria's cousin
Eva, a spiteful and insensitive woman. The consequences are seen in the
lives of his three oldest daughters as one by one they leave the farm to escape
the unhappiness caused by Eva.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Sun City resident Sue Vanderberg, and a long-time
friend of Gosz, introduced me to "<i>House of Johann."</i> </b> After
reading several of my reviews, Sue offered me a copy of her friends' first
novel about her ancestors. Even though I am not of German heritage, I
raced through the book, eager to know the outcome for each of Gosz fascinating
characters. The story ends with the hint that</span><span class="s2" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></span><span class="s1" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Johann is planning
on coming to America, making way for a second novel in the near future with an
eye on daughter Leni. </span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px;">
Paperbound book available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores.</div>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 14px;">E-book downloadable at www.Amazon.com</span> </span></div>
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-26624722984571744822017-05-29T22:05:00.001-05:002017-08-19T15:33:48.899-05:00Sail Away from Le Havre <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCtV6ly5-VcNWl1k9MTEVESCk9Wlfk9LGKhVmldZ-efhLyhIhhXdHtjF2-eUl3mEEH6MtTjg_QYkZA87OYH4Vf9X7WYJvswZj41-oi-3WECFTKb8YO0RR5OichoGxYcusjt9RU0g/s1600/Le+Havre+port+illus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="600" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCtV6ly5-VcNWl1k9MTEVESCk9Wlfk9LGKhVmldZ-efhLyhIhhXdHtjF2-eUl3mEEH6MtTjg_QYkZA87OYH4Vf9X7WYJvswZj41-oi-3WECFTKb8YO0RR5OichoGxYcusjt9RU0g/s400/Le+Havre+port+illus.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Port of Le Havre</td></tr>
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<b><br /></b>Our ancestors' trip to America. I imagined it many times and read good articles to help get a picture of what these very brave people had to deal with as they left their homes, made their way to the Port of Le Havre, and sailed away. I often tried to imagine what they were thinking as the ship left the harbor with the ocean in front of them. <br />
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To help me along my sister translated an 1844 article about leaving the Port of Le Havre on a trip to Caen in 1844. The author, J. Morlent, was not traveling very far. Once the boat left harbor, he would be sailing along the coast of France. The length of the journey makes no difference. The experience of our ancestors would have been just as Morlent described it. What he described was each thrilling movement of the ship as it left the harbor. <br />
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The captain did not just put the ship into reverse, swing around and sail away. Pulling away from the place where the ship was moored was complicated and could be dangerous. Obviously I am a landlubber and clueless about the very beginning of a sea journey; most likely so were many of the 1844 passengers. Therefore I give you the rather flowery words of Monsieur Morlent and, in boldface, my less flowery interpretation of what he is describing.<br />
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<b><u>Monsieur Morlent</u>:</b> "A few minutes ago, it lay stranded lifelessly on its bed of mud, our lovely steamer, awaiting the tide that would softly lift its graceful bow, and the tide come to reclaim it where it had left it and deliver it to its frolic without danger. See the meekness with which it acquiesces to the movement that the tide dictates, as it awakes and takes life, as life returns to it; a slight shifting of balance, already it no longer clings to the ground : one could say that it is in a hurry to distance itself from the damp walls that mask its flanks and hide its slender shape and its stylish carriage." <i> </i><br />
<i><b><u>Interpretation:</u> When the tide is right for departure, the ship is already moving slightly on the waves - the first time people who had always lived on land became aware of the need to develop sea legs. It is coming out of the walled dock that has held it steady up to now.)</b></i><br />
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<b><u>Monsieur Morlent</u>: </b>"Already the three strokes of the bell have sounded. The steam escapes with a sharp whistle from the long, metal tube that surrounds it and, noisily, the steam spreads in a white-ish cloud and redescends in a pinkish color on the forward and back parts of the boat, according to the direction of the wind which should shorten or lengthen our water excursion. The dockside is filled with a triple row of the curious who come to cheer our departure: there, is said a last goodbye; there, the hands of friends grip each other … but the speedy propulsion blades of Le Calvados are in motion. They have moved our sailing ship and the words “good trip,” “write to me,” intersect and lose themselves in the air in the middle of the commotion. Already the absence has begun. Words are powerless to make understood the last declarations of friendship, of affection or of politeness. It is the gesture that replaces the word while, quickly disappearing, the merciless engine takes the ship which turns and swims in the foam, leaving behind on the waters its plumes of mist."<br />
<i><b><u>Interpretation:</u></b> <b>The many people on the shore shout their farewells and good wishes, which at first can reach all ears on the ship but which become more faint until the sound is gone.)</b></i><br />
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<b><u>Monsieur Morlent</u>: </b>The steamer moves proudly in front of a flotilla of little unmoored boats, vigilant sentinels of the waterway, who never fail at their assignment; it is in these small boats, of such miserable appearance, that our intrepid pilots hurry to rush into the middle of tempests, to take it can be said, by the hand, the big ship in peril, and to guide it to harbor, across the dangers that bristle at the entrance; how many pay with their life for this generous recklessness. At the foot of these walls, beaten by the surf, lies a bank of pebbles called the southern shingle-bank. It is a deadly danger to ships who miss the entry to the harbor and then are broken by the tempest in several hours and scattered on this beach, famous, each year, for more than one shipwreck. It is the despair of the sailor who, escaping the dangers of a long sea voyage, is cruelly run aground only several feet from the object of his efforts.<br />
<b><u>Interpretation: </u></b><b style="font-style: italic;">Leaving the safe harbor, the ship encounters the sailors who mann the small, battered boats at the risk of the dangerous waves, trying to prevent the impressive large sailing ship from running aground and breaking into pieces because the ship's pilot misjudged the entry to the harbor.</b><br />
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We skirt the northern pier, the favorite strolling area of foreigners, maintained with a care that resembles flirtation, and visited every day by a large portion of the population of Le Havre, of which it is the meeting place at the time of high tide. A belt of granite surrounds it, a small beacon ends it, and its straight platform often has difficulty containing the crowd that jostles together to participate in the impressive spectacle of the entrance or the exit of ships, whether the sky is clear and the breeze light or whether the wind blows violently and the gray and tempestuous waves darken the strange panorama. <br />
<i><u><b>Interpretation: </b></u><b>Every day, especially at high tide, crowds of people who are from both Le Havre or foreign places stroll in a special area and watch with fascination as arriving or departing ships move toward or away from the granite wall of the harbor regardless of the weather. The strolling area is protected by a "belt" of granite with a beacon at its end.</b></i><br />
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<b><u>Monsieur Morlent</u>: "</b>But this lovely and strong belt of granite is often powerless to protect it from the shock of ships that are abruptly pushed by the swell. One of the first days of February, last year, the American ship The Emperor, upon entering into the harbor, hit it so violently that it overturned three foundation sections of the wall cap and shook the others at a height of over eighteen feet. The stem of the ship was almost crushed. When one has seen the piers of Le Havre, built in blocks of the granite of Cherbourg, linked together by iron bolts and encased in cement, which has the hardness of rock, one is struck with amazement that the motion of the sea can succeed in overturning these constructions that appear to be resistant over centuries."<br />
<b><u><i>Interpretation</i>:</u> <i>Granite walls as high as 18 feet are no match for the power of the water that smashes into the Le Havre harbor.</i></b><br />
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<b style="font-family: times; font-size: 16px;"><u>Monsieur Morlent</u>: </b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">We have passed the pier and already the city escapes us. On a long line, that appears winding from the south to the north, are displayed in the foreground the floating warships that protect the shoreline, the ovens that forge cannon balls, a gunpowder factory, and the shipbuilding yards, above which are displayed the frames of these beautiful ships of commerce.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><u>Interpretation</u>: Morlent paints an excellent word picture of harbor as a ship moves away and passengers can see the last views of the city of</i></b></span><b><i> Le Havre. For some, that view can be their last look at the European continent.</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What courage our ancestors had. I wonder how many of them, looking at the scenes Morlent describes above, wondered if they had been a little mad when they signed the contract that took them away from solid, steady earth and positioned their feet on these precarious, unmanageable waves.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Illustration from </span>L'histoire des Antilles et de l'Afrique</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Seconde édition.- Le Havre : J. Morlent, 1844. 76 pages. 2 f. de pl. ; 16 cm. (Translation to English by Marilyn Gosz, 2012) http://www.californieenfrancais.blogspot.com/p/marithe-comme-cest-terrible-pour-tous.html)</span><br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-71065162073082330722017-04-03T10:35:00.001-05:002017-04-30T22:57:29.915-05:00Does Anyone Have a Map?<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuoEH2vYnca9HlSrv0W66woCB__9GjyHThohPJtTeJv6XtdAnH1bHheXon3TyczWHHIHwjhK9XutHfKadHZtaVB2pdeAOXuVUUju7EA8K9L3I2iP5wxNvW1nY3QlNBj_heazQhw/s1600/Germany+map+of+cities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuoEH2vYnca9HlSrv0W66woCB__9GjyHThohPJtTeJv6XtdAnH1bHheXon3TyczWHHIHwjhK9XutHfKadHZtaVB2pdeAOXuVUUju7EA8K9L3I2iP5wxNvW1nY3QlNBj_heazQhw/s400/Germany+map+of+cities.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://timeslipsblog.com/</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I used to think that people were exaggerating when they talked about having an epiphany. But I think I had one a couple of weeks ago, and it had to do with my some 30 years of pursuing my own genealogical history with a blindness to one of the most important things any ancestor hunter should include in the story of their ancestors</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: large;">But first let me tell you a little about the inspiration for my novel, HOUSE OF JOHANN and how it fits into my "epiphany."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Years ago when I was in my early 20s, my grandmother told the story of her own grandmother, Magdalena Rauls, who was said to have been French, to have run away with a young man, a sailor from Germany instead of marrying the man her father had chosen for her. I was fascinated. I thought that young Magdalena had crossed the border from France into Germany, probably experiencing many hardships on the difficult journey, in order to join her true love, the sailor.<br /><br />After a few years of genealogical searching and locating many ancestors on both sides of the family, I discovered that Magdalena was as German as her true love, a young farmer. I was disappointed with the false family story Grandma told. But eventually I realized that I had somewhat misinterpreted Grandma's words. She didn't say that young Magdalena had run away from France; she merely said she was French. It was probable that sometime in the 17th or 18th century one of her ancestors and his family did come from the French area close to the German border and settled in the area around Saarburg in the Germanic part of the Rhineland. Oberzerf is quite close to the French border. The Rauls probably became well known for having French roots. (</span><span style="font-size: large;">I also figured out the "sailor" part, once more it was my romantic misinterpretation). </span><span style="font-size: large;">The story once again had the power to fascinate me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since I had alway wanted to write a historical novel, I started to think about chosing this branch of my family tree with daring Magdalena and her father and siblings as the main characters. The HOUSE OF JOHANN, published in January of this year, was the result of what I had originally regarded as a false family story. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />While I was working on my novel, I was asked to give a talk to the German Interest Group in Janesville Wisconsin about my research so </span><span style="font-size: large;">I told them the story of my French/France mistake as a warning to be aware of the geography of your ancestors' homeland. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> I called the talk “The View from My Ancestors’ Windows.” My point: that stories of our ancestors’ lives, whether biography or fiction, should focus on the culture of the time and the place, including what any of the listeners might see or hear if given the chance to gaze out of an open window in an ancestor's house. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I answered questions after my talk. One of those surprised me; I had not really thought about it before, but I certainly should have. Someone asked where the farmhouse and village that belonged to my Rauls ancestors was located in relationship to more well-known places or states in today's Germany. A lot of those German ancestor hunters only knew the area of their own ancestors and didn't know where the Rhineland was. It was an oversight on my part not to explain the full geography of the area of my ancestors while I was giving my talk. I should have realized, that even though Germany is only about the size of Montana, very few people in the USA, even those who study their German ancestry, are familiar with the total map of Germanic kingdoms, empires, states administered by a Prince Archbishops of the Catholic Church, free cities, etc. I include myself in this lack of knowledge. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> I know the location and history of my ancestral villages in the southern half of today's Rhineland Pfalz next to the French border, and of other ancestors who came from eastern Bavaria almost on the border with today's Czech Republic. I can picture their location without having to refer to the map of Germany. However, without a map before me, I would have to guess at the location of most of the other states. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />If this is the case for searchers specifically studying their German roots, imagine the confusion of the average non-genealogist without any interest in their ancestors. Yet I forgot all about location again in January when HOUSE OF JOHANN was published. The epiphany hit me when a fellow genealogist noted my lack of a specific description or map of the geographic location of the villages where Magdalena Rauls, her parents, and her brothers and sisters lived in the 1830s and 1840s. Very carefully, I had described superstitions that hung over a new mother who, for a week or two (depending on local belief), could poison a loaf of bread if she cut it, or draw bugs to the water she drew from the well. But never did I mentioned that the little villages of Oberzerf and Irsch were not too far from both the French and Luxembourg borders and shared many of the same customs. How could I have forgotten to tell the readers something so basic? I'll never forget the real estate credo again. It's location, location, location!<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrsiMrxgFqt2zO-LN0XRRjyqTxf5JjlN0mgjldfiu0Qo5RswjCqLM1F0o5Az4RWc-NkW6SSQrg9L2qC196iOSjk-gavDADXzsZl5RKlCdadBV0wGLpBCz_e2J0SIniIBIk-oosw/s1600/German+map.jpg"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrsiMrxgFqt2zO-LN0XRRjyqTxf5JjlN0mgjldfiu0Qo5RswjCqLM1F0o5Az4RWc-NkW6SSQrg9L2qC196iOSjk-gavDADXzsZl5RKlCdadBV0wGLpBCz_e2J0SIniIBIk-oosw/s640/German+map.jpg" width="473" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrsiMrxgFqt2zO-LN0XRRjyqTxf5JjlN0mgjldfiu0Qo5RswjCqLM1F0o5Az4RWc-NkW6SSQrg9L2qC196iOSjk-gavDADXzsZl5RKlCdadBV0wGLpBCz_e2J0SIniIBIk-oosw/s1600/German+map.jpg"><br /></a><br />Why does location make so much difference? Because so many </span><span style="font-size: large;">people and a lot of travel brochures photograph scenes in Germany with white buildings, red tile roofs, and colorful window </span><span style="font-size: large;">boxes filled with flowers. Local people usually wear traditional Lederhosen or Dirndls to serve huge mugs of beer. There are mountains in the distance, a bit of snow at their peaks. These are charming pictures but they mostly relate to the area of Bavaria around Munich or the villages and countryside of Austria which borders Bavaria. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I have said, my 2nd great-grandmother Magdalena lived in what is today the German State of Rheinland Pfalz at the western edge of Germany, very close to Luxembourg and France. In 1827 when she was born, she was considered a Prussian citizen, just like a child born on the same day and year in the city of Berlin, far to the northeast. And in 1783 when her father was born, he was a subject of the Prince Archbishop of Trier but soon to become a French citizen and live under Napoleon's rule for almost 20 years. It would be hard to see any real difference among the population in his German village from their French or Luxembourg neighbors. Their dress was similar, the shape of their combined house and barn buildings were alike The houses of the well-to-do citizens in the larger city of Trier nearby had the look of the houses of upper middle classes of France at the time of Napoleon and after. The picture of this part of Germany would show people drinking wine from wine glasses as they sit admiring the vines loaded with bunches of grapes on the hills along rivers like the Rhine, the Saar, and the Mosel (Moselle when it crosses the border into France).<br /><br />What picture should come to my mind with the German state of Sachsen? Well, I will have to look that up, but if your ancestors come from this northern German state, you probably know. But if you write a family history about one or more ancestors for Sachsen, don't forget to tell your readers just where in today's Germany that place is located and help create as clear a picture in their minds with your description as the one you always carry around yourself. A word map can often be just as meaningful as the cartographic kind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-46235681171368879262017-01-19T11:44:00.000-06:002017-05-27T14:38:17.566-05:00A Blog That Grew a Book<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">THE BOOK</span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">What would it be like to spend typical days, from morning to night, with German ancestors who lived in the mid 1800s? How did they think and act, these people from whom we descended, and what would it be like to listen in on their conversations and even their thoughts and dreams long before they came to America? </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">That's what I wondered almost from the first moment I found genealogical and cultural history sources in Germany. Writing <u><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=House+of+Johann">House of Johan</a>n</u> brought my ancestors and their neighbors alive for me, and I hope for everyone who reads their story. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">MY BLOG</span><br />
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When I began to write these blog posts, it was with the intention of organizing my research on the life lived by German families in the 1800s and write the <u>House of Johann</u>. There were two good reasons to take the extra step of creating a blog:</div>
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1) To make it easier to find the details that often got lost in my rather poor filing system as I started the novel about the life of my peasant farmer ancestors who lived in the villages of Oberzerf and Irsch in Kreis Saarburg in the Rhineland.<br />
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2) To share my knowledge of Kreis Saarburg farming culture and about the historical period peasant farmers lived in. I knew how much trouble and how many years it had taken me to learn German and then collect difficult-to-find information. Others might not be able to find this information, especially those things written in German (most of them), nor would they have the opportunity to make several European trips. I didn't want what I had worked hard to find to be lost to anyone with a desire to learn the same thing.<br />
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I had begun my research with the idea of looking for novels, memoirs, or biographies in English. When I came up blank, I resigned myself to the idea of finding literature written in German, even though the amount of German I was learning was pretty limited. Surprise! Searching in bookstores in Germany turned up very little. It was not the language. Peasant farmers or craftsmen just weren't important enough to be written about, Although Germany lost thousands of these people to immigration from ports like Le Havre in France in the 1800s and although one in four people in the U.S. have some German blood, no one ever thought them important enough to write about. They themselves were working for a better life. There was no time to both bring in the flax crop and then write a memoir before bedtime. <br />
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It was the locally published village histories that had the kind of facts I was looking for. And it was the people in those villages who had bought a copy who were willing to loan them to me or knew where I could buy them. Eventually I had a faily good pile of books and a description of the Rhineland culture and customs of the 1800s.<br />
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After 11 years of research, much of which I have shared on this blog, I have just published my novel, HOUSE OF JOHANN on January 16 of this year. The picture above is a copy of the book cover as it appears on Amazon. Here is a short description from the back cover:</div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>SYNOPSIS</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>The year is 1827. Johann Rauls, a land-owning farmer lives with his family in the small village of Oberzerf in Germany’s Rhineland. Johann and his wife Maria are preparing for their best Christmas in several years. Even in an age of frequent childhood deaths, all of their six children are healthy, happy, and awaiting an exciting Christmas season which will be followed in three or four weeks by the birth of a new brother or sister. There is much to look forward to and be grateful for. <br /><br />No one is prepared for a threatening event on the eve of Christmas. It pushes away all thoughts of the holiday celebration, and serves as a precursor to another tragedy that will bring a long period of grief and regret to all of their lives. This carefully researched historical novel of an actual Rhineland family imparts both their times of happiness and pain as almost 20 years pass. It also paints a picture of the class to which they belong, the peasant farmers who carried much of the weight of supporting their homeland on their shoulders, but whose absorbing life stories with their importance to history are almost never told.</b></span></i></span><br />
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If you have enjoyed my blog posts, I think you will enjoy the story of the early years of the Johann Rauls family in the novel <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=House+of+Johann">"HOUSE OF JOHANN."</a> If you choose to read this book, it may help you understand just how human and interesting the people on your own family group sheets probably are and how much uncertainty and struggle was contained in their everyday lives.<br />
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<b>SOURCES:</b> For any readers whose ancestors came from the area near France, Luxembourg, or Germany near the Saar and Mosel (Moselle in France) and are interested in some of the locally published resources I used, this is the list. Some may be out of print but still available at local tourist offices in the larger cities or in the possession of the mayor in the villages. However, they will be in German:<br />
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*Croon, Maria. DIE DORFSTRASSE; EINE BUNTE HEIMATCHRONIK, 2 vols., .Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, 1990.<br />
*SAARBURG; GESCHICHTE EINER STADT, Stadt Saarburg, 5510 Saarburg, 1991.<br />
*Mayer, Ewald. IRSCH/SAAR; Geschichte eines Dorfes, Gemeinde Irsch, 2002<br />
*Hammächer, Claus et al. SERRIG; LANDSCHAFT GESCHICHTE UND GESCHICHTEN, Gemeinde Serrig und der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Landesgeschichte und Volkskunde des Trierer Raumes, 2002<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Many of the peasant farmers of the villages of Oberzerf and Irsch in Kreis Saarburg emigrated through the Port of Le Havre in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, including two of my ancestors. They settled in the village of St. John, Calumet County Wisconsin.</b></span><br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-38896377701895500972016-11-24T22:41:00.000-06:002017-02-18T22:21:17.624-06:00A Time to be Thankful<div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 1em 0em;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQ1yRmKDXE3aDbMPxYpLf9hhRb2YqSImZGBwvxzf0RSKdsjcF0-bLjf8_XTgMn_bCLUG_EPN1HRmphWTg583KmC46hxd6ZKlfT061LmDfZ8LNfOT1h85oRazq4QDSgBvrapIRbQ/s1600/Ernte+Irsch_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQ1yRmKDXE3aDbMPxYpLf9hhRb2YqSImZGBwvxzf0RSKdsjcF0-bLjf8_XTgMn_bCLUG_EPN1HRmphWTg583KmC46hxd6ZKlfT061LmDfZ8LNfOT1h85oRazq4QDSgBvrapIRbQ/s400/Ernte+Irsch_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Gervasius and Protasius Church in Irsch</td></tr>
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There is always more to learn and to share with you. I haven't done much of that during this past year. The reason my blog has been so inactive was my resolution to finish the book I am writing in 2016. The end of 2016 is approaching quickly. But there will not be any information about that until my December blog post. <br />
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Because of the holiday we celebrated today, Thanksgiving, I want to show a similar German custom that I had observed in Irsch and participated in when I rented an apartment in Saarburg. I never thought there might be a historic explanation of either. The German customs I took no notice of are a part of a celebration called <i><b>Erntedankfest</b>.</i><br />
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I would never have known there was more to the picture above if I had not read an article from the very useful "<b><a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/german/">German Language Blog</a></b>." So I am thankful that "<b>E</b><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;"><b>rntedankfest German Thanksgiving</b>" enl</span>ightened me to the historical aspects. The following comes directly from that blog post:<br />
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<span style="color: purple;">"<i>First, the breakdown of the word. ‘Ernte’ means harvest, while ‘Dank’ comes from ‘Danke’, meaning thank you, and ‘Fest’ is German for festival or celebration. The word Erntedankfest therefore translates to ‘Harvest thank festival’. So <strong style="line-height: 1.3em;">Erntedankfest</strong> is a harvest festival where you express thanks for the food you have received throughout the year!"</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: purple;">"If you live in the USA, this will sound very similar to Thanksgiving. In the USA, Thanksgiving has become a secular holiday centred around food and family get-togethers – but in Germany it is still a rather religious occasion, centred around church services and giving thanks for the land-grown vegetation – the maize, corn, fruit and vegetables – that have fed everyone for another year."</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: purple;">"Erntedankfest is usually celebrated on the first <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1892569689" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday</span></span> in October, though this date can vary from region to region."</span></i></div>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://p.feedblitz.com/t3.asp?/994335/41843204/5364525_/feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/germanblog/~https://www.flickr.com/photos/juergen-tesch/4200471058/in/photolist-7pbvGN-guA2qf-guA387-aMXWnD-oXJzqm-guA4Bg-guzGLv-guzWZb-gpKE8c-oXMt9X-i5Pkhi-oXMsYM-h3G1Kb-guzw7p-guA6Na-pC8JEJ-pC8Kqm-pSqf4A-pUvQBa-guz6bS-pCbDY5-h1VMJs-pSqq8y-guyRaq-pC6jmZ-pC6aUZ-pSq8yw-guyTzA-h1Wn6p-guzQpN-pUvQPe-pC6ja6-guyLF5-guzwQZ-pC8Mhh-pUvSXx-oXMoga-pUE8go-pSqgSW-pSqpvG-pC8KVj-pC8MtQ-oXMuFV-5jDh6t-oXMz78-guzsqg-pUm2fF-pC9wHp-pSqdB7-5jDhGH&source=gmail&ust=1478990577203000&usg=AFQjCNGBqtTtw3s8lcx0UC4GfnjW8qGxaw" href="http://p.feedblitz.com/t3.asp?/994335/41843204/5364525_/feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/germanblog/~https://www.flickr.com/photos/juergen-tesch/4200471058/in/photolist-7pbvGN-guA2qf-guA387-aMXWnD-oXJzqm-guA4Bg-guzGLv-guzWZb-gpKE8c-oXMt9X-i5Pkhi-oXMsYM-h3G1Kb-guzw7p-guA6Na-pC8JEJ-pC8Kqm-pSqf4A-pUvQBa-guz6bS-pCbDY5-h1VMJs-pSqq8y-guyRaq-pC6jmZ-pC6aUZ-pSq8yw-guyTzA-h1Wn6p-guzQpN-pUvQPe-pC6ja6-guyLF5-guzwQZ-pC8Mhh-pUvSXx-oXMoga-pUE8go-pSqgSW-pSqpvG-pC8KVj-pC8MtQ-oXMuFV-5jDh6t-oXMz78-guzsqg-pUm2fF-pC9wHp-pSqdB7-5jDhGH" rel="NOFOLLOW" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="altar_erntedankfest_500hoch"><i><span style="color: purple;"><img alt="altar_erntedankfest_500hoch" class="CToWUd" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhi0ZPKMx2jIBmxMqKF-4TjGg53L3kEpEL6JyrrEQDZz3DoTIbLN-Ghpknkd-zCJz8Fpx6TYYaESjdHCIZR5327UvXwwVWzARjCf44qNLnZZkCYHUeSdnmETM8ThT1NTfDFR5ix9Vi-aX_zDJTVTEitprlGeaO9-Q=s0-d-e1-ft" style="border: none; display: inline; height: auto !important; line-height: 14px; max-width: 100% !important; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" width="500" /></span></i></a><br />
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<i><span style="color: purple;">Photo by jeurgen-tesch on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://flickr.com&source=gmail&ust=1478990577203000&usg=AFQjCNEShb91vv7cgEVClWmGjHZeovDIDg" href="http://flickr.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">flickr.com</a> </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: purple;">"Typically, the day includes a church service, a procession, the presenting of an <strong style="line-height: 1.3em;">Erntekrone</strong> (harvest crown), then food, drink and music, and an evening torchlight procession through the town. Church altars are decorated with wreaths, flowers and fruit, and <strong style="line-height: 1.3em;">Blasmusik</strong> (music played with brass/wind instruments) is played at these services and during the processions."</span></i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFdbkbwYLcTir2zP-xBeULlHUDTkhzYpp28lUdJPoUGzggvcJZp_6eRsMfHLix_BkLWQjBSnxE6p8NA7Mn5eSkYFwsAKdnIYH-9FB1ucbOl0pBmx0BF5UP5pscH1psaywUzX3GQ/s1600/Ernte+Irsch+closeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFdbkbwYLcTir2zP-xBeULlHUDTkhzYpp28lUdJPoUGzggvcJZp_6eRsMfHLix_BkLWQjBSnxE6p8NA7Mn5eSkYFwsAKdnIYH-9FB1ucbOl0pBmx0BF5UP5pscH1psaywUzX3GQ/s400/Ernte+Irsch+closeup.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple;">Closeup of the <i>Entdenkfest</i> altar in Irsch </span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="color: purple;">"Some towns and cities hold farmers’ markets selling fresh produce, and bring along their tractors or horses for the local people to see. It is basically a celebration of the land and of all things agricultural! There are also often lots of activities for kids at these Erntedankfest celebrations, so they are well worth getting involved with if you happen to be in Germany around late September/early October."</span></i></div>
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When I attended the "Golden Autumn" in Saarburg in 2010, and when I saw the mosaic made of vegetable materials in the church at Irsch, that was a piece of Germany's traditional Thanksiving, not just a an autumn entertainment or an interesting mosaic. It was a traditional way of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the earth.</div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-68094515300305092682016-06-26T22:53:00.000-05:002016-07-04T13:47:20.327-05:00Family History Surprises <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaoZvk4pi1Q71N0HLyW3593Ls5Pn4N8MeilKqETxdwKdEYoqRQH8nWbKZfYH7cpmaMx-emdCQ7uKqmAikvMl_Frvb63Tp3NmXW4yZBc2g8LtQtsMtYib5Nmkbp5WyPpY4jcMhv9A/s1600/Meyer+Haus+Britten-Fisch+1945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaoZvk4pi1Q71N0HLyW3593Ls5Pn4N8MeilKqETxdwKdEYoqRQH8nWbKZfYH7cpmaMx-emdCQ7uKqmAikvMl_Frvb63Tp3NmXW4yZBc2g8LtQtsMtYib5Nmkbp5WyPpY4jcMhv9A/s400/Meyer+Haus+Britten-Fisch+1945.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Once my 2nd great grandparent's farmhouse, (left front)<br />
This is what it looked like at the end of WWII<br />
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As you may have noticed - at least I hope someone did - that I have not written a blog post for quite a long time. It's time to explain. A sciatica attack made sitting, difficult. I just could not sit at a computer and capture ideas.<br />
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While I was recuperating, I got a communication that reminded me, once again, of the close bonds and relationships among people who lived in small villages like Irsch. Many of us, who do not know each other and who are widely scattered all over the US or the world, could trace our roots to a small town in Germany and find big surprises. (This might be an interesting idea for a genealogy television program.)<br />
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Here are three of my surprises. Each one delighted me.<br />
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DOUBLE CONNECTION<br />
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A comment came from a reader who preferred to be anonymous so I won't quote it exactly. But this person said that my ancestors, Johann and Magdalena Meier, sailed on the same ship, the Rattler, as her great grandfather, Jacob Fisch and his parent; and all settled in St. John, Calumet County, Wisconsin. That was not a surprise to me. But then she listed other surnames on her family tree. One of those surnames, Probst, and their dwelling place in Calumet County, Wisconsin, matched another of my ancestors' names although my great grandfather John Probst had no relationship to Johann and Magdalena Meier. The connection between the Meier and the Probst surnames came together when my mother said "I do" to my dad. I didn't expect a comment about the Bavarian side of my family tree from a reader of my blog posts about the Rhineland.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CfKqnmCeUVl-oeli_48pP63MvPLl_vBh2lBUDbW5HbzfgRlyIEUQfbJFL_MFJZSyfyjOEcW5IOAn7MpzEX9syKsMDro9g6mfBpCGaFMWOQnLnUtfwiyXHq4cPa-o2NHftjkNxw/s1600/Meier+Haus+Britten-Fisch+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CfKqnmCeUVl-oeli_48pP63MvPLl_vBh2lBUDbW5HbzfgRlyIEUQfbJFL_MFJZSyfyjOEcW5IOAn7MpzEX9syKsMDro9g6mfBpCGaFMWOQnLnUtfwiyXHq4cPa-o2NHftjkNxw/s400/Meier+Haus+Britten-Fisch+002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Meier House as it looks today</td></tr>
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DOUBLE SURPRISE<br />
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When I decided to write a novel about my Rhineland ancestors, Ewald Meyer of Irsch, Germany was a wonderful helper in my search for information about the customs and history of Irsch and other small villages in the area. After a long search I finally learned the location of my Meier ancestors' home and property in Irsch in the years before they emigrated to America. <br />
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Herr Meyer went to that location and took photos of the building as it exists today. He also learned that it was remodeled by a Herr Britten, another previous owner and again by Alfons Fisch. Herr Meyer, as always, took an extra step. He contacted Herr Fisch and explained my interest in the old Meier property. To my surprise, the architectural plans for remodeling the Meier house still existed. I have copies of them.<br />
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And one final surprise. Herr Alfons Fisch is a direct descendant of Jacob and Magdalena Fisch who sailed to New York with Johann and Magdalena Rauls on the ship Rattler. Herr Fisch has his residence right across the street from the former Meier property that now also belongs to him.<br />
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FAR REACHING IRSCH ANCESTORS<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgpRIqICSK38RK1Ycv9HhzOd5JEl6LDMgwCYsorI28Vuj7vpNQBuRJUBMsSpoMmSiJ1ANA55PrByBuqUYocCTSjkrlnCMx7OfJMcIlhepS0Qjak6FjT5TV_DmIVeFsez-sQk3Ag/s1600/Oma+Tilly%2527s+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgpRIqICSK38RK1Ycv9HhzOd5JEl6LDMgwCYsorI28Vuj7vpNQBuRJUBMsSpoMmSiJ1ANA55PrByBuqUYocCTSjkrlnCMx7OfJMcIlhepS0Qjak6FjT5TV_DmIVeFsez-sQk3Ag/s400/Oma+Tilly%2527s+house.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Coincidence in Village of Irsch</td></tr>
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Several years ago, I got an interesting e-mail about one of my blog posts, not from a family historian but because of a <a href="http://19thcenturyrhinelandlive.blogspot.com/search?q=BARNHOUSE">picture I had taken in Irsch </a>and used in that post. The couple who saw it wrote to me because it was the house of the husband's grandmother who still was living in that house. They asked how I had come to know their "<i>Oma</i> Tilly." Actually, I didn't know who lived in that house. I was taking pictures to illustrate houses built wall to wall, and this was an excellent example. <br />
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We continued our e-mailing for awhile. When the <i>Oma</i> (grandma) Tilly, whose maiden name was Weber, learned that my ancestors had immigrated to Wisconsin from Irsch, she asked, via her grandson, if any of my ancestors had the surname "Weber." Yes, my 3rd great grandmother from Irsch was a Weber. However Weber is a very common name, and I didn't know if there was any link between us. That didn't faze <i>Oma</i> Tilly. She said, "If they were Webers and they came from Irsch, we are related." Her grandson and his wife got into the spirit and from that time on considered me their relative. They even invited me to their 25th wedding anniversary anniversary celebration. I was delighted to be asked and wish I could have gone. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWgp3C7eniuRktfbcLA-_jJZkOqU0oPVlGnyN3RdXKKBWQ-ih4vzwU1Yk4Wy3axbqJJVrTCegBW9s1o9phTBRzkQ9w5oogxrKTnBMpEPoqjX0R8vfSZPSPM9ulmUP0b08hEXQlOQ/s1600/OMA+TILLY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWgp3C7eniuRktfbcLA-_jJZkOqU0oPVlGnyN3RdXKKBWQ-ih4vzwU1Yk4Wy3axbqJJVrTCegBW9s1o9phTBRzkQ9w5oogxrKTnBMpEPoqjX0R8vfSZPSPM9ulmUP0b08hEXQlOQ/s400/OMA+TILLY.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Oma</i> Tilly, age 93, and Bernie, her grandson<br />
Are we really related? I hope so.</td></tr>
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-814670286777300362016-03-04T22:35:00.002-06:002016-04-01T19:45:53.608-05:00Walking with the Immigrant Ancestors<div style="line-height: normal;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1YpgVGYS5OTiq69iI6nzL3DLC4DZCinLnscwdYFCjJzO_1xAj861kZrT0D8xf6grU2tad4T0JpRRX1FM_l-RUI7tSJQlBFoJbNYBMSWKvu8X1tcZ43VgVf9ej0OL-Z8yKiTeqgg/s1600/top_thumb14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1YpgVGYS5OTiq69iI6nzL3DLC4DZCinLnscwdYFCjJzO_1xAj861kZrT0D8xf6grU2tad4T0JpRRX1FM_l-RUI7tSJQlBFoJbNYBMSWKvu8X1tcZ43VgVf9ej0OL-Z8yKiTeqgg/s400/top_thumb14.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The New York Times, 1861</span></td></tr>
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The most popular posts I have written have been about the German emigrants’ travel from their home city or village to the Atlantic Port of Le Havre or their letters about the trip to people back in Europe. I may have said before that the Le Havre passenger list roll is one of the most sought after documents for the descendants of French, German, and Swiss immigrants. It is almost totally accepted that the Le Havre passenger lists have been destroyed but somehow the word hasn't gotten out to a lot of genealogical seekers.<br />
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Many of the comments or e-mails I’ve received from genealogical searchers who were looking for the actual Le Havre lists do thank me for painting a word picture of the struggles that confronted an emigrant family on their way to the port of Le Havre. It made them so much more aware that their immigrant ancestors were real people facing great difficulties even after they made their decision to leave their homes for an unknown land.<br />
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But what about the journey once the immigrant families' feet touched the earth of what was to be their new country.<br />
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I was looking through my genealogical files a few days ago when I found some notes that I made not too long after I started writing the Meier-Rauls family history. On the front page of the New York Times I had found what month and day their ship, the Rattler, had arrived in the Port of New York. The group of people from Irsch, including my ancestors, took their first steps on American soil at the Castle Garden receiving station, the place where the City of New York made a concerted effort to help immigrants feel welcome in their new country. To me, that date was a major event - 9 May 1861. That arrival determined I would be born an American citizen instead of a dweller in one of the villages on the Sigfreid Line during World War II.<br />
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I wanted to see what other newsworthy events had happened on May 9, 1861 in addition to the arrival of the ancestors. My 2nd great grandparents and the other passengers, most of them Germans, disembarked from a ship that had been sailing for 32 days right at the beginning of the Civil War in America. On May 9, some southern states were still deciding whether to secede from the Union. Did my Ancestors know of that when they came ashore? Whether or not they did, they could not have missed seeing a great many soldiers on the streets of New York. There were signs posted at Castle Garden, written in German, that offered money to young German men who were willing to enlist in the Union Army.<br />
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I read the pages of the New York Times for May 9 and 10, 1861. Here are a few things that the New York Times believed were worthy of a story, happenings which may or may not have attracted the attention of my ancestors and the other immigrants from Irsch as they walked out of Castle Garden and on to the sidewalks of New York. I can imagine them seeing sights that made them wonder if there were more difficulties ahead than they had anticipated, difficulties that would keep them from their final destinations in Ohio, Pennsylvania,Wisconsin or any other states, especially southern states like Texas.<br />
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Men and women were standing on street corners, collecting money for the men who were about to be placed in harm's way by the Civil War. The New York Times warned in that morning's edition of the newspaper that the majority of these people were swindlers. However, maybe the new arrivals thought that their new country had many beggars, contrary to what they had been told about the wealth in America.<br />
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Volunteers for the Union Army, perhaps in uniform or perhaps in their ordinary clothes, marched along the sidewalk. Those men could have been the Wisconsin volunteers who, the Time says, arrived in New York that very day. Wisconsin was the state all of the Irsch immigrants had as their destination. Did the two groups, one at their destination as soldiers, the other on their way to be farmers in the state the soldiers had just left, meet along those very streets? Did they talk to these former countrymen?<br />
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There were boxes containing 3,600 military garments that had been made by the famous Brooks Brothers New York store on the corner of Grand and Broadway. They consisted of coats, jackets, and pantaloons.* These had been carefully folded, packed for delivery and were being loaded onto wagons and sent off that morning. The Times does not say where they were being taken. Did the immigrant group from Trier peer at the wagons, wagons that were probably very different than those they used in their former villages. Did they wonder what was in all of those boxes?<br />
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On May 10, the New York Times editorial called for three-year volunteers to be trained, especially new arrivals from a number of specific places; men who were "<i>thoroughly drilled who have seen action in Schleswig Holstein, in Baden, in Italy, in Hungary and in the Crimea. The laws of their country required the most constant drill. They are hardy and vigorous men." </i>There were immigrants from Baden on the Ship Rattler. <br />
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Prussia also had universal conscription. From what I've found in my research, many men from Prussia were probably not as desirable as U.S. soldiers. Since the Prussians considered many of them too short to wear the uniform of the Prussian emperor, Prussian peasant farmers were freed from military service if they were shorter than 5' 2".<br />
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To have your ancestors come alive. check the day they arrived in the United States in 1846 or 1873 or some other year. If you can find a local newspaper from the day of their arrival; or a story on the web from a major newspaper on the day those ancestors made their way along the streets of New York or New Orleans, or Montreal Canada. Walk with them for awhile. You will learn a lot.<br />
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*Historical men's close-fitting breeches fastened below the calf or at the foot.<br />
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<i>Sources:</i><br />
<i>New York Times, May 9 and 10</i><br />
<em style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Engels, Friedrich, <u>The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party</u>, </em></div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-25767136738712320322015-12-28T14:30:00.000-06:002015-12-29T09:32:15.399-06:00SAINT SANTA CLAUS<h1 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-top-style: none !important; color: #3e3e3e; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 35px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 40px; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 11px !important;">
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Why St. Nicholas puts candy in boots and steals our hearts</i></span></h1>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture rom <u>Deutsche Welle</u></td></tr>
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Before I left on a trip to visit the Christmas markets of Bavaria and Austria in mid-December, I had hoped to have time to finish a Christmas holiday blog post. Lacking packing organization, I got behind and had to put my good intentions aside. Therefore, this post is appearing after December 6, the feast of St. Nicholas, and is even late for Christmas. But the article in the blog I found for Germany's <i>Deutsche Welle</i> broadcasting is so much fun and so full of information that it should be spotlighted, even if read in January. There is always next year to be sure of a gift on St. Nicholas Eve and an understanding of how the saint became a kind of Santa Claus.<br />
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When I came across the above mentioned <i>Deutsche Welle</i> blog post, I was looking for information on what I should do to make sure St. Nicholas brought me something this year. Because of our mixture of cultures in the United States, we have no hard-and-fast rules for St. Nicholas Eve. My ancestry is German, and I found the answer I wanted about the Germanic customs - although too late.<br />
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I also learned what kind of receptical (shoe, boot, etc.) the generous saint fills in other European countries. The title of the wonderful <i>DW</i> article is above their blog's picture ("Why St. Nicholas puts candy in boots and steals our hearts"). The explanation is so well written that I suggest you use this URL, http://www.dw.com/en/why-st-nicholas-puts-candy-in-boots-and-stole-our-hearts/a-18889948 to read a smile-producing account of the Saint who has been awaited by children for centuries.<br />
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I wonder if St. Nicholas will forgive my blog tardiness and give me another chance to share in his generosity next year? What do you think?<br />
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-831325824273071762015-11-20T21:50:00.000-06:002017-09-12T18:34:02.594-05:00Raising a Crop of Oak Bark<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">www.webwalking.lu</td></tr>
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"She was tired by the time she reached the place where her father and brother we working. They were cutting oak trees that had been stripped of their bark. That bark was in high demand by the tanners in Saarburg. Leni always thought the trees looked naked when she saw them after the <i>Lohe</i> harvesting had taken their bark." HOUSE OF JOHANN, Chapter 13</h3>
On my first research trip in Kreis Saarburg, Ewald Meyer, the author of the book "<i>Irsch/Saar; Geschichte eines Dorf"</i> a history of Irsch, took me on several tours of that area. When we neared a small forest of oak trees, Herr Meyer made a point of telling me that there were no tall oak trees in the Irsch area because, in earlier times, the bark of the oak trees was stripped off and sold to the tanneries along the Saar River. The thought flashed through my mind but I didn't ask him how the trees managed to survive without their bark. Little by little that year, I learned that it wasn't just squirrels who needed the oak trees.<br />
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<i>Lohhecken, </i>the oark hedges that formed a forest of small trees were not a natural creation. They existed because man had formed this type of forest in a very specific way to turn it into a cash crop. In the past, portions of these oak hedges were stripped of their bark and cut to the ground. That explained how they survived without their bark. They didn't! <br />
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The bark stripping was done each year, but in different parts of the oak forest. A group of trees grew to the right size to be cut about every 20 - 30 years. The bark was carefully stripped off of the trees. It killed the tree. The underlying wood could be used for a great many needs of the villagers; either homemade items like buckets or benches or more highly finished pieces like cabinets, tables and chairs, etc. The thin branches could be used as firewood. But it was the bark that was of primary importance.<br />
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The bark was sold to one of the eight tanneries in Saarburg along the Saar River. They needed tannic acid, made from the bark of the oak trees, in the production of leather. These tanneries did a good business in the production of high quality leather, much of that leather used for the boots of the Prussian military. The farmers were paid for this bark, delivered by the load. <br />
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After the oak trees were cut, that field could be used for regular crops. In the following two years, grains were planted in the section that had been stripped of its trees. Rye was planted in the first year and harvested. In the second year, the field was used to grow buckwheat. By the third year, a new forest was beginning and the sweet broom thickets known as <i>Ginster</i> grew between the new trees.<br />
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Oak trees can put out new new growth from their stumps. Thus, the oak trees began to grow again -several new tree shoots would grow from the old root. This kind of growth went on for another 20 - 30 years. By that time, the forest looked as it had when it was cut 20 years before, leaving new stumps and also the old stump from which the new ones had sprung. There developed a thick coppice.<br />
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Oak bark was the cash crop that saw many a farmer through a bad growing year for their other crops. Since the majority of<i> Lohhecken</i> hedges were privately owned, a patchwork of small areas, all at a different age, dotted the farm lands. The plants and animals sheltered by the hedges varied depending on the size of each part of the hedge, and which plants and animals needed more sun (small trees) or heavy shade (oak ready for bark stripping).<br />
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After about 200 to 250 years, the stumps had to be removed and replaced with new oak trees, or so says the article I read to find this information. As the tanneries went out of business, the oak trees remained uncut and kept their bark, but after 100 some years, the trees are not as tall as one would expect from village forest land that is over 1,000 years old.<br />
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As Ewald Meyer said, there are no tall oak trees in the fields around Irsch. Their tree ancestors gave their lives to help our ancestors survive.<br />
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<b>Sources</b><br />
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohhecke<br />
Saarburg, Geschichte einer Stadt: Band I, Im Strom der Zeiten. Stadt Saarburg, 1991<br />
<span style="text-align: center;">https://www.webwalking.lu</span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; white-space: nowrap;">www.naturpark.org/natur-kultur/waelder/.../</span><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; white-space: nowrap;">lohhecken</b></span><br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-7336197809002269122015-09-29T21:29:00.001-05:002017-09-12T16:34:26.740-05:00The Harvest of Survival Food<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 24px; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Digging potatoes<br />
picture by dreamstime.com</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gathered cabbage<br />
picture by Burpee.com</td></tr>
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With September over, the autumn work on the farms in Kreis Saarburg in the 1800s was about to start. The successful harvest of two very important crops made the difference between a winter of sufficient food or of on-going hunger or even starvation.<br />
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The late summer months brought to an end the farmers' work in hay and grain fields. Many of those fields already were harvested and then planted for the next year. Now it is time for the autumn crops to join the hay and grains which are already stored in the barn. All ages of family members are cutting, digging, picking and gathering. The grapes hang heavy on their vines (I have been told that almost every farm in the Saar River Valley grew grapes for their own wine making), and they will be harvested. The chestnut tree catkins of the spring now have turned a strong rust red inside their spiny covers and can be gathered up for cooking or roasted as a winter treat. The nut also could be ground into a baking flour. The youngest children gathered the nuts and any fruits like plums and pears that could be dried for use in the cold months. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chestnuts</td></tr>
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Some of the hardest work of the autumn is bringing in the potato crop, a labor that calls for rugged days of digging and bending to get that year’s yield into storage in a cool dark place so that the potatoes will last for the entire winter. All the peasant farmers depended on the potatoes as a major winter food source. <br />
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In a good year sacks would stand full and thick throughout the whole field. Parents and the older children worked together in the potato field. Each worker dug the potato stock with a hoe or fork which loosened the plant from the ground. Next the potato stock was grabbed with the free hand and pulled from the earth, the potatoes mostly hanging tight to it.<br />
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Usually three baskets were used for sorting the newly dug potatoes that were pulled from the stock or picked up from the ground where they had fallen from the stock. The big, thick potatoes went into the first basket, the little ones or those that had been damaged by hoe or fork were thrown in the second basket and used as food for the pigs. The third basket held the medium sized potatoes which would be used as seed potatoes for planting in the spring. The half dry stocks of the potato plants were thrown aside to dry. Landless day workers helped with the harvest for a share of the crop of the larger farms. At noon the housewife or the grandmother prepared a noon meal. Most fields were far from their farmhouse and their meal was carried to the field for them. There was laughter and gossip to make the work more pleasant. At the end of the day, the sacks were loaded into a wagon and unloaded, usually into the cool dark cellar.<br />
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It took about three days to finish the potato harvest. When the potato stocks had dried completely some days later, the young would make a high pile ready to be burned. The roasting of potatoes once the potato stocks were burning was one of the highlights of the year for the the young. It seems to have been the equivalent of a giant marshmallow roast. They scraped the potatoes and held them on the fire with pointed sticks. The potatoes roasted to a very white delicate texture inside. They were also very hot. There were many shouts because of slightly burned mouths and fingers during the night of the big potato fires.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonfire of potato stocks</td></tr>
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In 19th century Germany and for centuries before that, cabbage played a major part in the winter food supply of peasant farmers and craftsmen. Cabbage was their only winter vegetable. The German word for cabbage is <i>Kohl</i> but in the Saarburg Kreis dialect it was and still is known as <i>Kappes</i>.<br />
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<i>Kohl/Kappes</i> is a vegetable that, like the potato, could help keep families from starvation during a long winter. This plant did not require a lot of ground space relative to the size of the head of cabbage that could be harvested from it. Like potatoes, cabbage could be kept all through the winter. Unlike potatoes though, the cabbage had to be sliced into a large barrel and made into <i>Sauerkraut, a</i> fermented cabbage.<br />
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The entire family was involved in the process of making sauerkraut. Two of the most important people in preparing sauerkraut were the cabbage cutter and the stomper. The father of the family or, at times, a migrant worker who went from house to house during cabbage season, was usually the cutter. The cutter placed a long board with a cabbage shredder embedded in the center over two stools. He sat on the board and ran the cleaned head of cabbage over the shredder. The finely cut cabbage fell into the tub placed on the floor between the stools.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Krauthobel (cabbage shredder)</td></tr>
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When the tub was filled, it was emptied into a well-cleaned barrel, and other ingredients like salt, sugar, herbs, sour apples, and herbs like dill were added. In wine producing areas like Kreis Saarburg, wine was also an important sauerkraut ingredient and made what was called <i>Weinkraut</i>. Each layer of cabbage added to the barrel was stomped, usually by young sons (or daughters) of the family whose feet and legs were washed thoroughly and then covered with stockings called <i>Krauttretensocke</i> (kraut stomping socks). When the last layer of cabbage was in the barrel and stomped, it was covered with a round piece of wood that fit tightly and it was held down by a stone. According to the recipe book, <i>Das Leibgericht</i>, (The Favorite Meal) by Hans Fischer, sauerkraut making began about November 1 and the kraut was ready to eat after about 4 weeks of fermentation.<br />
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One interesting side note. I read that in the Hunsruck area, the bridal meal had to include sauerkraut as one of the dishes served because it was considered to be lucky. It is my suspicion that the origin of this story came from necessity since most weddings were celebrated between Christmas and Lent, a time when the workload was light for all the families and when sauerkraut was the only vegetable available on the bride and groom's special day.<br />
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<b>Sources</b><br />
<i>http://paleoleap.com/eat-this-chestnuts/</i><br />
<i>Christiane Becker, Die Hunsrücker Küche</i><br />
<i>Joseph Ollinger, Geschichten und Sagen von Saar und Mosel.</i><br />
<i>Hans Fischer, Das Leibgericht.</i><br />
<i>Der Blumenbaum, April, May, June 2002</i><br />
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-24111033205101400442015-08-02T22:45:00.000-05:002015-08-06T11:08:12.626-05:00BRIDAL RIDE WITH A GUARDIAN ANGEL<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaTjIhnVbqcD6XSjC4JulD9-ASG0o9tPhFkWff-R4wGQNpymF0XC7jj_lNeqBJ_GpmNWtGEzNXqeMPiPbsWLeZmwqlJRsnsengtE7kAOdizykmN1w1jGXjSZiOgmcYk4W8WEPyA/s1600/Pastoral_Scene_with_Horse_and_Buggy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaTjIhnVbqcD6XSjC4JulD9-ASG0o9tPhFkWff-R4wGQNpymF0XC7jj_lNeqBJ_GpmNWtGEzNXqeMPiPbsWLeZmwqlJRsnsengtE7kAOdizykmN1w1jGXjSZiOgmcYk4W8WEPyA/s320/Pastoral_Scene_with_Horse_and_Buggy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The <i>Brautfahrt</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">I</span>f you’ve been reading my blog posts for awhile, you know that I am very fond of the book “<i>Die Dorfstrasse.” </i>(“The Village Street”) by Maria Croon. It is filled with vignettes about the customs in a small German village; customs that have almost completely faded away in our time. But thanks to authors like Frau Croon, we, the descendants of the people of Kreis Saarburg, can learn about the traditions, rituals, unwritten rules, and observances of our ancestors who lived in small farming villages in the 1800s and early 1900s.</div>
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Today's post is a short sketch from the chapter "<i>Die Brautfahrt</i>," one of my favorites. We are introduced to two young people, Veronica and Peter, but better known as Vron and Pitt. It is the story of a special ride before they were married but already promised to each other. <br />
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<b>Custom of the Bridal Ride and the Guardian Angel</b><br />
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As an old woman, Vron, the nickname for Veronica, works at her spinning wheel most evenings. One night her mind goes back to the time 50 years ago when she was a bride-to-be and about to go for the <i>Brautfahrt.</i> Her betrothed, Pitt, had hitched the horses to a small field-wagon and was about to help his <i>Vronchen</i> (little Vron) up to the front seat of the wagon. <br />
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Pitt's mother called to him. He must take the <i>Schutzenengel</i>, (the guardian angel), with them on the journey to protect the reputation of this still unmarried couple. The mother combed the tousled hair of Pitt's little sister, Resel. Then she walked the little sister toward the wagon and seated her on the wagon's back seat, just behind the betrothed couple. In two weeks time, Resel would be Vronchen's sister in law, but today she had the responsibility of guardian angel.<br />
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Once they were underway, Pitt showed Vronchen his land as he held the reins and pointed the short whip this way and that, and directed the horse along narrow paths that ran alongside the fields. Then they went back to the road and drove from village to village. Vronchen came from a town some distance away, and this was her first look at the place that was to be her new home.<br />
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They had just passed a small village when they saw a stand of birch trees that almost formed a trellis above them. Pitt said it was a special bridal decoration he had created especially for his Vronchen.<br />
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The next field was full of wild primroses, and the guardian angel shouted for them to stop. She wanted to gather them. She jumped from the wagon and began to collect an armload of the colorful blossoms. While she picked the flowers, her brother had his mind on other things. He begged his Vronchen to give him a <i>Schmatz </i>(I think you can guess the meaning of that word). As he teased and begged, Pitt paid little attention to holding the reins of the horse. The animal started off, leaving the little guardian angel far behind before Pitt was able to retrieve the narrow straps and control the wagon again. Little Resel ran after them, shouting for them to stop the wagon and scattering the flowers that she had gathered hither and yon. The boulders and grass along the way were now graced with the flowers that fell from her arms.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guardian angel with flowers</td></tr>
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After that excitement was over, they drove through a village noted for the shop where especially fine spinning wheels were made. The almost-bridegroom bought a well-made little spinning wheel for his bride to be and placed it in the back of the wagon next to the guardian angel.</div>
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Now it was lunch time, and they stopped at the inn where the <i>Wirtin</i> (woman innkeeper) met them at the door. She knew of the upcoming wedding and teased Pitt. How had <i>Schneiderpitt*</i> managed to find such a special young lady to be his bride? Veronica blushed bright red but said nothing. Pitt twirled his mustache and enjoyed the banter and the praise of his Vronchen. Then the <i>Wirtin</i> went to the kitchen and brought out a large goose egg. Vronchen said nothing as she stared at it in wonderment. She could think of nothing to say. The <i>Wirthin</i> told the young Veronica to put the egg in the bag she carried. Pitt explained to Vonchen that this was the custom in the town. If a person cames into the Inn and said nothing, the innkeeper must make a gift of a goose egg in order to please the guest enough to start the business transaction - the cost of either a meal or a place to stay for the night</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">goose egg</td></tr>
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Vronchen had one glass of wine, her wagon driver two or three, and because of the guardian angel's important duty, she was given only a glass of raspberry water. The innkeeper then served them a plate of bread and ham slices. The horse, Braune, gladly ate his oats before they all left for home.</div>
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As they drove toward Pitt's home where his mother and the mother of Veronica were making wedding arrangements, Resel decorated Vronchhen's new spinning wheel with the primroses she had picked; then used the rest of the flowers to make a crown for her sister-in-law to be. The movement of the wagon along the road eventually lulled the guardian angel to sleep. Pitt put one arm around Vronchen's shoulder, and they rode home watching the stars and listening to the song of a cuckoo.<br />
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Fifty years later, Vron experienced the bridal ride as if it was yesterday while she sat spinning on the little spinning wheel purchased some 50 years before.<br />
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<b>*Note for Clarifying Nicknames</b><br />
<b><br /></b>It is necessary to know that in Kreis Trier and Saarburg, generation after generation of babies were named in honor of their godparents. It was the custom. Naturally there would soon be a surfeit of boys in a village who were named Peter or Johann or Michael or Nikolaus, etc. There would also be an abundance of girls named Anna Maria or Barbara or Susanna and so forth. At first using nicknames to distinguish one child from another could solve the problem of duplicate names. But at the time Maria Croon writes about, nicknames were not definitive enough. In the case of the bridegroom Peter, his nickname Pitt was shared by many other boys. When a father called for Pitt to stop playing and come home, there was a lot of confusion about which Pitt was being summoned. One way to solve that problem was to say the surname first and then the nickname. It was necessary for the Papa to shout,”<i><b>Schneiderpitt</b></i>, come home at once; you are late for supper.”Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-75204622110830164642015-06-13T16:51:00.001-05:002015-06-14T13:33:13.232-05:00Spinnstubenfest in Kreis Saarburg<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRoFzxwFc3NIQklq7y0wEAlv0hGSStz_ePoX-Qc1I6qQwM6oJd0sV3SgjpjY6VgbTQyzqfZnLnb7gCrPCkyOroghzB59AMDUhXRmB4cAqHhwEQOACz-z83RJxnLHoQfZ78u6VS7Q/s1600/Spinning+wheel+flax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRoFzxwFc3NIQklq7y0wEAlv0hGSStz_ePoX-Qc1I6qQwM6oJd0sV3SgjpjY6VgbTQyzqfZnLnb7gCrPCkyOroghzB59AMDUhXRmB4cAqHhwEQOACz-z83RJxnLHoQfZ78u6VS7Q/s400/Spinning+wheel+flax.jpg" width="346" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">18th Century Flax Spinning Wheel </td></tr>
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In some areas of Germany, especially those close to the French border, there is a celebration known as <i>Karnival,</i> the equivalent of Mardi Gras. Now and also in the past, the week before Ash Wednesday had many special "<i>fests</i>" during the Karnival time. One of them, to the best of my knowledge, is no longer celebrated. Because of changing times and industrialization this fest is only remembered because of a narrative in memoirs or history books or examples at open air museum celebrations. This<i> Fest</i> took place on the Thursday evening before the beginning of Lent. It was known as <i>Spinnstubenfest</i> or, roughly translated, the Spinning-Wheel-<a href="http://19thcenturyrhinelandlive.blogspot.com/search?q=Stube">Stube </a>Celebration. Fortunately, Maria Croon called my attention to this festivity in her book, <u><i>Die Dorfstrass</i>e</u> (<u>The Village Street</u>). <br />
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Little is written about the many winter evenings that Kreis Saarburg women spent spinning. However, like a quilting bee in this country, the <i>Spinnstubenfest </i>could be a time for getting together with other village woman. As they worked, they talked while spinning the thread for the family's clothes, sheets, or anything else that needed weaving.<br />
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Frau Croon describes one such night that was very special. On the evening of the Thursday before Lent, called <i>Fettendonnerstag (</i>Fat Thursday), the sound of women's shoes were heard tapping on the streets in her little town as evening fell. Every woman was dressed in Sunday best from head to toe. The young women wore colored ribbons in their hair and most had shiny buckles on their shoes. Each woman carried a spinning wheel that was decorated with red and blue ribbons. The spinning wheels were freshly polished until they fairly gleamed. <i> Fettendonnerstag</i> was the time for the spinning wheel celebration, the <i>Spinnstubenfest.</i><br />
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A <i>Spinnstubenfest</i> was held in a home with a large <i>Stube</i>. It lasted at least three hours. In the first hour every Frau and Fraulein did her spinning, creating thread from wool or flax while they gossiped and told stories of current or older times. <br />
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In the second hour, the spinning wheels were put aside in another room and tables were set for coffee and eating such things as crumb cake or pear bread, made with the dried pears that were harvested in the summer. I picture them in smaller groups: the older women exchanging recipes and laughing about the foibles of their husbands and children; the young women gossiping about any new romances in the village, including their own.<br />
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As the third hour arrived, tables were pushed back against the walls, and the men, single or married, were invited to come in for dancing. Some of the men brought accordions, harmonicas or <i>Teufelgei</i>. No German dictionary in my collection or on the internet has that last word, but I will make a guess that this was a dialect word for some kind of fiddle (<i>Geiger</i>) played fast as the devil (<i>Teufel</i>). A favorite dance tune was "Herr Schmidt, Herr Schmidt, What Brings the Maiden With" (exact word order of the German)<br />
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Late that evening, when the music and dancing was over, the men "played the cavalier" and carried the spinning wheels for the ladies. While the very old and the very young slept, the rest of the village folk made their way home in the dark. The streets rang with their voices singing the old songs until one by one doors closed behind them and the streets were dark again.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-44651702661600657092015-04-23T21:22:00.000-05:002015-04-23T21:26:21.793-05:00The Farmer's Coat of Arms<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Village of Irsch, Kreis Saarburg, Hausmarken</td></tr>
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Does your family have a coat of arms? Royal families had magnificent coats of arms since the middle ages and took great pride in them. Books on Heraldry can be studied to find out if you have an ancestor with a coat of arms and your family genealogy indicates royal blood. Heraldry, according to the American Heritage Dictionary is "the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazon">blazoning</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms">arms</a> and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_of_arms">officer of arms</a>." For many years I believed that my ancestors, basically of the farming and laboring classes, would not have had a coat of arms and therefore could not be genealogically traced.<br />
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It was only after I read the best-selling book "Roots" by Alex Haley, a black man descended from slaves, that showed that no matter how unknown and poor one's ancestors might be, there were ways to trace back to earlier ancestors. People like me with peasant ancestry finally understood that there was a great difference between searching in a book about heraldry for a coat of arms or using books and old records to find the history of a family. Everyone has genealogical roots. Not too many people find that their ancestors also had a coat of arms.<br />
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However, the chart of figures above could be called the farmer's coat of arms. After tracing my ancestry to peasant farmers in the Rhineland, I was surprised that some landowning farmer did have a picture code that bore a resemblance to the heraldic coat of arms. These coats of arms were without the colorful figures used by the aristocracy--bears, stallions, tigers, crowns, jeweled swords, etc. In Kreis Saarburg, the farmers coat of arm's had nothing to do with royal blood, but everything to do with a type of land sharing known as the <i>Gehöfershaft</i>.<br />
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What is the meaning of <i>Gehöfershaft</i>? With my limited German, I still do not fully understand all the ins and outs of this complicated term which represents a manner of sharing a very large amount of land held in common. According to my research, in a <i>Gehöfershaft</i>, only small areas of land were privately owned, mostly valley meadows, which ensured the farmers a crop even in dry years. The rest of the land, especially land with hedges and oak trees was owned in common. <i>Gehöfershaft</i> is a rare word that cannot be found in German dictionaries of today or even going as far back as the last century's dictionaries. My American second cousin with whom I share Bavarian ancestry and who speaks fluent German, told me he had never heard this word and had no idea what it was. Puzzling indeed, because if you go to a <i>Kreis Saarburg</i> village and visit their museum of historic objects like tools or cooking utensils, you may also be shown (if it has survived the years) the village's <a href="http://19thcenturyrhinelandlive.blogspot.com/2005/08/visit-to-zerf-heimat-museum-conclusion_06.html"><i>Rosenkranz</i> (rosary)</a> and given an explanation of what it was. And yes, the word "<i>Gehöfershaft</i>" will be used over and over in that explanation.<br />
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However, the <i>Gehöferschaft</i> method of land sharing exists in only a few areas of Germany, including <i>Kreis</i> Trier and Saarburg and also much of the Saarland. If your ancestors, like mine, were landowning farmers in these regions where the <i>Gehöferschaft</i> land system existed, they would have a specific house mark (<i>Hausmark</i>) for the farm. The mark that identified their "<i>Haus</i>" (house and barn were in one building) was rather like the coat of arms used by royalty. It plainly meant, "this possession is mine and here is its unique symbol that proves its descent."<br />
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In his book on the history of Irsch in Kreis Saarburg, Ewald Meyer writes that a basis for the long existence of the <i>Gehöferschaft </i>land-sharing system in <i>Kreis</i> Saarburg (until almost the 20th century) might just be the lingering survival of the house marks. In 1853 there were still a multitude of house marks, 137 in Irsch alone as shown in the chart above. This means that 137 landed farmers had shares in (belonged to) the <i>Gehöferschaft.</i><br />
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Originally Gehöferschafts rights were assigned to a farmer and identified by the <i>Hausmark</i>. Research shows that these <i>Hausmark </i>identifiers are ancient kinship characters and were passed from father to oldest son. After Napoleon changed the inheritance laws when he brought <i>Kreis</i> Saarburg into the French Republic, all the children of a family now were allowed to inherit an equal share of the family's possessions. This law remained in force under Prussian rule. It also complicated the <i>Gehöfershaft/Hausmark</i> system. Originally, the shares of the <i>Gehöfer</i> land were equal in size/value. With the introduction of the French law, the <i>Gehöferschaft </i>shares had to be sized into smaller sections and it was not always possible to keep the land share sizes completely equal. Also new <i>Hausmark </i>symbols had to be created.<br />
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The <i>Hausmark</i> was not only used to show land boundaries. It was also a property mark carved or painted on possessions or branded on animals. The unique mark sometimes decorated a house's door lintel. They could be used on contracts and documents when the signers were illiterate. Most of the marks consist of rune-like images. Letters are in the minority as you can see on the<i> Gehöferschaft</i> chart of Irsch in the illustration above.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rosenkranz for the village of Schoden</td></tr>
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The <i>Gehöferschaft</i> land shared in common were allocated by drawing lots. The lot numbers were engraved on wood-drilled beads, cubes, or tablets, which could be strung on a strap of leather and tied in a circular "<i>Rosenkranz</i>" in the same way as the beads on a rosary were strung and used for prayer (<i>Rosenkranz</i> is the word for rosary). When it was time for a reallocation of the land shares, usually after about five years use by a farmer, the administrator of the <i>Gehöferschaft</i> would unstring the old <i>Rosenkranz</i>, drop the loose cubes or tablets into a hat or some other container, and the new division of land would again be drawn by lot. As each land section cube was drawn from the hat, the new <i>Hausmark</i> was added by painting over or carving away the old symbol and painting on the new <i>Hausmark.</i> Then the <i>Rosenkranz </i>was restrung. The <i>Gehöferschaft</i> community's administrator preserved the "<i>Rosenkranz</i>" until it was time for the next draw.<br />
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It was typical that any newly created house marks would show a strong resemblance to the original <i>Hausmark </i>of the family. It was usually a slight addition to the lines or characters of the first house mark in that family. Look at the each <i>Hausmark</i> in the chart above and see if you can find relationships among them. For instance, could there be a set of related family marks in row 5 where there is only one difference between square 2 and square 3. As you keep looking, you will see more possible linked house marks.<br />
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Unfortunately, emigrants lost their Hausmark when they sold their <i>Gehöferschaft</i> land before leaving for America so I don't know what the rune-like characters for the farmers Meier or Hauser or Rauls might have been. But since I come from a family of hearty eaters, I think at least one of the <i>Hausmarks</i> might have resembled No. 87 above - a fork!<br />
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Sources:<br />
Meyer, Ewald. Irsch/Saar: Geschichte eines Dorfes. 2004<br />
http://schoden.vg-hosting.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&Itemid=104<br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-49408278217301129452015-03-28T13:00:00.000-05:002015-04-01T10:20:35.625-05:00Disappearing Time<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiB1WqN2KxLvUZzDFayVMaizPkN4Nf9bdVG_oof2Bhb2KLbw8GTMY3lav3procEX5utTk3nqHSQ9Ot9PsQEh2XRoyB22jwaJP7jwnCz7nfKszjJD-mQZbrIwN1xxpHSWm2XJDe3w/s1600/Blogger+at+work+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiB1WqN2KxLvUZzDFayVMaizPkN4Nf9bdVG_oof2Bhb2KLbw8GTMY3lav3procEX5utTk3nqHSQ9Ot9PsQEh2XRoyB22jwaJP7jwnCz7nfKszjJD-mQZbrIwN1xxpHSWm2XJDe3w/s1600/Blogger+at+work+copy.jpg" height="400" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my writing corners</td></tr>
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<b>A Word of Explanation:</b><br />
During the almost 10 years that I have been writing posts for this blog, I have also been working on a novel about one family, my Rauls ancestors. Based on the genealogical and historical records I have found, and also German books on the cultural history of the farming class in the 1800s, I have let my imagination fill in the blank spaces and done my best to create living, breathing people who worked, celebrated, loved, and sorrowed in Kreis Saarburg Germany.<br />
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As I went along, I shared much of my research with you in blog post form on a monthly bias. I suspect that during the time I have been writing the posts for "Village Life in Kreis Saarburg," I have gathered enough information for a fair-sized cultural history. Sometimes I considered forgetting about the novel, especially when I was going through a period of that thing called "writer's block." However I kept going, using background from this blog for the novel which is now finished - at least in first draft form. That is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment.<br />
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However, published authors tell me that my work has just begun and I see that they are right. I am editing the draft now, approximately 400 pages, and also choosing a title. Then I will have some volunteer readers give me their opinions of what is good and what is not so good in the story I have written - and where it didn't make sense at all. (I hope there aren't too many of those parts). The novel will be published as an e-book and also in paperback - and I will be making decisions there too. <br />
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<b>This means I will be changing my blog posts somewhat.</b> My posts may become shorter and somewhat sporadic for the next few months as I struggle toward book publication (the lateness of this post shows it is already happening). But I will keep sharing any interesting information about Kreis Saarburg that all of us with German immigrant ancestry might want to know about, and I will try to keep the posts coming on a nearly monthly basis.<br /><br />I thank all of you who have been regular readers of this blog and assure you there is still lots more to know about our part of Germany.<br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-2067869711225146022015-01-30T00:04:00.001-06:002015-08-23T21:18:32.720-05:00Railroad Travel Then and Now<br />
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This year I was granted my wish to spend Christmas together with my sister and cousin. Our Christmas day was spent in an exciting location, Rouen, France. The three of us had booked a Christmas cruise on the Seine River from Paris to Rouen. During our trip, we also allowed time for a special day in Germany. We took a train to the German Christmas market in Saarbrucken, Germany. <br />
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Saarbrucken is about 300 miles from Paris. By taking the fast (200 mph) French TVG train, we could go one way in less than two hours. It was our first experience with Europe's high speed rail service, and we came away impressed by this experience. Nothing like it is readily available in the United States. We had comfort, convenience and amazing speed, all available at a reasonable price. <br />
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<b>A Train Trip in 2014</b><br />
Why am I writing a post about my Christmas vacation and trains? Because the railroads played such a major part in the emigration of all of my ancestors - and probably yours. I was traveling back along part of a train route which my great-great grandparents also traveled as they left Europe for a new life in Wisconsin. I was returning to their former homeland area - and in great comfort. I had no luggage to carry and barely felt the motion from the train wheels which seemed to almost ride above the rails. It was as easy to walk down an aisle of the train as it had been to walk down the aisle flying to Paris in perfect weather. The return trip to Paris again took less than two hours. We sat relaxed in well-padded, adjustable seats and also had a table to hold our snacks and drinks. Some other passengers used their tables for laptops or to play cards. In what seemed like no time at all we were back in the Paris train station.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early passenger train</td></tr>
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<b>A Train Trip in the 19th Century</b><br />
This was not the way my 2nd great grandparents, Johann and Magdalena Meier, made the trip by train. Almost certainly they had brought a large trunk with them, and I'm guessing that they carried sacks or baskets filled with necessities such as food to be eaten during the trip. They had to keep track of four children ages 10 years to 18 months. The train was coal fed, and I have read that the locomotives belched coal smoke back into the passenger cars. The seats were of wood and every movement of the train on the track could be felt, rocking their bodies and even landing them on the floor if the train had to come to an unanticipated stop. Still, the train that carried them was as impressive to them as was the one on which the three of us traveled last month.</div>
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Some train history: By March 1861, my ancestors' emigration month, the railroads already were crisscrossing Germany. In 1852, the completion of a rail line from Forbach (very near Saarbrucken) to Paris made it much easier for emigrants from parts of Bavaria, southern Germany, and Switzerland to reach the French port of Le Havre by rail.<br />
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On May 25, 1860, the railroad line connecting Trier with Saarbrucken was officially opened, reaching as far as Forbach. The emigrants from the Trier/Saarburg area could, for the first time, get to the port of Le Havre in France entirely by rail. Prior to that time, the usual route was by land and barge to Antwerp. The difficulty of traveling to America obviously started long before the emigrants set sail on the ocean. By the time they reached their port of emigration in Le Havre, Johann and Magdalena Meier and their four young children had ridden on three different but intersecting rail lines: Saarburg to Forbach line, Forbach to Paris line, and Paris to Le Havre line. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gare de l'Est, 20 December 2015<br />
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Gare Saint Lazare by Monet, 1877</td></tr>
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The transfer between the train from Forbach to Paris and then from Paris to Le Havre was the most intimidating. The emigrants had to navigate the city streets of Paris. Travelers from Forbach arrived at the Gare de l'Est station. However that was only one of several railroad stations in the city. To this day Paris has no central rail station. Even in our age of high speed rail travel, passengers who arrive at Gare de l'Est (the station for trains to and from the east) trundle their luggage from the Gare de l'Est to Gare Saint Lazare in order to get to the train that will take them to their vacation spot on the Normandy coast. <br />
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Johann and Magdalena and emigrants like them had to have some means to get their trunks and other possessions (including children) through the Paris streets to that second railroad station. I have not found any information on how that process was actually handled. The most likely scenario I can imagine would be that the emigrants had to pay to hire a wagon to take their trunks for them. Did they know about this difficulty when they bought their train tickets? I have not found such information.<br />
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Most of the emigrants arriving in Paris had never been in such a huge city. They must have gazed in awe at the Paris of 1861, which was still being reconstructed into the Paris of today using the dramatic plan of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges-Eug%C3%A8ne_Haussmann">Georges-Eugène Haussmann</a> who was tearing down much of old Paris with the permission of Emperor Napoleon III. Some emigrants probably traveled through a construction zone of some kind. Upon finding the Gare Saint Lazare, another trip of approximately five hours awaited them before Le Havre harbor was reached.<br />
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It took my sister, cousin, and me one hour and 50 minutes to travel from Paris to Saarbrucken. A very rough estimate of the time it took my ancestors to complete that same part of that trip is about 10 hours of actual time when the train was moving and not stopped in a station. How many stops were involved could change that calculation considerably. A second estimate of their total time from Saarburg to Le Havre, using my less-than-ideal manner of calculating, would be at least 18 hours and does not take into consideration any time spent waiting for the next train connection or crossing a part of the city of Paris. <br />
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The French website developed by the <a href="http://www.trielmemoirehistoire.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157:le-chemin-de-fer-dargenteuil-a-mantes-premiere-partie-naissance-dun-projet&catid=18:sur-lhistoire-locale-et-trielloise&Itemid=25" target="_blank">Historical Association of Triel</a> has a chart that shows a train schedule from Paris to Le Havre in 1849 and a multitude of stops. Another quote from the website: "The advent of the railway in the early nineteenth century has revolutionized communications between people by reducing an unimaginable journey time. For example, to get from Paris to Le Havre, it took more than 30 hours in 1814 and only 5 hours by train forty years later."<br />
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It just goes to show that the term "high speed" is in the mind of the one who experiences it, whether traveling in 1849 or in 2014.<br />
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<i>Sources:</i><br />
<i>Mergen, Josef, DIE AUSWANDERUNGEN AUS DEN EHEMALS PREUSSISCHEN TEILEN DES SAARLANDES IM 19. JAHRHUNDERT.</i><br />
<i>Hammaecher, Klaus, SERRIG: LANDSCHAFT, GESCHICHTE & GESCHICHTEN, Saarburger Satz & Druck GmbH, Saarburg, 2002)</i><br />
<i>HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF TRIEL Website</i><br />
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<br />Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-62309184555814787352014-12-12T10:59:00.000-06:002014-12-12T10:59:49.922-06:00Christkind Decorates the Christmas Tree <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Christkind Brings the Ice Apples to decorate the Christmas Tree</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wreath made with ice apples (Eisapëfl)</td></tr>
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I've written on a Christmas topic ever since I began my blog posts. There are things that I am rather unsure about, especially the arrival of the Christmas tree in my ancestors' homes. It is almost like searching a genealogy. Just where was the original Christmas tree conceived and, over the centuries, when did that tree's descendants move to other countries, then cross the oceans and emigrate from Germany to the rest if the world? Progress equals brick wall - I still have no idea if my great-great grandparents had a Christmas tree in the years before they emigrated. I like to think they did.<br />
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Some sources say that the Christmas tree developed from a pagan tradition which was adopted by Christians as a holy symbol. The custom does seem to have started in northern Germany and then spread south, having been a matter of contention between Lutherans and Catholics for a time. That's not very specific, is it.<br />
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This year the book, "Inventing the Christmas Tree" came to my attention. It didn't solve the puzzle for me, but I have chosen a few interesting facts about the Christmas tree and its decoration, although I'm no closer to knowing the exact date of the Christmas tree custom in <i>Kreis Saarburg</i>.<br />
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<b>The Tree</b><br />
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Many of thee common folk, I read, had no separate parlor room for a Christmas tree and in 17th and 18th century many hung the tree from the rafters although it was hard to light the candles if the tree was hung upside down. This custom seems to have originated in Slavic countries, such as Poland.<br />
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For those Christmas trees that that were placed on the floor, a tree stand of some kind was needed. Some of the methods used for this were: a wooden cross painted green or covered with moss or stones where a hole had been drilled into the center of the cross pieces, a stool with a hole in it, a tub of water or a bucket with wet sand, In times of adversity. Some wedged the trunk into the hub of a cartwheel or cut a rutabaga in half and drilled a hole to accommodate the tree. In the 1860s, cast iron stands became more common, shaped to resemble gnarled roots.</div>
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<b>Decorating the Tree </b><br />
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According to a story from the Lorraine region of France, a variety of apple is cultivated in France in the Alsace and Lorraine regions as well as in the Rhineland area of my ancestors. It is known as the Christ's apple (<i>Christapfel</i>) or ice apple (<i>Eisapfel</i>), and this fruit traditionally was used to decorate the Christmas tree since it was red and lasted well through the winter.<br />
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In 1858 a drought in the Alsace region caused the ice apple harvest to be lost. The famous glass blowers of the 18th and 19th century from <i>Meisenthal</i> in Lorraine took the opportunity to make red glass spheres of the same size that could be used on a tree instead of the apples.<br />
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It is also possible that the origin of such ornaments can be found in the Thuringian forest. There the craft of blown glass can be traced to the beginning of the seventeenth century, when immigrants from Bohemia built their first huts."<br />
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<b>The Red Eisapfe</b>l<br />
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Origin: very old, widespread apple type from Germany<br />
Other names: Heart apple, Christ apple, ice apple, red warrior<br />
Uses: Eating, cooking, dried.<br />
Fruit: Midsize to large, color gold-green, turning a dark red if left on the tree long enough. </div>
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The taste is sweet as the apple ripens from October to January </div>
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Whether you have a fresh tree covered in red glass balls or some other beloved decoration in your home this year, it is my wish that your Christmas is as filled with pleasure as those of old when the <i>Christkind</i> brought the Christmas tree and decorated it with red apples.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sources:</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Inventing the Christmas Tree by Bernd Brunner, 2011<br />Christmas in Alsace by Jean-Claude Colin and photos by Christophe Hamm<br /> www.oekopark-hertelsleite.de/wiese.htm</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Pictures</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Christmas in Alsace by Jean-Claude Colin and photos by Christophe Hamm<br />http://blackrainbownihon.blogspot.com</span></div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-3002100199401178162014-11-12T14:02:00.001-06:002014-11-12T22:53:17.320-06:00The Pig Herder<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bremen square gives a tribute to the pig herder</td></tr>
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To try to hang on to my German vocabulary when I haven't had a chance to speak it or review a practice tape for some time, I picked up a book that is at least somewhat close to my reading level, <u><i>Geschichten und Sagen von Saar und Mosel</i></u> by Josef Ollinger. Once again, I learned something new and I wanted to share it with you.<br />
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The chapter I chose to read was full of facts about a job that Olinger says was considered one of the four most useful occupations in any Rhineland village. This is the order of their worth: Pastor, teacher, mayor, <b>herder</b>. The first three did not surprise me, but I had not known that a sheep, pig, goat or cow herder held such an important post. If you discovered that your ancestor was a pig herder, you might make the mistake of thinking his was a lowly position. To the contrary, herders were valuable and respected for what they did. They were the farmers' insurance that their animals were cared for in a way that assured these assets would thrive. All of them depended on the herders to find good foraging spots for their animals and guarded them from any form of danger. So important were these herders that they were entitled to special rent-free dwellings, "<i>Hertenhaüsern</i>" (herder houses), for themselves and their families. They were also provided with a small piece of land for a garden.<br />
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In the 19th century, especially the first half, all but very tiny villages had a herder for each kind of animal. Hence the occupation "sheep herder, goat herder, cow herder, pig herder" can be found in the pages of church baptismal records which usually list the occupation of the father of a newly baptized child. The occupation of herder was one that was often passed from father to son.<br />
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The work of the herder was seasonal. It was not unusual for the village teacher to take over the job of herder when school ended in March and the children went to work in the fields. The herder of pigs might supplement his income by doing the fall slaughtering for farmers who had raised a pig for a winter supply of smoked ham and sausage. For this service, the herder received a piece of the meat from each pig he slaughtered. <br />
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Many of the herders were gone by the late 1800s, choosing to migrate to the industries in nearby cities. But in the little town of Tunsdorf, which is in Saargau area near Kreis Saarburg, Nikolaus Adler, the son of the former pig herder, kept his job until 1959, when he retired. He felt great pride in the work he had done, especially because, in all the years he worked, he had never lost a pig.<br />
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Each year Adler started his work as a herder on March 17, the feast of St. Gertrude, called St. Gertraud in most of Germany. This saint's' feast day was often associated with the coming of spring. Some examples of Gertraud lore: "A sunny Gertraud's day will bring the farmer happiness. If Gertraud's day is sunny, it is the gardener's delight. If it freezes on the Gertraud day, the land will need 40 more days to warm it enough for planting. If it freezes on Gertraud's day, all summer will be cool." St. Gertraud's day somewhat resembles groundhog day in U.S. <br />
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In his book, Josef Olinger described this last herder of Tunsdorf as a daily presence, walking the village road with a horn he tied around his neck with a piece of rope. There were three different notes that he blew. One was used to signal the pigs to come out to him. At that horn note, pigs left their pens without coaxing and came through the farm yard into the road. From one end of the village to the other, new pigs joined those which had been called out earlier. If a farmer neglected to open their stall, his pigs would push and might break the pen's latch at the sound of that horn call. A different horn note alerted the farmers whose pigs were still in the stable. They knew it was time to open the pen latch rather than risk a broken stall. The third note was one that seemed to calm the pigs as they walked, assuring them that the herder was looking out for their well being.<br />
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Male pigs and boars did not leave their pens. They were fed a diet of table scraps and garden root vegetables, fattened as much as possible for the slaughter in the fall. The sows and the young pigs ate from the meadows and woodlands. They could use their snouts to dig for food in the fields chosen by the herder. There was enough vegetation to sustain them during the summer months. A successful herder like Nikolaus Adler knew the best places for forage. On hot days, he would look for a spot in the shade to keep the pigs tender skin from the burning sun. He would try to get permission from the village forester who protected the government's woodland to allow the pigs to search for acorns and beechnuts that had dropped to the ground, a gourmet treat that the pigs loved.<br />
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Since pigs are not easy to keep together in a herd, Adler had two dogs that helped him round up a sow or young pig that went astray. His dogs were rough mongrel types but devoted to their master and to the job for which he had trained them. Even a huge sow with formidable strength did not deter the dogs. One sharp bite to a sow's rump or leg, and the animal hurried to regain the safety of the herd.<br />
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In the evening, the herder brought the pigs back to their pens. The older pigs recognized the barn and stable which they had left that morning and trotted to it willingly without any help from the herder. The very young pigs sometimes wanted to stray into the wrong farmer's pen. Nikolaus Adler knew his pigs so well that there was never any mixup. If a piglet strayed in the wrong direction, Adler would call to his dog, "Kastor, get me the little one" and the dog would sort the piglet out and bring it back for delivery to the proper barn. The number of pigs grew smaller until each was back in the pen where it belonged.<br />
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On <i>Fetten Donnerstag, (</i>Fat Thursday), which was the Thursday before the beginning of Lent, Nikolaus Adler was paid, mostly in foodstuffs like meat, grain, sausage, and lard. Each house that paid him also served him a glass of Schnaps. I can only assume that the herder had a significant hangover, perhaps lasting until Ash Wednesday.<br />
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Photo: http://shannon313.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/img_3287.jpg</div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-18411107405914240812014-10-07T22:59:00.001-05:002015-08-11T22:33:58.314-05:00Surprising Village Residents<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johann Nepomuk<br />
Government Worker</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Regine Braconnier<br />
Photo from Kommern Open Air Museum Website</td></tr>
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The open air Museum in Kommern, with its costumed interpreters, allows one to step back into the lives of ancestors who lived in the northern part of the Rhineland. While the farm buildings are somewhat different from those in Kreis Saarburg in the lower Rhineland, many of the customs and living conditions would be very similar to those of the people of Kreis Saarburg's villages and small cities. </div>
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In addition to interpreters who take on the identity of farmers, craftsmen, day laborers, etc., three of the historical figures described in detail on the museum's website were such interesting inhabitants of the area that I have translated their stories to share them you. The interpreters at the museum dress in the costume of their time as you can see in the two pictures above. </div>
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<b>The Government Man</b><br />
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Johann Nepomuk lived in Schwerz, a village in the upper Rhineland. He was a government worker commissioned by the Prussian government in 1816 to describe the agriculture of the Rhineland. For this purpose he spent three years creating records of Rhenish lands, coming in contact with many people and documenting the land they owned and the outlook for agriculture in a part of Prussia far removed from Berlin. At the open-air museum, visitors can look over his shoulder as he works with maps and writes down his observations about the farms for his reports to Berlin.<br />
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The actor who plays Nepomuk says, "It is exciting to see how we make a journey into history possible." The young and the old can observe the clothing of that time or watch a letter being written by the writing instruments of the past, using a font that some of the oldest visitors still know from their school days and that the young ones have never seen. They "can touch history."<br />
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<b>The Upper Middle Class <i>Frau</i></b><br />
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In 1892 Sybilla Schmitz was living in Poppelsdorf near Bonn, and her story is interpreted for visitors by a woman dressed as a visitor just arrived in her home village. Sybilla was born in 1833 in Ruppenrod in the Westerwald, the daughter of wealthy farmer and mayor August Mungenast. In 1847 she moved to Bonn to live with her godmother, whose husband "had achieved something." As a trained cabinetmaker he ran a thriving furniture manufacturing business. In Bonn Sybilla attended a girls' school where she received lessons in music, handicrafts, painting and French. There she met her future husband Hermann, who worked as an administrative lawyer at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University and later held a senior position in the direction of the Agricultural Academy in Poppelsdorf. Thanks to the elevated position of her husband, Sybilla Schmitz lived in a spacious house with front garden and there was a servant to take care of the house and its cleaning. Ladies of the house in those circumstances had spare time, and this was the case for Sybilla. She had activities like a Reading Society weekday visits to her friends, and opportunities to travel.<br />
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The invention of modern transport such as horse-drawn trams and the steam train made it easier for people of Sybilla's class to travel longer distances. It was possible to visit her family in Ruppenrod, the village of her birth and perhaps stay for a few days.<br />
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<i> <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The Traveling Trader and Mousetrap Maker</span></b></i><br />
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Regine (Jien) Michels was born in 1833, the daughter of a poor farmer in Kirchweiler in the Eifel. It was a place that was shrinking, partly on account of the bad harvests from 1843 to 1845. In 1858, Regine married Hans Braconnier, a trader, who owned a farm in Neroth which was only 5 5 kilometers away. Like almost all others in Neroth. Braconnier, in addition to his farm needed a trade route to survive. A third pursuit to earn money was the production and sale of mousetraps.<br />
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For Regine this marriage with Hans was an economic improvement. The butter and eggs which the farm produced earned money for the couple or could be exchanged for other goods. Regine ran the farm while her husband was working his trading route and with the additional money, they were able to buy sheep, lease some more land, and send their sons Robert and Francis to school. With the help of her mother, sister and the Braconnier children, Regine was able to keep making the mousetraps when her husband was traveling, sending them to him in the mail. In 1872 Hans Braconnier had increasing discomfort in his knees, so that Regine had to become the traveling trader for the family. She enjoyed the change and tells visitors, (through the interpreter who plays her role at the Kommern museum), "Working as a peddler, I made money and saw something of the world!"<br />
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When any one of these three people entered a farming village to visit it, children probably stared and followed after them. For their parents, it made for a bit of excitement in their long day. For this blog, it adds one more lively view of the colorful Rhineland village life.<br />
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http://www.kommern.lvr.de/de/im_museum_unterwegs/menschen/menschen_1.html</div>
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-39968534724650976502014-08-31T00:14:00.000-05:002014-09-01T09:43:22.077-05:00 From Moselle to the Port of Le Havre <i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">
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<i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some time ago, I wrote, with a great deal of help from my sister Marilyn, a blog post about the port of Le Havre. She has an excellent command of the French language and was willing to do some research for me using French sources. That post has proved to be one of the most popular posts I have ever written. For those of us focused on finding out about the lives of our Rhineland, Bavarian, or Swiss emigrant ancestors, Le Havre is obviously a much more important emigration port than the usual genealogy texts or expert speakers at German genealogical conferences recognize. </span></span></i></i></i></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />My sister, to help me with research for my novel, compiled and translated some other information on Le Havre-related subjects. These articles are in my files but also translated in full on her own blog, "<a href="http://www.californieenfrancais.blogspot.com/">Californie en français</a>." Since you may not have found them there, let me give you a summary of one of them. I think that after I whet your appetite for further details, you will want to read the full article (right column, bottom of column) written by two descendants of an emigrant family from the French </span></span></i></i></i></span></i></i></i><i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Department of Moselle in the Lorraine (Lothringen) region of France. It is called "Leaving for America" by Philippe and Giles Houdry. </span></span></i></i></i></span></i></i></i><br />
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<i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Thanks to <a href="http://www.eupedia.com/france/moselle.shtml%20(description%20of%20the%20Moselle)">Europedia,</a> I learned that the Moselle is a department of the Lorraine region, and owes its name to the river of the same name. Moselle has a population of 1,024,000 inhabitants, and is divided into nine administrative districts (Arrondissements in French) for a total of 51 Cantons and 730 municipalities. It borders (clockwise from the North) the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, as well as the French departments of the Bas-Rhin, and Meurthe-et-Moselle. This area, with its combination of residents with French or German ancestry - sometimes both - still today speak a language that is a close cousin of Luxembourgish, especially in the northern part of the Moselle. <br /><br />The Houdrys write that Pierre BREM and his family emigrated to New York, in the United States of America. These were ancestors of the Houdrys. Pierre and his wife Elisabeth (Boutter) Brem and their children, came from their village of Hargarten-aux-Mines. This zone in the north of Lorraine was German-speaking. The notaries of the region would record their documents in French which was the official language, and they were also required to indicate that said documents had been read in German by both the participants and witnesses.<br /><br />The Houdry article goes on to spell out the many reasons why so many people, including those from the Moselle, emigrated to America. It is an excellent list. What the Germans called America letters; that is, the letters from friends and relatives already in America, exerted influence in the Moselle as well. America was considered as a country of liberty and of democracy, where the recognition of the individual was based on his competence and not his birth, things which many in the Moselle felt was not true of their homeland.<br /><br />Pierre BREM left in 1844 to scout the United States, leaving his family in safety at Hargarten-aux-Mines. In 1846, Elisabeth and her two children, Anne Marie and Michel, left from Le Havre to join him. On that occasion that Elisabeth received power of attorney from her husband, sent from New York, to sell their possessions and thereby pay the voyage for the three of them. The sale occurred in Hargarten-aux-Mines, in the family house itself, the 13 March 1846. Piere Brem must have had great confidence in his wife who had a difficult road ahead of her, both in their selling the possessions which were still in the village of Hargarten-aux-Mines and in making the trip to Le Havre with two young children. Not only did she have to sell all of their land and personal property, converting everything into the money to take with her; she also had to obtain two passports; one for permission to leave France for America and another to allow her to move freely from her own Canton to any others she might cross in and out of on her trip to Le Havre. Making arrangements for the trip with some kind of travel company or service also was required. <br /><br />The majority of immigrants made the voyage in wagons up to the port of embarkation at Le Havre. The Houdry's conjecture is that Pierre in 1844 and Elisabeth and the two children in 1846, would certainly have traveled to the coast by wagon so as not to waste the precious savings scraped together in Lorraine. It is also likely, as is often the case, that they would have joined a convoy of other Lorraine emigrants, which made the trip much safer, especially for a woman with two children and no husband. In addition to the safety factor, it also maintained a familiar environment in foreign surroundings. On bad roads, the convoys moved slowly. For a trip of approximately three weeks, most travelers would have placed canvas or sail-cloth over the arches of the wagons to protect the passengers from bad weather and to more comfortably spend the night. What did the wagon look like? The wagon picture above, taken at the German open-air museum in Roscheid, would be very similar. With more than one such wagon, the travelers would have resembled Hollywood movies about wagon trains headed west. <br /><br />The wagon trip from Moselle to Le Havre took about 3 weeks. The railroad line Metz-Nancy did not open until 1850, that of Nancy-Paris not until 1852. The line Paris-Le Havre itself was only slightly older; it opened in 1847. <br /><br />Many of the emigrants, when they reached the port, especially before 1850, were not able to embark right away. In bad weather, the ships were clustered close alongside and prevented from departing because of the direction of the winds. Sometimes it was necessary to wait for the arrival of the ship. The travelers often had to stay one or more weeks in one of the auberges of the city. The money that Elizabeth carried with her could have easily been depleted by the need to eat, to buy provisions for the long ocean voyage, and to pay for shelter in an auberge/Gasthaus until the day of departure. <br /><br />The auberges, especially those which were cheapest, gave a foretaste of the steerage section where the emigrants were going to huddle during the roughly one-and-a-half-month length of the crossing. <br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></i></span></span></span></i></i></i></span></i></i></i></div>
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-66594331559239707872014-07-31T23:14:00.000-05:002014-08-12T10:58:22.323-05:00Biedermeyer Style for Saarburg's Middle Class<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Invention of Simplicity (Public Domaine)</span></td></tr>
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This is an unusual subject for my blog which usually has focused on peasant life. However not every person in Kreis Saarburg was part of the peasantry or lower classes, In Saarburg, the largest city of the Kreis, there were houses designed for the upper and middle classes, like Nikolaus Valdenaire who had both an estate near Konz and a fine home in Saarburg called the Kuno Tower. These upper and middle classes interacted with the lower classes - buying their produce, hiring their children as servants and the adults as workers in the taneries or the bell factory, to name a few. To the people of the surrounding villages, Saarburg was an extraordinary place. This was where people who did not have to struggle just to feed their family lived in houses that seemed like palaces. Here you would find the doctors, the chemists, the government officials, the owners of factories. Their homes would be far different than the little farmhouses most of our own ancestors lived in, but they would also be nothing like the fine interiors of the dwellings of the nobles in cities like Bonn or Cologne. </div>
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In Germany and Austria, the 19th Century saw the development of what is often called the Biedermeier period. It was the time when the middle class began to grow and gain importance. These were the years that started with Prussian rule in areas formerly French or independent city states. It faded after the German revolution of 1848. This Biedermeier period influenced literature, music, and visual arts but especially interior design. The middle class enjoyed this humorous character, Biedermeier, in a period of strict government control. "Papa Biedermeier," a worthy, bourgeois-minded fellow was a humorous character featured in a running series of verses written by a country doctor and a lawyer. Gradually the name Biedermeyer came to represent the period when artists of all kinds, including architects and talented craftsmen, moved toward simplicity and moderation in their work. It was a mood rather than a strict period of time, says an article from Wikipedia. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A Biedermeier style room for coffee or card playing</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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Compared with the Empire furniture style of the nobility before and during the time of Napoleon, the rising middle class chose a new direction. The furniture used a style that emphasized the grain of the wood rather than having elaborate carving and curlicues. Pale woods like pear, birch or cherry woods were preferred over the darker woods like mahogany. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGVuqAIKLOjRoKtRS39b86TM1je30MTsjAiDMFA3McS7GymaVapl0aJDVlRacsgSBvv-L_sPzJVgVyAccbhME0KZqNbuAfwVcQqysTxkwXRW1Vh9dBIl6IN7tyL2Tbfhm7_-CeQ/s1600/German+Sitting+Rm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGVuqAIKLOjRoKtRS39b86TM1je30MTsjAiDMFA3McS7GymaVapl0aJDVlRacsgSBvv-L_sPzJVgVyAccbhME0KZqNbuAfwVcQqysTxkwXRW1Vh9dBIl6IN7tyL2Tbfhm7_-CeQ/s1600/German+Sitting+Rm.jpg" height="275" width="400" /></a></div>
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The comparative emptiness of furniture in this room is also typical of the middle-class Biedermeier style although sometimes there was imitation of the costly techniques that were used for the furniture and floors of the upper class. Expensive inlay work, for instance, could be imitated very easily by using a stencil of the pattern to stain floors or furniture.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This library table's legs have a somewhat extreme curve</span></td></tr>
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The Biedermeyer period can be applied to many fields - literature, music, and visual arts. A library where books could be kept and read by members of a middle class family tended toward the writings of the Biedermeyer writers. Biedermeier designs were simplified forms of the French Empire, Directoire and some 18th-century English styles, and were often elegant in their utilitarian simplicity. Chairs and sofas show curved lines, frequently graceful, but sometimes exaggerated into swellings and contortions. Light-colored native fruitwoods were once again used in this library, with contrasting bands of black lacquer which often effectively substituted for the costly ebony of Empire pieces. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lamp and artwork are 21st century Biedermeier</td></tr>
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Biedermeier designs could be quite simple. At their best, cabinets and other large pieces were handsome and severe in line and surface.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9SpZwHaKfL-4woeBr8LfKYJhjCQgNzMURFuZLyv7emztdFs43NQ1zVbgBnKjViCJZmI0jKpQkR7T6o0o5lKNRZ8YAk8fNhDVpU5E02bTdnZwcJZQAFhJLwcRcv3puefHneniMgg/s1600/bedroom+Katharina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9SpZwHaKfL-4woeBr8LfKYJhjCQgNzMURFuZLyv7emztdFs43NQ1zVbgBnKjViCJZmI0jKpQkR7T6o0o5lKNRZ8YAk8fNhDVpU5E02bTdnZwcJZQAFhJLwcRcv3puefHneniMgg/s1600/bedroom+Katharina.jpg" height="400" width="288" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The typical Biedermeier high bedposts are imitated in this modern day design</span></td></tr>
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I am certain that my Kreis Saarburg ancestors never lived in a house furnished in the Biedermeier style. But since middle class families often had enough money for servants, my 2nd great grandmother or one of her sisters or one of your ancestors could have worked in a Biedermeier dwelling for the time before their marriage, helping them to afford to buy more modestly made chests and cabinets filled with the things needed for their simple dowry. They would have dusted and polished the Biedermeier curves of the pear wood furniture, the like of which they knew they would never own.</div>
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<i>Sources:</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">"Biedermeier." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2013.<br />Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof Konz Museum Guide.<br />http://www.classicaladdiction.com/2011/06/biedermeier-yesterday-and-today/<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier</span></div>
Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-16001182646815901242014-06-30T19:33:00.000-05:002014-07-19T11:45:31.054-05:00The Family Table<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQfZD-VPK-Rdm_9VDG7WsSgLWIn6iVZsSjfM7tUBOI3leYC1hXUWVlefUnodp7G8pGKb5iIHGL74gWWS1s_3Jr5Wi22bCQrBSf7LwyILfVuv-_GyDEXcIklW7bsBSddjTBNXboA/s1600/German+garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQfZD-VPK-Rdm_9VDG7WsSgLWIn6iVZsSjfM7tUBOI3leYC1hXUWVlefUnodp7G8pGKb5iIHGL74gWWS1s_3Jr5Wi22bCQrBSf7LwyILfVuv-_GyDEXcIklW7bsBSddjTBNXboA/s1600/German+garden.jpg" height="166" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hunsruck garden at Roscheider Hof Open Air Museum</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://germanfoods.org/?s=dibbelabbes&submit=Search">Dibbelabbes</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quark</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauseohr Plant</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leckschmier</td></tr>
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When I decided to write a novel about peasant life in a small village in the Saarburg region, I didn't expect to have trouble describing food. It didn't occur to me that I would have to figure out what might be on the table for each meal of the day and how it was prepared. What did the cupboards, pots and kettles hold? As it turned out, preparing the daily meals was one of the most difficult of daily tasks about which to find information. Recipes were an oral process, passed on from generation to generation. Although I grew up on a small dairy farm, conditions in the United States in the 1950s bore little similariety to those in 1850 Kreis Saarburg, the year my ancestors lived on their farms. There was meat on our table almost every day, there were recipe books, there were grocery stores, and our garden was just a few steps from the back door.</div>
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How different it was for our ancestors. <b>Meat,</b> so much a part of our daily diet was a rarity for the peasant farmer. It was seldom seen when the family sat down to their daily meal. For the <i>Kleinbauer</i> (small farmer) and <i>Taglohner</i> (day worker), there would only be such a luxury on very special holidays such as Christmas and Easter. For the farmer who was a bit better off, meat might be eaten on other holidays or for an important celebration such as a wedding or a reunion of more distant relatives. Pork or goose was usually served on those occasions - any leftover meat could be chopped and added to dishes that were usually meatless.<br />
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Other than holidays and weddings, what was on the table on ordinary days? As one book put it "It was the duty of the married woman to take care of the house, to look after the children, to help with work in the field, to <b>milk</b> the cow and feed the small animals each day. In addition she was responsible for putting three meals a day on the table for the hungry mouths of her family. This could be the most difficult obligation of all, especially because most farms were small, the farmers poor, and crop failures common." How did the <i>Hausfrau </i>manage to feed a hungry, hardworking family?<br />
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Even though meat was rarely seen on the table, animals provided food in other ways. Geese might end up in roasting pans at Christmas; but before that happened, they produced <b>eggs</b> for main dishes when cooked, one of the ingredients in a kettle with many other parts or in a dough to be baked, when raw.<br />
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Peasant farmers with land of their own would own one or more cows since farmers rarely had horses for field work. They used their cows as draft animals to pull wagons and plows. At the same time, the cows provided valuable food while working the fields. There was <b>milk</b> for the cooking kettle, baking pan and the drinking mug. (Bit of trivia - in Germany mugs used for daily meals had no handles until the late 1800s). Given their use as draft animals to pull plows and wagons, a cow's milk production would be much more limited than the dairy cows of today's farmer, but even so, milk was one of the most valuable of foods. Cow's milk provided a nutritious drink, cream for baking, or was mixed with vinegar and sugar (honey was the poor man's sugar) and used as a dressing for fresh greens. What was left after a day's use became a homemade <b>cheese</b>.<br />
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In the book "<i>Essens-Zeiten</i>" which can be translated as "Of EatingTimes," one hundred years of table scenes are pictured and explained. In the text for one of those pictures I found several paragraphs that summarize the work of a peasant woman who was also responsible for growing, gathering, preserving and preparing the food from the <b>garden</b> as well as knowing how to supplement it with wild greens and berries from the woodlands and fruit from the trees of the village apple orchard or the plum, pear, and peach trees that were part of some farms. The mild climate also meant that grape vines grew easily.<br />
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The <b>garden</b> was the place where the farmer's family turned in good times and bad. Field harvest times when the wife's help was needed in the fields was also the time that the produce of the garden was ripening. The children and those older relatives who no longer could labor in the farm fields were still able to work in the garden and teach the younger children how to plant, hoe, weed, and gather produce. Often the elderly grandmother and grandfather, with the help of the children, were responsible for the majority of the garden work.<br />
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Contrary to my American perception, the <i>Krei</i>s Saarburg gardens were not always close to the barnhouse. It might be a mile or more walk to care for and gather this food. Getting to and from the garden took time away from the other work that had to be done. Those lucky enough to have their garden on the barnhouse property would place it on the sunny side of the house. A good location was a matter of concern. The first land that a day worker or craftsman would buy, when he earned enough money to own a piece property, was chosen with the understanding that there must be a good place for a garden which would hold plants that could be wintered: <b>cabbage, bush beans, turnips, carrots, onions, leeks, peas, and lentils</b>. Every little corner of the garden was used. Potatoes were not planted in the garden; they were a field crop, feeding both humans and animals.<br />
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The planting and harvesting of <b>root vegetables</b> from the garden saved many families during famine years. In 1790, according to one writer of the time, in Germany the potato was eaten every day in some kind of recipe. Even the poor had their daily potatoes, some with a bit of meat and most without. <i>Steckruben</i> or <b>turnips</b> were another staple, especially in the <i>Eifel region</i> of the Rhineland. In the book "<i>Essens Zeiten</i> which I mentioned above, an elderly resident says "Oh my, turnips, always turnips" for the meals. Often all the peasants had to sustain them were potatoes or turnips. Soup was made with some flour, water, broth, and salt. Other root vegetables that saw families through harsh winters were <b>beets,</b> and <b>carrots</b>.<br />
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<b>Herbs</b> for seasoning and healing plants were common in the gardens. Even though space for growing food was of primary importance, most village families understood that ornamental plants like wallflowers, pansies, larkspur and field roses should be planted for the color and happiness they brought and planted those as well to have something for the soul.<br />
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Although it may seem that our ancestors in the Rhineland area had very poor nutrition, they did their best to vary their diets when spring and summer arrived. After a long winter of only root vegetables, it must have been a delight for them to have <b>freshly picked food</b> on the table. There were just-gathered vegetables, greens, and fruit in those summer months. It seems they were also somewhat aware of the health value of uncooked <b>field greens</b> because, as one book told me, they believed the dandelion leaves helped to fight off the fatigue of winter. The best months for gathering dandelion greens were April and May. One picked the dandelion if possible in the outermost edges of meadows, being sure that the heart of the plant was still looking yellowish. The taste of the leaves is somewhat bitter but savory in much the way radicchio is in our own summer salads. The leaves of certain other field plants added additional taste and volume to the spring and summer season's dinner. Another popular field green was the <i>Mauseohrsalad</i> (mouse ear salad), also called field salad. It is still eaten in Germany today.<br />
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As soon as they were able, the children took on a share of the work. The girls learned how to cook at an early age by "doing." Recipe books would have been laughed at and they were far off in the future. These women and girls knew when they had added enough water or stirred the batter long enough to have it "look right." Most cooks measured with their eyes, not with measuring cups.<br />
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Sugar was not readily available to peasant farmers but <b>honey</b> was. When a villager was in possession of a woven basket and some broom flower branches as a cover, he possessed his very own sugar factory. A bee shed could be made by pushing four long stakes into the ground, and a slanted roof covered with <i>Ginster</i> (yellow broom) placed on top; woven straw baskets were used as hives underneath. Broom grows wild all over <i>Kreis</i> Saarburg to a height of 3 to 5 feet and produces numerous long, straight, slender bright green branches, tough and very flexible. The bright yellow fragrant flowers are large, in bloom from April to July, attracting the bees.<br />
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<b>Some Popular Recipes for the Tables of <i>Kreis Saarburg</i></b> </div>
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(The dialect recipe's name comes first; then the more common German name)</div>
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I found these recipes in the book "<i>Die Hunsrücker Küche</i>" by Christiane Becker who inherited them from her grandmother. The book uses many dialect words in the instructions so I have done my best to give you an idea of the dish, at least listing the ingredients in popular recipes of the Hunsrück and Saar Valley of Kreis Saarburg.<br />
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<i><b>Dibbelabbes or</b></i><b> </b><i><b>Schales</b></i> (potato dish) This is a traditional dish of potatoes and onions in both the Saarland and the Rhineland. <i>Dibbelabbes</i> made of 4 lbs of potato, two or three eggs, salt, pepper, a tablespoon of flour, 3-4 onions and bacon striped with fat. Nadia Hassani (in her cookbook "Spoonfuls of Germany") has this piece of information on the origin of this interesting dish: "...a potato dish known as <i>Dibbelabbes</i> in Saarland is known as <i>Schales</i> or <i>Scholet</i> in the Rhineland Palatinate. Its origin she says, goes back to the Jewish Sabbath dish Cholent, a stew that was prepared on a Friday and remained on the stove during the Sabbath, when Jewish religious law forbids food preparation." This was a recipe that held well and could also be taken to the field for a noon lunch.<br />
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<b>Löwenzahn Salat </b>(Dandelion Salad) was made using some sour milk, 2 hard boiled eggs, one small onion, one bunch of chives, 6 tablespoons of vinegar, 3 of cooking oil, and be sprinkled with salt, pepper and grated garlic.<br />
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<i><b>Mauseohr salat</b></i><b> </b>(Mouse ear field salad, ) Field greens, often those shaped like mouse ears with a dressing of sour cream, salt, pepper, one onion, a bunch of chive, six tablespoons of vinegar and 3 tablespons of oil.<br />
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<i><b>Kappessupp or Kohlsuppe</b> (cabbage soup) </i>The first ingredient was a legume, like peas or beans or lentils, cooked for one and a half hours and then set aside. Then green cabbage was cut in small strips and cooked in meat broth with peeled potatoes. Meat was added only for a special day or if the work of the day was to be very strenuous. The mixtures of the legumes and cabbage together in soup was a typical midday meal.<br />
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<i><b>Rappsupp</b> </i>(No translation from dialect found) This soup could be made quickly and could be found on the table when the women of the house were helping with the harvest or on a busy washday. Vegetable or meat broth was cooked with finely grated raw potatoes and cream or egg yolk. <i>Rapp </i>is one of the dialect words no dictionary or Google translator could define.<br />
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<i><b>Käsjer, Quark or Handkäse (homemade cheese)</b></i> <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The cows' milk could be used as a light cream, skimmed for the rest of the liquid, and used to make butter, a sauce for the fresh greens or an whipped cream for desserts. The rest of the milk, minus the cream that had been skimmed could be used to made hand cheese or </span>Quark<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> by separating the thickening milk from the whey. Both were used to feed the family. </span><b>Quark</b>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">when finished, is a soft cheese that tastes like a mix of cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream. Since it's very mild, it takes on the flavors of the other ingredients you use it with and can be either sweet or savory. The </span><b>Molke</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> or whey was a drink full of vitamins and minerals and could be compared to drinking buttermilk.</span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><b>Leckschmier, Zwetschgenmus or Latwerge (plum or pear preserves)</b></i>. I needed some translation help for this Hunsrück and Saar favorite One recipe in English on the web called for 5 kg plums or pears; 1 kg sugar; cinnamon; anis; pounded cloves; and a little ginger. The washed, pitted fruits are gradually added in a cast-iron pot and boiled together with the spices. It is important that mass with a wooden spoon to stir constantly to the bottom of the pot so that the <i>Leckschmier</i> does not burn. After 4-5 hours of cooking, the mass has become stiff and thick. It is filled in a well pre-heated stone pot after cooling, with a cloth cover and stored in a cool place. On freshly baked bread, thick coated with good butter, Leckschmier tastes especially good.<br />
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<i><b>Einsäuern im </b></i><i><b>Spezialgärtopf</b> </i>was a version of what we know as Sauerkraut. <i> </i>It<i> </i>was and is common in the United States and recipes abound on the internet so I have not included the ingredients. Crocks of this long lasting sour cabbage could be found in the barnhouse each winter.<br />
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<b><i>Gefillte Krummbeere or Gefüllte Kartoffeln</i></b> (Potato Pancakes) One recipe that made its way from the Rhineland to my family's table and is still a favorite is potato pancakes. My mother never measured anything - I confess I need a recipe to feel secure about the amount of grated potato to be mixed with onion, flour, and egg. My mother's were always the best.<br />
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There are many more recipes in the little cookbook I have been trying to decipher, but I have made a small start at painting a word picture of the family table, and it has been challenging but also enlightening.<br />
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If your ancestry is German, do you have a favorite recipe from the family table of yesteryear?<br />
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Sources:</div>
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<a href="http://germanfoods.org/">German Foods.org</a><br />
Christiane Becker, <i>Die Hunsrücker Küche, </i>1992<br />
Jean Morette, <i>Landleben im Jahreslauf, </i>1983<br />
<i>Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof Konz </i>Museum Guide, 2001<br />
<i>"Essens-Zeiten," eifeler Tisch-Szenen aus 100 Jahren</i> 2002</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #777777; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="photo-owner" style="font-size: 0.77em;"><a href="http://www.flickriver.com/photos/28670112@N08/popular-interesting/" style="border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #777777; text-decoration: none;">i</a></span></span></div>
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-16278754425188159422014-05-10T22:32:00.000-05:002014-05-11T11:53:33.155-05:00An Old May Custom - the Maibaum <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ChBFQoeC2_VAJNuZGPxilDjdEeEMqVNU4SnjVnhnSQEXkkTMHcTcaTePJTqewk4hv78XeZdfkO7CMgHBdYrmZS30BFgvfVBFbZV9U75ekiZcwRyIJQkcTXqb5YX4utZAPSbq6A/s1600/Maibaum+Konz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ChBFQoeC2_VAJNuZGPxilDjdEeEMqVNU4SnjVnhnSQEXkkTMHcTcaTePJTqewk4hv78XeZdfkO7CMgHBdYrmZS30BFgvfVBFbZV9U75ekiZcwRyIJQkcTXqb5YX4utZAPSbq6A/s1600/Maibaum+Konz.jpg" height="640" width="380" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Maibaum in Konz, Kreis Saarburg</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0Jd9HKjnH7msNfwcAlHCkSb5G8hy59Sx4DJgiChHFZZYJRP5QNIXU6wp4M0BwlGqhVEBzs0Tp5u3radSmczu0i9YjoIrJRtBEkELZQTH9MnW2uF8AeY6pefa2MSs4gqV2PZv5A/s1600/Maibaum+city.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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In choosing a blog post for each month, I want to share some history or custom that is mostly unknown here in the United States. If I have a good amount of time to work on the post, I will start a subject I know is going to take time because of the need to translate, research, etc. At other times, with the deadline ticking away, I choose an easier topic. Is it Murphy's Law that those are the posts that usually are the most difficult. To date, I have mostly been undefeated in maintaining my "once a month" posting, even with surprise obstacles, but this time I have failed. With my intended blog post for the end of April still in disarray, it is clear that "This may take some time," as my computer used to tell me.<br />
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This is not the subject I had intended to write about. Luckily I received my monthly e-mail copy of the "<i>Irscher</i> <i>Newsletter</i>" in the midst of my frustration and found a topic I thought readers might find interesting. The <i>Newsletter</i> is a monthly report from my home village on club meetings, school concerts and any other special festivities. For the first time since I've been receiving it - over 10 years now - this thought struck me. If my great-great grandparents had not emigrated, I might still live in Irsch and some of the old customs, now mostly unknown to me, might be a part of my life, changed somewhat, but still there - as illustrated in the May 2014 <i>Irscher Newsletter</i>. <br />
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I began to investigate the custom of the <i>Maibaum</i> or May Tree. </div>
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<b>The Irsch, Kreis Saarburg, Maibaum</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <i>Maibaum,</i> Irsch, Kreis Saarburg, 72 ft high</td></tr>
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May Day is still an important celebration in my ancestral village. According to the Irscher Newsletter, this year's <i>Maibäume</i> (May tree) "shone in original splendor." A large tree was cut down and put in place by men of the Volunteer Fire Department. It is sturdily braced because <i>Maibäume</i> have the tendency to fall on buildings and parked cars if not well supported (as articles in the <i>Trier Volksfreund </i>newpaper told me). </div>
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The Irsch tree was approximately 22 meters (72 feet) high, one of the highest <i>Maibaum</i> in Irsch in recent years. When the tree trunk was in place, it was graced with a decorated wreath which had been trimmed with flowers and bands of colorful ribbons by the school children of the village. On May 1, as part of the <i>Maibaum</i> celebration, the children of the Irsch daycare center sang and danced around the tree to welcome spring together with their families and many other villagers.</div>
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The Newsletter elaborated no further but usually the May 1 festivities are followed by partaking of good food and, of course, a lot of <i>Maibowle</i> (May Punch) and <i>Maiwein</i> (May Wine)"<br />
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But there is another very old May Day tradition in the Rhineland. May was and still is a time of courtship and romance. This also was not reported in the Irscher Newsletter. It really is not quite appropriate for newsletter articles as you'll understand as you read on.<br />
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<b>The Origins of the Maibaum Celebration</b><br />
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The <i>Maibaum</i> custom was originally part of an old tradition called <i>Mailehenbrauch</i>. This was a form of village matchmaking dating back to the 17th century. It involved "loaning" the unmarried young women of the village to the bachelors for a certain period," folklorist Alois Döring says. "All of the unmarried young women in the village were auctioned off to the unmarried young men and each pair became a May couple," Döring continues. "Whoever paid the highest price was the May King and he had the corresponding May Queen."<br />
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But there were very specific rules attached. Each May groom was required to put up a tree decorated with colorful ribbons for his May bride as part of this custom. And this tradition is still observed in many Rhineland villages until today, possibly in Irsch too.<br />
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<b>The Maibaum Customs Today</b><br />
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For young, unmarried men, the tradition of the romantic <i>Maibaum</i> has shifted somewhat more toward the fun of an excursion into the woods. This being ecologically conscious Germany, there are often special lots which grow young birch trees for this purpose. A young tree can be purchased and chopped down while enjoying some good <i>Maibock</i> (May Bock) beer with friends who are engaged in the same activity. In some rural regions of the Rhineland the girl still finds a Maibaum in her yard or on her doorstep. And pity the girl whose yard is unadorned. No young woman in Irsch would want that item of news printed in the village newsletter.<br />
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I found an article by a freelance writer, living in the Rhineland who did interviews with today's young women about the continuation of the old <i>Maibaum</i> custom and their reactions to it.<br />
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"When the girls look out the next morning, many ask themselves: who brought it?" That's how it was for 30-year-old Anke Baldus, when she got her first May tree 15 years ago. "You first had to have a huge girlfriends meeting," she says. "Then it was off to the village to ask people: who was at what May celebration. Who saw whom and could have transported a May tree like that?" Anke has again received a Maibaum that year - from her husband.<br />
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Imagine - it’s early morning on the first day of May and a young woman peeks out from her front door. There it is! She sees what she’s been hoping for. Tied to a light pole outside her home is a tall, skinny birch tree with crepe paper chains and a heart with her name on it hung from its branches. </div>
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To me it resembles the anxiety of "Prom" time in the United States. Will I be asked to the prom, wonders the US girl. Will I have a <i>Maibaum</i> outside my house on May 1 is the worry of the Rhineland girl.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One young woman's wish came true</td></tr>
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As one writer said, "In other parts of the world, women might long for jewelry or flowers from their admirers. In the Rhineland, girls dream of waking up to a decorated birch tree on the first of May."</div>
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<b>Bavaria's Maypole</b></div>
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Bavaria also celebrates May 1, erecting a maypole and placing it in the city square. Some are constrcted very much like the <i>Maibaum; </i>others are much more ornate. There is celebrating with dancing, singing, and drinking a specially brewed beer. </div>
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Part of this whole tradition is that one village tries to steal the maypole from the neighbours. If they succeed with the theft, the safe return of the maypole is up for negotiation with ransoms involving copious quantities of beer and food. Some "<i>Burschenvereine</i>" (translates to something like "young guys' club") have specialized in stealing the maypoles that are most closely watched by the strongest security. Maypole stealing is governed by a pretty strict code of conduct: sawing or damaging the maypole in any way is absolutely frowned upon as is a non-payment of the ransom. </div>
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Since I have ancestors from Bavaria as well as the Rhineland, where would I choose to celebrate May 1 next year? Either would be fun, but the Rhineland customs have stolen my heart; whereas the Bavarian Maypole might itself be stolen. Sorry Bavaria, the <i>Maibaum</i> comes with romance as well as celebration and will be there on May 2. <br />
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<u>Sources:</u><br />
http://www.bavaria.by/maypole-day-in-bavaria-germany<br />
http://www.dw.de/may-day-tradition-in-the-rhineland/a-4220017<br />
Karin Christensen, Of Maypoles and May Bock<br />
http://germanfoods.org<br />
http://www.dw.de/germany-an-unusual-way-to-express-love/a-2608908<br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-1738073815980975102014-03-31T11:59:00.000-05:002014-04-07T19:58:29.368-05:00Revolution, the Valdenaires, and My Great-Great Grandparents<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kunoturm Dwelling of Nikolaus Valdenaire</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Estate Buildings Once Owed by the Valdenaires</td></tr>
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Question 1: Would the owners of great manors fight for the right of peasant farmers to have a voice in creating a Prussian Constitution that would give them a voice in government? Answer: At least two of the well-to-do manor owners did exactly that during the German Revolution of 1848. They were Nikolaus and Victor Valdenaire, the owners of a "<i>Hof</i>" near Konz and a mansion in Saarburg.<br />
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Question 2: Was my great-great grandfather, Johann Meier, one of those peasant farmers taking part in the German Revolution? Answer: While I can't prove that Johann fought to gain more rights for peasants under Prussian rule, I have an indication that he did. There must be some reason political wrongs make my blood boil.<br />
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THE STORY</div>
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Nikolaus Valdenaire was a French soldier in Napoleon's army who bought the estate which had originally belonged to the land and estate holdings of St. Mathias Catholic Church in Trier. Valdenaire came from the Vosges in France. At the age of 17 he served as a soldier of the French revolutionary army, and after Napoleon conquered the Catholic-Church-ruled territory in the Rhineland, he chose to live in the area of Trier, which at this time had been declared a part of France. In 1801 Nikolaus married into the Schmitt family from Trier and fathered four children, three girls and one son, Viktor. He became prosperous and attained an expropriated monastery and its lands. He also purchased, along with the Schmitt family, the <i>Roscheider Hof</i> at Konz. However Nikolaus himself chose to live in the <i>Kunoturm</i> property which was attached to the remains of the city wall in Saarburg.<br />
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Trier and all the Rhineland were added to the Prussian empire after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Nicholas Valdenaire had been shaped as a teenager by the ideals of the French Revolution. Under the Prussian rule, he led the registry office for the cantons Merzig, Saarburg and Konz even though he was often in conflict with the authoritarian structures of the Prussian state. In 1833 he was elected to the fourth Rhenish Provincial Parliament. It was merely advisory to the Crown and had no decision-making powers. There was no room for liberty or equality in the rules set down by the Prussian Emperor and his ministers.<br />
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In his role as a member of this Provincial Parliament, Nikolaus Valdenaire made a bold move on the occasion of the visit of the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=13928417#editor/target=post;postID=115656780336261573;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=93;src=postname">Prussian Crown Prince</a> to Saarburg in 1836. He presented the Crown Prince with a signed petition for the Emperor. It had treasonous requests as Valdenaire knew. The petition asked that when wine makers and farmers could not sell their crops, their taxes be prorated accordingly. There was a request that municipal officials be elected directly by the municipalities as before, and that the customs declaration offices should not spend several hours closed during the day, but remain open every hour of the peasants' working day. Farmers should be allowed to plow all their land to the edge of the ditch along the road and plant there rather than being kept two feet away so that the Prussian warders could take that land as their own.<br />
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In order to increase the number of signatories to the petition and to give it more weight, Valdenaire sent a messenger to the surrounding farmers with the petition, thus reaching about 160 farmers and winemakers who signed it. Since peasant farmers were not allowed the right of petition, this was perhaps more daring than the petition itself.<br />
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This petition was personally delivered by Nikolaus Valdenaire on July 10, 1836 to the Crown Prince, who was staying with the Baron von Warsberg who lived in Saarburg. It was accepted by the Crown Prince but not answered. Instead, one year later Nikolaus was charged with seditious activities. At his trial he was sentenced to six months in prison. He appealed the sentence and was allowed a new trial. A year later he was completely acquitted but had to bear the investigation costs of both court decisions.<br />
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Viktor, the son of Nikolaus, attended the <i>Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium</i> in Trier, and received his diploma there as did his friend, Karl Marx. He studied law at the University in Bonn for awhile, but did not finish his degree. Instead he went back to take over the running of the <i>Roscheider Hof</i> estate, which also became a refuge for other like-minded liberals.<br />
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While most owners of large estates objected to giving rights to peasants, the Valdenaires attempted to change the way laws were created in the Prussian empire. They wanted to see all the citizens of Prussia, including the peasant farmers and craftsmen, governed by a constitution created with the input of elected representatives of all the citizenry. <br />
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Because of their liberal views, the Valdenaires displayed great daring in the German revolution of 1848. By the year 1848 the discontent over the poor conditions of the German citizens and peasants, along with the desire for justice and human rights reform for all, was at the flash point in the Rhineland. Demonstrations against the current Prussian system of governance broke out in Cologne, Trier, and even Saarburg as a result not only of the many dissatisfactions with Prussian laws and taxation, but also at the news in February that in neighboring France, people had begun a revolt against the current king and his reactionary prime minister in order to force Louise Phillipe from his throne. This was the match that set the revolutionary fire blazing along Germany's western border, and it spread like wildfire right up to the doors of the palace in Berlin.<br />
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When demonstrations and fighting spread to Austria and forced the Austrian Emperor to rid the country of the hated minister Metternich, Berlin's ministers saw danger ahead. The Prussian emperor, Frederick Wilhelm, feared the uprisings against him that had now come to the northern cities and his own Berlin. He made the decision to grant his subjects the right to elect representatives to a National Assembly that would create a new constitution. He assured the rebels that this would give them a chance to have the constitutional parliament which would bring more liberty and equality to all Prussian citizens, even the peasants. An election for the representatives to the new National Assembly created great excitement. Voting took place on May 1, 1848 and all tax-paying citizens, including peasants, were eligible to vote.<br />
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Both Valdenaires were selected as electors for this Prussian National Assembly in Berlin. But from May 2 to 3, 1848, both became involved in the uprising in Trier where barricades were erected and fighting against the military took place. Nicholas Valdenaire, who was chosen by popular vote as an elector for the Prussian National Assembly could not perform his offices. As of 8 May when the electors came together to elect the deputies to the Prussian National Assembly, he was already wanted by the police and had fled across the border.<br />
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Viktor Valdenaire had also fled across the Prussian border to escape prosecution. Unlike his father, Viktor assumed it would be safe to return when the Prussian National Assembly had its first meeting. His status as a deputy would give him what we might call "diplomatic immunity." However, he was arrested on May 10 and charged with trying to overthrow the lawful government; a crime which might bring the death penalty for treason. He was jailed in Trier for two months; but during the indictment process, his crime was reduced to rebellion. The arrest process was only a pretext of the powerful to keep the lead revolutionaries from participating in the National Assembly, and many other electors were treated in the same manner.<br />
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While Viktor Valdenaire was shut up in prison, the National Assembly went into session. Members were enraged, especially after reading a newspaper article in the <i>Neue Rheinische Zeitung</i> by Karl Marx about the actual reason for Viktor Valdenaire's arrest. The National Assembly deputies insisted that detainees must attend Assembly meetings as a member of the Assembly and went even one step further. They introduced and voted on the immunity law still in effect in Germany today. It ensured every deputy's protection from prosecution as long as he holds that office.<br />
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Victor Valdenaire was released from the Trier jail late on the evening of July 23, 1848, and he returned to <i>Roscheider Hof</i>. Three days later, the citizens of Trier organized a folk festival for him. In his speech he stressed that he considered it his duty to travel to Berlin, because even though some of his fellow sufferers were languishing in prison, he wanted to stand up for their freedom and fight for the principle of popular sovereignty. He was present when the National Assembly met again on August 8 and 9, 1848 but he soon grew frustrated at the lack of progress being made. As the meetings of the Assembly went on with ever greater amounts of time between each one, he turned over his position as deputy to the man who had been elected to serve as his alternate.<br />
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The Prussian Emperor and his ministers used many delaying tactics over and over, and they also schemed to divide the moderates and liberals of the National Assembly. The revolutionary groups could not hold together. By late in 1849, the German Revolution, begun with much promise, had changed from a raging battle to a flickering spark which could not catch fire again.<br />
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The bad end of the Revolution and all hope of a change of circumstances took away Viktor Valdenaire's enthusiastic interest in politics. With the death of his father from the terrible cholera epidemic that overtook the Saarburg area in July of 1849, he sought to sell the increasingly dilapidated <i>Roscheider Hof</i>. He finally succeeded in 1864 and spent the rest of his life in Trier where he ran the family factory.<br />
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As you see, the years 1848 and 1849 were filled with turbulence. Many of the people who lived in Kreis Saarburg were caught up in the chaotic times. As the revolution played out in 1848 and 1849, my ancestor Johann Meier was in his early twenties, and very likely he was at the barricades in Trier or with the farmers who showed their daring by wrecking government toll stations and cutting trees in the imperial forest. At the same time, he was seeking my great-great grandmother's hand in marriage. It was an inopportune time for courtship by a young rebel and their marriage was forbidden by his beloved Magdalena's father (or so the family story goes). The two young people did marry when Magdalena ran away from home to do it, and 12 years later Johann and Magdalena had the daring to emigrate to a new land where they could find the civil freedoms that eluded them when the German Revolution of 1848 failed. I believe they were both, in their own way, as much revolutionaries as the Valdenaires.<br />
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Where were your German ancestors in 1848?<br />
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Sources:<br />
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Rudolf Müller, Geschichte der Stadt Saarburg im 19. and 20. Jahrhunder" in "Saarburg; Geschichte einer Stadt," 1991<br />
<a href="about:invalid#zClosurez">The Revolution of 1848. </a><br />
"Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland 1800-1850." James M. Brophy<br />
"Valdenaire" in German version of Wikipedia<br />
Serrig; "Landschaft, Geschichte & Geschichten." Klaus Hammächer, 2002<br />
Sheehan, James, "German History 1770-1866: The Oxford History of Modern Europe," 1994<br />
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Pictures:<br />
Saar-Obermosel Touristik E. V.<br />
http://www.saar-obermosel.de/fileadmin/templates/tv/logo.jpg<br />
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Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.com0