Family History Surprises

Once my 2nd great grandparent's farmhouse, (left front)
This is what it looked like at the end of WWII

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.

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.)

Here are three of my surprises.  Each one delighted me.

DOUBLE CONNECTION

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.

The Meier House as it looks today

DOUBLE SURPRISE

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.

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.

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.

FAR REACHING IRSCH ANCESTORS

 Coincidence in Village of Irsch

Several years ago, I got an interesting e-mail about one of my blog posts, not from a family historian but because of a picture I had taken in Irsch 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 "Oma 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.

We continued our e-mailing for awhile.  When the Oma (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 Oma 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.

Oma Tilly, age 93, and Bernie, her grandson
Are we really related?  I hope so.

An Old May Custom - the Maibaum

The Maibaum in Konz, Kreis Saarburg

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.

This is not the subject I had intended to write about.  Luckily I received my monthly e-mail copy of the "Irscher Newsletter" in the midst of my frustration and found a topic I thought readers might find interesting. The Newsletter 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 Irscher Newsletter.

I began to investigate the custom of the Maibaum or May Tree. 

The Irsch, Kreis Saarburg, Maibaum

 Maibaum, Irsch, Kreis Saarburg, 72 ft high

May Day is still an important celebration in my ancestral village. According to the Irscher Newsletter, this year's Maibäume (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 Maibäume have the tendency to fall on buildings and parked cars if not well supported (as articles in the Trier Volksfreund newpaper told me).  

The Irsch tree was approximately 22 meters (72 feet) high, one of the highest Maibaum 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 Maibaum 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.

The Newsletter elaborated no further but usually the May 1 festivities are followed by partaking of good food and, of course, a lot of Maibowle (May Punch) and Maiwein (May Wine)"

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.

The Origins of the Maibaum Celebration

The Maibaum custom was originally part of an old tradition called Mailehenbrauch. 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."

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.

The Maibaum Customs Today

For young, unmarried men, the tradition of the romantic Maibaum 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 Maibock (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.

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 Maibaum custom and their reactions to it.

"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.

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. 

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 Maibaum outside my house on May 1 is the worry of the Rhineland girl.

One young woman's wish came true

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."

Bavaria's Maypole

Bavaria also celebrates May 1, erecting a maypole and placing it in the city square.  Some are constrcted very much like the Maibaum; others are much more ornate.  There is celebrating with dancing, singing, and drinking a specially brewed beer.  

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 "Burschenvereine" (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.   

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 Maibaum comes with romance as well as celebration and will be there on May 2.

Sources:
http://www.bavaria.by/maypole-day-in-bavaria-germany
http://www.dw.de/may-day-tradition-in-the-rhineland/a-4220017
Karin Christensen, Of Maypoles and May Bock
http://germanfoods.org
http://www.dw.de/germany-an-unusual-way-to-express-love/a-2608908

The Delinquent in His Old Home Village

Cemetery in Rüber 

t 

Polch Railroad Station

Polch City Hall

Rhineland emigrants who left their country in the 1840s and 1850s have descendants who would be willing to hunt in every archive in Germany, if it would assure them of information similar to the story of this daring and determined ancestor.

A genealogist who belongs to a collateral line of the descendants of the emigrant I will write about gave me copies of the transcribed documents that make up the story.  She was unsure about the wisdom of using the emigrant's full name, so I will call him Mathias Namenlos.  Namenlos is the German word for nameless.  From documents kept in the State Archive of Koblenz, and the skill of three people: a German-speaking relative, an experienced researcher who knew his way around the archive, and a skilled translator of old German documents, this unusual story emerged.

The archive documents tell the story of the emigrant who returned, for a short time, to the Alte Heimat of Rüber, Germany in the Rhineland. This ancestor had left the Rhineland in 1854 to take up residence in the United States; then came back three years later.  It reminds us that we can never assume. Since this is not my ancestor, I haven't investigated sources in this country to see if there is any travel record from 1857 for this former immigrant who journeyed back to Germany to claim his share of the estate of his father.  But there were times when people returned for some reason and it is something to check when writing the family story..

The documents of Mathias Namenlos are also a prime example of the change in attitude of the Prussian government concerning emigration during the 1850s and onward.  In the first half of the 1800s, emigration was rarely a matter of concern to the Prussians or to other kingdoms.  Sometimes it was actually encouraged in order to free the local cities and villages from families who might, at some time in the future, become a drain on the funds for the poor which had to be provided to those who were truly without any other means of survival. Poor people, of course, also paid no taxes to the Prussian Emperor; therefore they were of very little interest.

But by the second part of the century, many of the people who decided to emigrate were not quite as poor. They were inhabitants who were able to make a living and who contributed the taxes demanded by the Prussians. These emigrants had learned that relatives, friends, and neighbors who had already gone to the United States were, for the most part, prospering.

Also at this time, the shipping companies saw a growing market for transportation across the ocean, carrying people as well as cargo. They sent their agents and representatives to stimulate interest in a move to a country with more opportunity than they could expect to have in their current living situation. The agents were now not popular with those who governed the Rhineland.

Enter Mathias Namenlos, returning to his home country and village after spending three years in America. The Mayor of Polch, who also governed tiny Rüber, grew suspicious when, about the same time that Mathias Namenlos appeared, the younger brother of Mathias applied for permission to emigrate as did five other young people from the area.

In 1857 the "kingly constabulary" of Rüber received a communication from the Mayor of Polch that Mathias Namenlos, a former resident of Rüber, now living in North America, was again staying in Rüber. In the following documents "the plot thickens": 

No. 1193
Polch, July 16, 1857

Mathias Namenlos, in the past living in Rüber, now living in North America. He is supposed to be suspicious to tempt others for Emigration. The kingly constabulary herewith is ordered to catch him and to bring him here to me.
The Mayor
... Driesch

Negotiated at Polch, July 17, 1857

The kingly constabulary caught the above mentioned Mathias Namenlos.  The caught Namenlos declared the following on request:

My name is Mathias Namenlos, I am 33 years old and I was born in Rüber. I am currently living in Mil:Waukie in the State of Wisconsin in North America.

On April 1854 I emigrated to North America by the approval of the kingly administration of Koblenz. I am now back to dispose my fatherly heritage, which are some acres. I sold the acres at a price of 1,100 Thaler to my brother Joseph Namenlos of Rüber, whom shall be given the money from Johann Anton Müller of Mayen (probably a money lender).

My brother Johann, who requested his emigration, sold his acres, too, by the same procedure and at a price of 1,200 Thaler. We are scheduling to emigrate together as soon as we both have approval.

I herewith declare forcefully that I did not tempt others to emigrate. I even did not tempt my brother Johann to do so.

I do not own a passport and for my legitimation I have (unreadable words) citizen document (prossibly a set of first papers for citizenship filed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) of April 17, 1857 that I hereafter would like to read out.

Reading out loud, approved and signed.
Signature of Namenlos and The Mayor

Things did not go well for Mathias who was currently back in his home village, Rüber, to take his rightful share of the division of his father's estate. The Mayor of Polch, after taking the statement of Mathias, added his own report before sending both documents to the Kingly Administration in Koblenz. He named six young men who had requested permission to emigrate from Rüber shortly after the arrival of Mathias. For this reason, he said, "Now I am suspecting that he tempted the above mentioned people for emigration." He went on to say that he had no proof this was the case, but since Namenlos could not show any acceptable documents as to his status, he wanted to know how the Administration in Koblenz wanted him to proceed. He suggested that Mathias be banished after he had been able to finish his family affairs which Mathias had said would take until October.

However after more bureaucratic paperwork flowed from the Kingly Administrator to the higher Administration he served who commented that it was likely that Mathias Namenlos was an emigration troublemaker, the Kingly Administrator was told to set the banishment date of his choosing. The lower level Kingly Administrator, in an August 3 communication to the Mayor of Polch, set the date of banishment for Mathias as August 15. For whatever reason, the Mayor of Polch waited until August 12 to send the notice to Rüber, giving Mathias only three days to leave or be subject to the Prussian civil code. Case closed.

There is one last document in the case file of the former citizen of Rüber. Since there was no way that Mathias Namenlos could finish the inheritance work and book passage back to America in just three days, he stayed on.  On August 24, the "kingly policemann Hoffmann" arrested Mathias who had been seen again in Rüber and brought back to Polch. The next day "the deliquent" declared on request:

Negotiated at Polch on August 25, 1857

"I avow that the kingly order had been handed out to me on 12th of this month but I could not leave because:

1. I could not finish my deals yet

2. I did not have any possibility for traveling

Currently I got my deals ready so I am able to leave and to follow the order directy.

The delinquent had been told that he is ordered again to leave the Kingdom within 24 hours otherwise he would be punished or brought to the Border of the kingdom with the help of the police.

The delinquent has been released into freedom after the negotiation."

Signature: Driesch

Since no further documents were found, I assume that Mathias Namelos did leave, probably in the company of his brother Jonathan and one or more of the other men who had gotten permission to emigrate. 

With the reception by the Prussian Government to former residents of Prussian cities and villages being most unfriendly, any stay was likely to be short and definitely not pleasant.  For us, descendants of former Prussian citizens, the documents are another amazing set of records that despite two world wars still survive in the German archives - if we are determined enough to search.

Sources:
Documents from the Landesarchiv Koblenz

Pictures: 
MSU Study Abroad Program
Stady Polch http://www.polch.de/sv_polch/
en.db-city.com

Easter Epilogue

Since I wrote my last blog post about the Kläpperjungen (young boys) in Kreis Saarburg and their duty to call their village to prayer and church services when the bells in the church steeple were silent from Holy Thursday to Holy Saturday, I have learned a few things more about both the Easter customs in the Rhineland and in my very own Heimat village in Irsch.

This epilogue began to take shape because of  comments about my last post: "Easter Tales: the Kläpperjungen and the Mirror in the Fountain." The first comment was made by a fellow blogger who was born and grew up in Germany.  She said that her village in the Lower Rhineland area had no Klapperjungen, but she remembered that the church bells were completely silent on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The children were told that this silence occurred because the church bells had all "flown to Rome" to be blessed by the Pope.  On Easter Sunday morning, the bells flew back again, ready to ring out all over the city. This took me by surprise because Maria Croon, who had written about the Kläpperjungen in the Rhineland area that encompasses the Mosel and Saar rivers, had made no mention of flying bells in her reminiscence.

Friko, the blogger who had furthered my education on these Rhineland flying Easter bells, also said, "I come from the Lower Rhineland area, that is roughly the stretch between Cologne, Germany and the Dutch border, from the town of Krefeld. I went to Catholic schools and we were told these stories as children. Easter was the highest religious festival of the year and had a lot of ritual attached." 

Interesting, I thought.  Here is a person who came from today's Rhineland Pfalz state of Germany as do my ancestors, but her area lay north of Kreis Saarburg, and is not a quite as near to France as my ancestor's homeland. I knew that the French bells flew away during Holy Week.  Was it possible that my ancestors, too, believed the story of the bells making a trip to Rome, just as in France.

My relative Edeltrud, who grew up in the village of Irsch in the 1950s, was the logical person to ask. Her e-mail answer to my question read, "Yes, the bells leave here too, and kids run arround with wooden "Klappern" and call the hours when normally the bells were ringing. In Irsch they sang (in the old dialect): 'Beetgloock leut, de Beetgloock leut!' (The prayer bell is ringing). They are called Kläpperkinder. In earlier times they were just boys, but now there are girls too."  That accounted for the change of name from the more gender specific Kläpperjungen to the non-specific Kläpperkinder.

Ewald Meyer, who has been so much help to me in researching the social history of Irsch, e-mailed after he read my Easter blog. He had information about the Kläpperjungen and their three days of replacing the church bells.  He gave me another version of the calls of the Kläpperjungen - in the local dialect.  I believe he once called those words as he went about the village with the other boys who were replacing the voice of the bells.  Below are the calls and then, in parentheses, a translation of the dialect into today's German.:

1. Zum Angelusläuten am Abend ( before 7 p.m. ): "Et laut Baetglock!" (Es läutet Betglocke)
2. Mittags (noon): "Et laut Mettech!" (Es läutet Mittag)
3. Vor Beginn einer Messfeier: "Et laut zesummen!" (Es läutet zusammen).

Translation: 1. At Angelus time in the evening: "the prayer bell is ringing." 2. At midday: "It is ringing midday." 3. Before the celebration of a Mass: "It is calling (us) together."

My Summary of All the Additional Things I Learned:

*Church bells are silent as a sign of mourning for one or more days before Easter in Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and France. The tradition around the silent bells originates from the 7th century when the Church forbade the ringing of the bells in homage to the death of Christ between Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday.

*In France, and in bordering parts of The Netherlands and Belgium, legend has it that on Maundy Thursday, the bell’s chimes flee to Rome where the Pope blesses them. There, they collect the Easter eggs which they will scatter in gardens and yards on their return journey which is the morning of Easter Sunday. When children hear the bells, they go out to the garden on an egg hunt. The Easter Bells are often represented with a pair of wings, ribbons or sometimes are transported in a cart. 

*In the Rhineland t"he bells also fly to Rome, but only here do the Kläpperjungen take on the bells' work until the bells return on Easter morning. The Easter rabbit, meanwhile, is busy hiding Easter eggs and chocolate eggs and bunnies in gardens all over Germany.

As I was writing this short piece I was struck by  something.  My great-great grandparent's emigration journey across Germany and France to the Port of Le Havre must have begun just after the auction of their moveable property on March 22.  Palm Sunday was on March 24 in 1861, very early.  Thus the day that they and the other families who were traveling with them began their journey was sometime just before or during the Kläpperjugen days.  Four boys, including my great grandfather Mathias, who should have been carrying their Raspeln and crying out  "Et laut Baetglock!, "Et laut zesummen!" were instead traveling into the unknown with the rest of their family.

Travel Tuesday - Emigrating from the Rhineland

Emigrant Agent recruits travelers in 1855;
Exhibit at Kommern Museum, Rhineland

Have you ever thought about your ancestors' last weeks in their homeland before they set sail into the unknown? Just moving from one city to another because of work or marriage or retirement is a wrenching change for most of us. However, we live in a world where going back now and then to what we left behind is usually possible. When our 19th century ancestors left, they were very aware they would never see their birthplace or the remainder of their family and friends again.

It was pure serendipity that I found a German website for a museum in the Northern Rhineland that spelled out in great detail the drama of the days before departure.  Descriptions of exhibits at the museum in the village of Kommern, gave me new insights into the reasons that people left, the process of making travel arrangements, and the days of "farewell."  The following is based on an excellent overview written by the Museum staff and loosely translated by me.

Poverty and Famines in the 19th Century

The majority of the population had always lived in difficult circumstances. In the 19th century, however, the poverty was often so oppressive that fundamental nourishment was lacking in many families' diets. While the population grew steadily, the area of land available for cultivation stayed the same, and more and more people had an amount of food that stayed the same from year to year but was much less than they needed. Their principal foods were potatoes and bread. In years of crop failures, disaster struck.  The famine years were at their worst in 1816/17 and again in 1846/47;  many could not feed themselves and their families.

Although serfdom, compulsory labor and taxes in kind were abolished during the years of Napoleon's rule of the area, high transfer fees were paid to the aristocratic landowners who still held the majority of the land. The farmers, now free to own land, had gone into debt. Thus the agricultural economy was deprived of the means which it needed for improved farming methods and new equipment.

Due to the spread in the west and southwest of revised inheritance laws that allowed all children of a family to divide the land for inheritance, farms were fragmented.  Many farmers added craft work such as weaving to supplement their family's income.  At the same time the industrial revolution, which was spreading through Europe, made it impossible for craftsmen to compete with cheaper industrial goods, especially from England.  Mass poverty and political hopelessness after the revolutions of 1830/33 and 1848/49 impelled more and more people to emigrate.

"Selling" Life in the United States

America offered the hope for an income sufficient to survive and even prosper.  With the increase in the number of emigrants from Germany to America, the population's need for information about the United States also increased. "America letters" from settlers already in the United States, sent back to relatives in the Rhineland, served as the first guides for likely emigrants.  Very soon promotional literature about the American states as well as specially created "guides" for emigrants appeared. In bright colors, some fabricated pamphlets, which promised a land flowing with milk and honey and roasted pigeon on every table, began to circulate.  For many who were dissatisfied with the economic and social conditions of their country, it seemed that the promised land was no longer "three miles beyond Christmas,"  Rather, it was obtainable by anyone who was ready to leave and wanted to make his fortune.

Many times the agents of the shipping companies deliberately exaggerated the living conditions in America, describing America as a kind of paradise, in order to win over the doubters and have a lucrative business. Ship brokers were located not only in port cities, but maintained many offices within the country. In the Rhineland agencies were located in Koblenz, Cologne, Trier and Dusseldorf. There were also numerous part-time agents working in smaller villages who recruited interested potential emigrants.  Many a man booked his passage to North America in the Gasthaus tavern.

The agents earned money according to the number of bookings they made.  Fraud occurred, most commonly in the early days of emigration fever.  Eventually the authorities issued warnings, and newspapers presented realistic descriptions of the new world so that the situation improved  in the second half of the century.

Farewell and Departure

The farewell to relatives and friends was the hardest step in the process of emigration to America.  Much as birth, marriage, and death involved ceremony, emigration was perceived as a similar profound turning point in life.  Symbolic ways of coping with such a momentous event came into being.

In many places the departure for America was made festive. Where possible the emigrants who were about to leave, along with their relatives and friends, celebrated in the home that soon would be left behind. Some of the wealthier emigrants donated memorial crosses to the village in order to preserve their remembrance in the Alte Heimat.  On the day of departure, the emigrants with possessions loaded on wagons or carried on shoulders, were often accompanied to the border of the village by all the residents staying behind.  The song and music was a way for those staying behind to express solidarity with the travelers. This almost joyous farewell thus offered a positive outlook to the present and also future immigrants.

Cemetery at Beurig, Kreis Saarburg

One last visit that was commonly made before the day of departure was to the cemetery where each person took leave of departed parents or grandparents. Often they filled some earth from the grave into a small bag. This soil was meant to be placed in the emigrant's grave in America  It was a way to symbolically reunite with the family that lived across the ocean.


Sources:
http://www.wir-rheinlaender.lvr.de/

Pilgrimage to the Holy Robe in Trier

Next year from April 13 to May 15, the Cathedral in Trier will open the Chapel of the Heilige Rock.  The Heilige Rock is thought to be the garment with no seams that Christ wore on his way to Calvary. The exposition of the Holy Robe is a special time and thousands of faithful come to the Trier Dom where it is housed in the special chapel that is only rarely accessible to the public. The last actual Heilige Rock pilgrimage was made in 1996.

The Holy Robe is the most important relic held in the Trier Cathedral. According to tradition, the Empress Dowager Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, brought the seamless robe of Christ to Trier. There is no exact verification of this since the Holy Robe is first mentioned in a document from the 12th century when it was moved from the west choir of the Cathedral to the new altar in the east choir in 1196.

The time between the showings of the Heilige Rock has varied over the centuries. The first showing was at the time of the dedication of the new high altar of the Cathedral in 1512.  Pilgrims saw the Holy Robe held high for their veneration, when for several days the garment was taken from its storage place behind the altar and held out for the people to view.  Following this pilgrimage, once a year from 1513 to 1517, another pilgrimage occurred.

There were only four occasions for such pilgrimages in the 16th century and then, most likely because of historical events like the 30 Years War and successive smaller wars, the garment was removed from the Trier Cathedral several time to the fortress at Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz, to secure its safety and the pilgrimages stopped.  When Napoleon attacked the city in 1794, the garment was taken to the interior of Germany for safety and kept at Augsburg.  This, however, caused the Bishop of Trier to have difficulty negotiating its return.  The garment was restored to the Trier Cathedral in 1810.  In celebration of the return, a pilgrimage to the Dom was made by the faithful from many parts of Germany.  

In 1844, when the Holy Robe was next exhibited, masses of people, some sources say a million, reverently came to see it, including those from Zerf who were led by their priest, Father Matthias Guckeisen. In these years of the 1840s, when there was extreme poverty and disease in Zerf and the surrounding area, the strong Catholic faith of the people put their trust in God by making a pilgrimage, praying for improved conditions.


In 1891, Pope Leo XIII granted pilgrims who participated in the pilgrimage a plenary indulgence, which brought almost two million people to the Trier Cathedral for the celebration.

Since the time of the Cathedral renovation in 1974, the Holy Robe has been kept in its wooden shrine, which was built in 1891.  It lies under an air-conditioned glass, where only a glimpse of it can be seen.  The entire garment can no longer be viewed. The original state of the textile has altered too much to allow for full viewing because of the past events and the unfavorable storage conditions .

The last pilgrimage, held in 1996, was estimated to have brought over a million people to Trier.  Since then, annual Holy Robe Days have been held at the Trier Dom. Only during the Holy Robe Days is the Holy Robe chapel of the Dom accessible. 

The painting by August Gustav Lasinsky at the beginning of the blog, as well as the line drawing in the content itself, record the famous pilgrimage of 1844. The Lasinsky painting, done in 1847, is a good representation of the clothing worn by the people of the area at that time.  Be sure to click on the picture two times to compare the clothing of the lower and the middle classes.

Sources:
Edgar Christoffel, Der Hochwaldort Zerf am Fuße es Hunsrücks, 1981
Trierer DOM web page - www.dominformation.de
Catholic Encyclopedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07400b.htm

The Stube and Futterküche of a Small Farmer's Dwelling

"The Village Street, a Colorful History" by Maria Croon

There are not many librarians who can resist going into the bookstore/stores when on vacation. That has been true on each of my four visits to Saarburg.

On my first visit nearly 30 years ago, I found a children's book about life in neighboring Lorraine.  It was meant for grade school youngsters and the customs and living conditions described were almost identical to life in Kreis Saarburg. I had a fighting chance of understanding it if I had a dictionary - I knew only about 50 words of German then.  Fortunately the book had great illustrations. It eventually taught me a lot about the life of farming families in the previous century.

My favorite bookstore in Saarburg these days is on a side street near the center of the city. Usually I buy at least one or two history books about the small towns of the area, and once I bought a children's book of German songs with beautiful pictures. It seemed to weigh about 20 pounds when I had to carry it home.

In October, 2010, my recent trip to Saarburg, I bought a easy-to-carry memoir book called "Die Dorfstrasse" which means "The Village Street."  There was a difficulty, however. The Trier and Saarburg areas, as I've noted in at least one other post, had a dialect that actually requires translation to German in this 21st century. While almost no one speaks the old Mosel-Frankische dialect now, dialect words turn up regularly in conversations among people in the area and words I struggle to read in this book would be familiar to them.  For me, that is not the case.  But Maria Croon, the author, grew up in Meurich, a farming village not too far from Irsch, Zerf, and Serrig.  She describes exactly what I want to know so I keep struggling.

In the first chapter, I was invited into the Stube and Futterküche in the house of Grandfather Willem, and it would have strongly resembled the small, crowded Stube to which great-great-grandmother Lena came when she disobeyed her father and married into a much poorer family.

The chapter started with a description of a bench.  It seemed to be one of the most important things a Stube held. It was called a Taakbank. Taak is one of those dialect words.  Google Translator and all my dictionaries were no help. So I turned to Ewald Meyer, who is still able to read the old dialect.  My e-mail's subject line read, "Help!" By the next morning I had the knowledge I needed.

The Meyer's Decorative Takenplaten 

Ewald said, "In her books, she (Maria Croon) has narrated her memories and experiences from her childhood. In the old farm houses, there was usually only one fireplace - in the kitchen. The living room or Stube was next to the kitchen. The wall between the fireplace (in the kitchen) and the Stube had an opening which was closed with a cast-iron plate called a Takenplatte. These plates were often decorated with a motif from the Bible or the rural life. However, these plates were called Taakplatten in the Mosel Frankisch dialect. They transferred the heat from the fireplace in the kitchen into the living room. The bench in front of this plate, the Taakbank, was particularly popular as a place to sit in the winter."

The Taakbank is the reserved place for grandfather Willem, smoking his pipe that envelops him in smoke. The Stube where he sits is is a "family room" in the true sense of the words.  Here one could witness almost all the comings and goings of the family during those few hours when they were not engaged in work in the stables, the garden, or the fields. Today we might think of it as a place that functions as a living room, family room, dining room and part of the kitchen.  This is made obvious by the objects that can be found in the Stube of grandfather Willem and his wife, known as Mimi Sus.

To the best of my ability, using my imagination and the descriptions in "Die Dorfstrasse," I determined what objects might have occupied the Johann and Lena Meier's Stube. In addition to the Taakbank, there were shelves for dishes, some Viez mugs  and a Viez jug for pouring.  On the shelves closest to the Taakplatten there were more perishable items such as a container of sliced bread, a saltcellar, bowls of homemade cheeses, marmelade, Kuchen and, in good times, there might be a bag of sugar lumps, much loved by the children.  The proximity to the heat kept these items dry and avoided mold and spoilage.

As in the house of Grandfather Willem, the Meier's Stube had a clock in a dark wood case, often difficult to keep running. A goose feather was used to make adjustments and keep the mechanism oiled when this prized possession was not working well.  The goose quills as well as a few chicken quills were kept in an earthenware jar close at hand for they were often needed to fix the clock or clean the bowl of a smoker's pipe.  The clock stands on a homemade cabinet which holds practical items that should be in easy reach for doing indoor chores; they are not at all decorative.  There is as a whetstone for sharpening knives, the container with quills, the paddles for carding wool, a hackle for readying flax for spinning into linen, to name a few.

The large table in this room served more than one purpose. Each day, the family gathered around it for the daily meal.  But once a week, the top of the table was put aside, revealing the Backmulde, a bread mixing trough, which was hidden underneath.  Many loaves of bread as well as the dough for seasonal Kuchen--apple, plum, pear--were made here in the Stube.

Unlike our kitchens today with its many countertops, drawers, and cabinets, the kitchen in this house was small and dark, known as the Futterküche.  No room to mix and knead bread here.  Many chores related to food were done in the Stube.  The floor of the Futterküche was made of uneven slate pieces.  It occupied what we might call a cubbyhole area in the back corner of the house next to the Stube; its only light came in through the large chimney opening of the fireplace, where ham, bacon and sausages hung as they were smoked.  Sometimes the swallows made a nest at the top of the chimney.  Two buckets filled with water from the village well were kept in the Futterküche, along with the feed kettle used for the scraps that will help fatten the pigs until it is time to "harvest" one or more of the animals for winter food.  The bake oven here, with its heavy iron door is where the bread was baked.  A fire was started in the oven.  When the inside walls of the oven were hot enough, the ashes from the fire were removed and the bread or Kuchen carefully pushed inside by means of a long paddle - to be baked by the thoroughly heated oven walls.

In one corner of the cramped, dark kitchen there were some small sacks of dried Zwetschen plums and pieces of pears.  Above them hung the discolored everyday caps and aprons of the mother, grandmother and daughters.  A cow collar (cows did the work of a horse for a small landowner), tea herbs drying in bunches, onion bundles, and a deflated pig bladder (used for sausage casings) also hung there.

Grandfather Willem's Futterküchen also had mouse droppings - At this point I'm still undecided whether to add them to the contents of the interior of Lena and Johann's abode.

Three generations Living Under One Roof

Front of Meier House

Sometimes you have to think outside the box; other times the box needs to be flipped!

In my last post, I described the house-barn-stables of my great-great grandparents.  Most of my information came from Ewald Meyer, who had obtained the 1927 building plans of the property from the current owners.

I thought I had understood that data pretty well, but I had a tendency to forget that the plan which I had before me was not from the year 1860 nor from 1828, when the Kataster map, which came with the tax documents,  was published.  In 1828, Johann Meier was only 3 years old and had a one year old sister.  They lived with his father and mother, who were newly married, and with his grandfather and grandmother.  In this scenario, there were three adult couples and two children.  Johann's father Matthias also had two unmarried brother who undoubtedly lived with the family until 1847 when  this youngest son of Michael Meier (not much older than Johann Meier) married a widow from Freudenberg and went to live there for the rest of his life.

 In the 1860s, as I said in the previous post, there were four (sometimes five or six) adults and five children in the living area of this very small barnhouse.

That led Herr Meyer to contact me and point out some possible misconceptions on my part.  It was obvious I pictured eight to ten people shoe-horned into tiny rooms on the first floor.  His ideas made a great deal of sense and helped me understand how a family with a very small barnhouse managed to live together in what seemed an impossibly small space.

To make it easier for me (and you) to envision the house from its front, I have turned the diagram of the house plan to show just where the front of the house was located.  It is easy to forget that the front of the house did not border the large main Saarburger street that ran the length of the building and the length of a good part of the village.  Instead, it faced a smaller side street - a street that does not exist today.

The following are the thoughts sent to me by Herr Meyer after he had read my February blog post.  They completely reoriented my thinking, and my plans for describing the Meier family's living quarters as I continue to write their story:

"The building owned by Johann Meier in 1860 reached to the street in front of the house. In the picture (which was taken in 2011) a car is parked there. On the ground floor there was house, barn and stable. You have correctly determined that the house was quite small for all the Meiers. This applies to the ground floor. There, the interior dimensions of the living space is so small that there was scarcely place to live. I suspect, therefore, that there were also rooms on the upper floor, which passed over the stable. It even had the advantage that these spaces were, due to the underlying stable floor, heated!  In comparison with the attached neighboring houses on the street, the building of the Meiers was small."

Now I could understand how as many as ten adults and as many as five children had managed to live in the small space at one time or another. And because I often forget just which people lived in this small dwelling in 1828 and 1860, here is the list of family members who probably resided in the house for those two specific years:

House of Michael Meier 1828/1829
Michael Meier, property owner
Magdalena Steffes Meier, wife of Michael
Matthias Meier, eldest son of Michael and Magdalena Meier
Maria Margaretha Weber Meier, wife of Matthias
Michael Meier, second son of Michael and Magdalena Meier
Peter Meier, third son of Michael and Magdalena Meier
Johann Meier, first son of Matthias and Maria Margaretha Meier
Anna Meier, first daughter of Matthias and Maria Margaretha Meier

House of Johann Meier 1860/61
Johann Meier, property owner
Magdalena Rauls Meier, wife of Johann Meier
Matthias Meier, eldest son of Johann and Magdalena Meier
Anna Meier, eldest daughter of Johann and Magdalena Meier
Anna Maria Meier, second daughter of Johann and Magdalena Meier
Johann Meier, second son of Johann and Magdalena Meier
Michael Meier, third son of Johann and Magdalena Meier
Matthias Meier, father of Johann Meier
Michael Meier, uncle of Johann Meier

The Meiers lived in a small structure compared to those of many of their neighbors. They had no place for a garden near the house, their two garden plots were far away. If they had a rough bench where they could sit on a Sunday or on a rare day when their farm work was finished before it was time to get a little sleep and start working all over again, that bench was in the road. And if I guess correctly, so was the manure pile. In spite of those almost impossible living conditions, the family was able to dream and to find their way to a new land. But meanwhile, in the interests of my further orientation, here are two maps from the http://www.irsch-saars/denkmaeler.htm.de website which show the street names and the buildings and monuments known to the Meiers while they lived in Irsch.

Meier farm stood near No. 7

The Meiers lived near the Catholic Church
 on the Saarburger Straße

The Building That Was Left Behind

Getting near to hallowed ground in 2004

Every time I came to Irsch - from the 1980s to my last visit in fall of 2010 - I passed the place where my ancestral home once stood.  Part of it, greatly changed over time, was still there.   But I had no idea I was walking or driving past what was, for me, hallowed ground.   

I had asked about records that would show the location of Johann and Magdalena Meier's house many times over the years and was always told that those records no longer existed.  In a village that had seen severe destruction from the time of Napoleon to World War II,  I had to accept the idea that I would never know where my Meier (or Hauser, Schawel, or Weber) ancestors had actually lived.  

I also thought that I had exhausted the resources in the Koblenz Archive when I found great-great- grandfather Meier's and Hauser's emigration documents.  But that was definitely not the case.  That Archive has so much more to offer - if you know how to look.  A genealogy friend told me about a researcher friend in Germany who used the Archive documents regularly and about the possibility of additional records.  She encouraged me to write him and ask him if he would do a search for me when he next visited the Archive.  He graciously agreed.  That was in about July of last year.

Just back from my trip to Germany in September  and October 2010, I retrieved my mail and found a package full of documents from the Archive.  It had been sent by the German researcher.  There were Kataster maps of Irsch and Zerf, or what we here in Wisconsin would call plat maps.  There were also pages of tax lists.  They dated from approximately 1829.  The Kataster maps showed not only numbered land holdings, but also tiny sketches of each house in the village.  It was possible to see the shape and relative size of each dwelling including the barn-house where Johann and Magadalena, my 2nd great grandparents had lived just before they came to Wisconsin!

No. 4091- Barn House of Matthias Meier in 1829, future home of Johann Meier and Magdalena Rauls Meier

That was exciting but would not have been as much help without the tax documents which came with the maps.  The copies of tax lists gave the size of each land parcel by number, told what type of land it was, the name of the area in which it lay (Beim Holzapfel Baum, In Der Wolfshek),  and showed the tax rate for each piece of land, no matter how small.  I matched Kataster number to Prussian tax number, and found the pieces of land owned by my Meier and Rauls ancestors in 1828-9, including their dwelling.

Herr Ewald Meyer of Irsch, who has always been a wonderful help to me, is able to read the old German handwriting, and once more I counted on his aid.  I sent copies of the documents to him, knowing that he would be able to read the difficult handwriting on the tax lists and also hoping that there might be a place in Irsch and Zerf to keep this duplicate information as an example of what a wealth of family history information can be found at the Archive in Koblenz.

E-mails began to fly back and forth.  I learned that the Meier family had pasture land, two small garden plots (neither close to the house they lived in) some fallow land - 19th century Germany used the three field system at this time - and one small field of "wild land/hedges."  Herr Meier, analysing the total land ownership in 1829 of Matthias Meier, Johann's father, came to the conclusion that he was a "small farmer" known as a Kleinbauer.  He had barely enough land to feed his family and probably owned very little livestock -- perhaps a cow or two and a pig.  To pay the taxes on the land, most Kleinbauern like Matthias had to have a second way to make a living, perhaps as a small-time craftsman such as a tailor or barge puller.

I thought my knowledge of the area couldn't get any better than that - but it did.

Remains of the Barn House of Johann Meier today

As always, Herr Meyer went the extra distance - and then some.  Soon after he got my package of documents, I received e-mail pictures of the part of the dwelling - the storage barn and the stable - which exists today in highly remodeled form. It is owned by the family across the street, even though it stands wall to wall with the home of another Irsch resident.  The Fisch family uses the former home of my ancestors for storage of wood, tractors, and other equipment.  This remodel was done sometime after I visited Irsch in the 1980s.  Because of the German love of order and paperwork, there were documents which spanned the time of the first remodel in 1927 and, after a visit from Herr Meyer, Herr Fisch, the current owner, was willing to give them over for scanning.  You can imagine my excitement when the e-mail scans arrived in my mailbox. 

First the building of today.  Notice the wall without windows in the new storage building.  That was the length of the Meier family's living space - and the width of their quarters was about one-third of that length.  According to my calculations, there could hardly be more than three rooms on the first floor; and each room on the first and second floors would have been about 6 feet by 7 feet in size.   Have you ever felt your kitchen or bedroom was too small?  It is probably palatial by these standards.

Diagram of the Barnhouse of Johann Meier in Irsch

The three colors on the diagram indicate remodel plans by Michael Britten in 1927 (red) and the later remodel (green) by the neighbor across the street, Herr Fisch.

Also notice the size of the stall area and the storage barn, (Stall und Scheune) compared to the size of the family's living quarters.

There was also a diagram for the walls and roof of the house.  You can see that in the last remodeling of the barn area; that is, the stable and storage, the top of the roof was reshaped and now has the flatter roof one can see in the current photo taken in 2011.  Before that time, there was a second floor for the living quarters.  A little more than a year before they applied for permission to come to America, Johann and Magdalena Meier had five children, and it is likely that Johann's father Matthias and his unmarried uncle Michael also lived in the house with them.

view of the buildings from the main street

It seems that by 1927, the part of the structure that had been the living quarters was in very bad condition and at that time was rebuilt by Michael Britten and combined with the storage area.

The living quarters faced the side street off of the larger main road

The final site plan shows an unusual land pattern.  The land on which the Meier dwelling sat had been divided into three separate plots: house, stable, and storage areas - each have their own site number.  Did Johann and Magdalena have a difficult time selling their dwelling and barn before they left for America and divided the lot for a quicker sale?  Another idea to be considered for my novel.

The building that was left behind saw its worst time in 1945 because of its unfortunate location near the German defense line set up to stop the invading WWII Allied troops if they managed to cross the Saar River.

American GI walks where once Johann and Magdalena lived

History ebbs and flows, changing destruction into renewal, enmity into friendship and, with luck; it allows families, once divided by unhappy circumstance, reconnection in future generations.  I feel privileged to be part of such a reconnection.

Sources:

Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, Kataster 001_Best.737 Nr.164 Bl.103 tif; Cataster 002_Best.737 Nr.164 Bl.103 tif;

Catastral-Steuer, Mutter-Rolle für die Catastral-Steuer der Gemeinde Irsch

Photo collection of Ewald Meyer, Irsch 



Prussian Officials - Small town

As I told you, in the next few weeks I will give you snippets of information that come my way as I do my "authoring."

I found this very interesting.  Prussian city and village officials of the mid 1800s wore uniforms, especially for significant events.  Therefore, the Mayor Herr Bodem of Beurig/Irsch would have appeared at official functions in a blue uniform, short jacket with epauletttes and a tricorne hat I associate with the French Napoleonic times.  The two hats were similar - except that the Prussian eagle, which irreverent men of Kreis Saarburg called the "Cuckoo," was the symbol that often decorated the Prussian tricorne.

Picture taken at Trier's Simeonstift Museum

Women's crowning glory - hide it or decorate it?

Toiling girls wearing scarves or caps with  a virtue arrow clearly seen

When was the last time you wore a hat - one that was part of your indoor dress - to a social function, to church or to any event? We women who live in the northern climates wear hats or tams or caps or perhaps earmuffs to keep our heads and ears warm on the cold days of winter, and we may wear a straw hat at the beach in summer or when we are working outside on a hot and sunny day.  Such was not the case for our ancestors in the 19th century Rhineland.   A head covering and/or ornaments for a woman's hair was a part of daily living.  While weather related conditions might have caused a need for the cap or bonnet, it also identified a woman's place--married or single, upper or lower class, and even what area she came from.

Women's Headware

The largest number of head coverings were worn by women, especially because of the Catholic church's interpretation of St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians about women covering their heads to show respect. While the upper classes were not so earnest about the tradition of head covering, especially when not attending church, women who lived in small villages were very diligent about it and almost always wore head coverings of some kind until almost the end of the 19th century - even though the hoods and bonnets of that day were actually a derivative of pagan head coverings worn in ancient times.

The women from the small villages of the Saar, Hunsrück and Eifel wore a simple bonnet usually made of blue colored calico with velvet-like fastening. It was drawn back in folds and covered almost the entire head. Only a bit of hair was revealed - hair combed flat at the forehead and occasionally a little hair showing at the back of the neck.

Younger women were allowed to go without much headcovering but older women without covered hair, especially in the early centuries, were looked at as witches and this carried over into the 1800s in rural areas. So women who deliberately went without a hat may have been making a statement about their disregard for convention.  While an uncovered head was allowed for the young woman, uncovered hair gave an older woman almost a witch-like aura.

To defend themselves against being considered shameless, some married women, especially in the middle and upper classes, came up with ways that some hair could be shown. The hair was braided or bound together at the back, held in place with a wide pointed decorative hair pin and a net covering.  A wide band of material, which covered most of the top of the head, was then tied under the chin in imitation of the usual cap of the married woman.

Until the end of the 19th century, a form of the extra-wide hair pin with its ornamentation was also used by unmarried women to hold their artfully twisted braids in the shape of a bun. One that was seen in many parts of the Rhineland was the Tugendpfeil, a "virtue arrow." The virtue arrow was worn by young, unmarried women or sometimes by a spinster.  This custom declined gradually during the1800s and had ended by the end of the 19th century. When a maiden married, the virtue arrow was no longer worn but rather replaced by the full bonnet.

The picture here is a detail from a painting by August Gustav Lasinsky in 1847.  (The full painting shows a group of pilgrims on their way to view the Holy Robe in Trier, which is still reverenced as the robe Christ wore at his crucifixion). The woman in the foreground wears the "Virtue arrow."

In a Small Rural Village

A typical village woman from the Saarburg area probably would own the following head coverings:  A simple cap without adornment, a decorated bonnet, a woven hat of straw or other material, and a scarf.

The scarf was folded so that it had three corners.  The tip would fall over the woman's back and the other two corners would be tied at the neck.  In the Saargau, women wore a black knitted or crocheted scarf with a tip that had the look of a tail handing down the back.  It was appropriately called the Schwanztuch (tail cloth).  In the Eifel the scarf was worn over a simple white cap.  A Stecknadel or sticking pin kept the scarf from slipping from the cap.  A young unmarried woman who wore just a hair net or hair pin to hold her braids in a roll, tied the scarf directly to her head (note painting above).  And many young women preferred wearing a figured red cloth bandana or handkerchief.  Headscarves were made of wool, cotton or linen.   A white scarf was used for fieldwork.  It was tied in such a way that it shadowed and protected the face from the sun.

In the Hunsruck, the cotton woman's cap was very popular.  The simple cap, usually of cotton or calico, was colorful, usually blue.  It was fastened under the chin.  A bell-shaped bonnet, often trimmed with shirring or with lace was worn on Sundays and holidays.  There might be modest decoration, but the use of artificial flowers, beads and silk ribbons was rarely seen.  Unlike the everyday cap, bonnets were not so tightly fitted around the head.

In the City

The women of the larger towns, the Bürgerin, had rather simple hairstyles, but clever maids who had a flair for fashioning hair into a fresh variations were in demand in the early part of the century.  One of the hairstyles worn by the middle class during this period was complex twisting of the hair which was wound low on the neck and held in place with a decorative comb or two.  There might also be puffs of hair styled over the ears, and the hair might be mixed with flowers, pearls or even feathers for ladies of the upper classes.  Some women also wore curls on the forehead in the English fashion.

The comb to hold the hair in place was worn by all classes of women but it hardly ever showed in the hair of the women from the small villages because they covered the comb with their bonnets.  The middle and especially the upper class women who did not always wear their hair covering, might wind their hair around at the back of the neck and hold it in place with a comb at the top.  Young women of this class would curl their hair and push it back behind their ears.  Older women had to be a bit more circumspect, wearing combs to keep any curls under strict control.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the older women at the usually wore what was called a "German cap," a bonnet which had one or more rows of pleating at the very edge of the bonnet.  If the woman was from the upper or middle class, these pleats might be made of fine lace.  The bonnet sat well forward on the head, almost shading the forehead and was tied at the chin.   These were considered very old-fashioned by younger women.  French women looked down on the German cap, as this kind of head covering had completely gone out of fashion in France, which even then, set the styles.  Already, some women in the larger Rhineland cities were wearing the "Capote," a hat with a wide brim that shaded the face and could be trimmed with flowers and jeweled trims.

Katharina Maria Dausch geb. Klotz 1786-1842
oil painting by Ludwig Neureuter 1829
In the Simeonstift Museum, Trier

While the bonnets and caps of the German woman of the 1800s have long since gone to museums, there are days when these head coverings would have their advantages.  A Rhineland village woman would not know the frustration of a "bad hair day."


Source; Martha Heit, "Kleidung im Trierer Land des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts," 1997