Early Posts Remembered

Wedding  Document from Hunsruck

Barge Stop on the Saar

Zerf farm life shown in village museum -
horn planters

Saarburg mill stream

On June 24 I celebrated an anniversary of sorts - my 7th full year of written posts for "Village Life in Kreis Saarburg". That means that this blog post begins year eight! When I wrote that first post, seven years seemed an impossibly long time to continue my project; now it seems impossible that the time has gone so fast. As these early posts are probably the most neglected, it seems fitting to bring them to the forefront again as part of my personal anniversary observance and as examples of ways to learn family history from less used sources.

My very first post on this blog was about Easter customs in the Hunsrück area of Germany. I bought a small recipe book, self-published, in a bookstore and it was a treasure. In searching for traditional recipes my ancestors might have enjoyed, i found not only recipes for Easter dinner, but also a gold mine of information about the traditions that went along with the recipes. For instance, children began to gather moss from the forests about two weeks before Easter so that they would have enough for a soft nest. The night before Easter, the moss nests were carefully placed in the garden, thus inviting the Easter Hase to lay its eggs there. But what if it rained on the evening of Easter Saturday? The children brought the nests inside and placed them in the kitchen, using a little willow basket to help keep the moss in nest-shape form. Recipe books can be a great source of information! 

My next four posts were written about a visit to a small village museum in Zerf, Germany. This dusty little museum was crammed full of farm implements, furniture for the living spaces, tools, baskets and buckets carried to the fields, harnesses for the ox, horse, or cow. There was even a reconstructed stone bake oven. That museum was the labor of love of one man in the village. When he died, the museum was kept closed unless one applied for permission to see it. The mayor kept the key in his office. Luck was with me when I visited because a local resident procured my entry. I had a guided tour from the mayor and his wife, and was given a guide to items in the museum. Because they knew I was coming, the mayor's wife had hand typed it especially for me. Through the blog, I was able to share that guide, along with the pictures I took, since much of what was inside that large room would be very similar to other village museums all over Germany. And there are many almost-forgotten museums in every state in the United States. When visiting the places where ancestors lived for a time, it is wise to ask if there is an almost forgotten museum. One of my favorite souvenirs of that day in Zerf was the tiny wooden peg I was given. Such pegs were used in place of a nail by the shoemaker when constructing the sole of a shoe.

I wrote three posts about wedding customs. My little Hunsrück recipe book - mentioned above - had the ingredients for traditional dishes served at a wedding meal in a location near Kreis Saarburg, Germany. It also included some traditional Hunsrück wedding customs in addition to the recipes for wedding dishes. On two other visits to Europe, I had stumbled across books that included the wedding lore of Normandy and weddings in Bavaria. So I included two other posts as a comparison to the Hunsrück wedding celebration. It was interesting that very far-flung areas had many baptism, marriage and death ceremonies and customs that were similar, something good to know when one is unable to find the "perfect" social history of the ancestors' town. A lot of the birth, marriage and death rituals in other parts of Germany, especially if the same religion was practiced, can be described (with proper notation) when writing a family history. There is more chance of being right than being wrong.

The history of Saarburg, Germany, which is the equivalent of a county seat in the US, was the subject of another early post. A German city which is designated a Kreis is one where the officials, who were a step above the local mayors, had offices and where most of the residents of the small villages had to travel when legal matters complicated their lives. The growing middles classes were likely to live in the Kreis or county seat in the 19th century. There were also owners of mills, tanneries, inns, and a great number of shopkeepers, since a city that could call itself a Kreis was a market town for cattle, produce, etc. My ancestors, I am sure, made a trip or three to Saarburg, sometimes to buy what they could not barter in their small village; or to sell produce. After the market closed for the day, there was an opportunity for the visiting villagers to observe the way of life in the "big city"- in what to them must have been a place of fascination. While there may not be that special book about your ancestors villages, there undoubtedly is some published information about the county seat or a larger city nearby, whatever it was called.

My grandmother had told me that her grandfather was a sailor, a story I dismissed as fictitious until I grasped the concept that a sailor did not necessarily sail on the ocean. The men who transported cargo in the unglamorous barges going up and down the Saar River were also sailors/seamen. The craftsmanship and ability necessary to build and sail the barges was greatly respected in Saarburg and the neighboring villages. It was a proud profession passed down from one generation to another, and it is doubtful that grandma's grandfather, Johann Meier, came from one of these families. But was he a hired "sailor" or one of the Halfen? As if to lend credence to Grandma's story, Johann still owned his own coil of rope, the kind used for pulling the barges, which he sold to a sailor from Beurig before leaving for America. It's always wise to take family stories with a grain of salt, but don't overlook the kernel of truth in the process. 

Some people believe that local customs have to be learned from the people who lived at the time. With today's quick-changing technology, it may seem that memories of the way life was lived told by parents or grandparents can't help much in recreating the lifestyle of great-grandparents and their parents. It's easy to forget that customs changed much more slowly even 50 years ago, and that a parent or relative or even a careful listener of one's own generation may have a head filled with details and tales a genealogist has never heard. All you have to do is ask. That's why I recorded every detail that Ewald Meyer and his wife Helena described about earlier times in their village of Irsch. Sometimes we were discussing customs from their lifetimes (more than a hundred years later than the period at which my great-great grandparents had lived there). It didn't take me long to realize that, from their reminiscing, I could learn about traditions which were observed in much earlier times. Using those notes, I wrote the blog post, "Of Apple Wine, Cabbage, and Other Everyday Things."

Yes, I've learned a lot about the Rhineland villages of my ancestors right from the beginning of my posting. Organizing my information well enough to make it clear to a reader often showed me anomalies that I would have missed otherwise, and even better, new thoughts occurred that put me on the track of more and more resources. Some of those documents and pictures I had never dreamed I would hold in my hands. And writing this post about my 2005 posts shocked me too. It reminded me how quickly I forget; how much I've already forgotten. Thank goodness for celebrating anniversaries!

The Cargo Barge on the Saar

Model of the iron barge owned by a Saarburg family






In my August post called "Saar River Sailors and Their Helpers," I described the strong men who manned the cargo barges. But what about the barges themselves? These utilitarian vessels were one of the most effective means for transporting freight from place to place in Europe until the mid-1800's when the railroads began to take over the freight hauling market. Saarburg, only a few miles from the villages of my ancestors, was noted for its sailing families and its barge builders. As cargo, the Saarburg barges carried the Lohe (oak bark) that came from the neighboring forests for use by the tanneries; field crops grown by farmers; and wine that came from the hilly vineyards around Saarburg. Even coal, such as that which whas mined in the pit at Dudweiler was conveyed to Saarbrücken and loaded on barges for transport down the Saar and the Mosel.

There are many pictures of barges sailing the rivers and canals, such as the one above. But I had little understanding of the deck and the interior of a barge. I found some helpful information in the book by Nikolaus Ritzler,* but I had to struggle to understand the German, especially because the names that Ritzler used for many parts of the barge had not made their way into either my current or even my older German dictionaries.

So I did what I often do. I e-mailed Herr Ewald Meyer for help deciphering one of those frustrating words, "Hef." It was evidently a very important part of the barge, but I could not define it, much less form a picture of it.

To answer my question, Ewald and his son Arno went off to talk to a 70-year old man from Saarburg whose family had once owned a barge. Arno took pictures of a model of their barge "Patria" from several angles while Ewald asked questions about the Hef and other features of the boat. It is very true that one picture is worth a thousand words, but I think good pictures of a three-dimensional model of a barge are worth even more.

In his e-mail to me Ewald explained: "These photos are of a model of an iron barge. This ship belonged to the father of a 70-year-old man from Saarburg. His family sailed this ship between Saarbrücken and Basel (Switzerland) through the canals. On the bow of the ship was the anchor boom and on the stern of the ship the rudder boom. This ship could not be pulled by horses because it was too heavy. A tractor or an engine moved such iron barges. The barges made of wood were built in a similar way except for the pilot's cabin which would not be needed."

"The "Hef" is a space under the deck. Such a space would be located beneath the foredeck as a site for rope, spare parts, tar for patching, work tools and so forth. Under the small afterdeck there was living space with a cookstove, a benchbox and sleeping places (bunks with straw). The benchbox served as a place to sit as well as a storage place for plates, bowls, cutlery, etc. The floor of the Hef did not reach to the bottom of the barge. The space in the Hef was only high enough to accommodate an average man's height.  In this way, if water penetrated the barge's hull, there would be a good way and enough time to seal up the leak. The Hef was reached by steep steps or a ladder. The word `Hiaf´ comes from the word `heben´ (mosel-fränkisch `hiawen´)"

The following information is from the book by Nikolaus Ritzler. Doing a bit of educated guessing, I'm taking my best shot at some additional description:




"The length of the newly built Saar barge was between 25 to 35 meters. It was 5 to 6 meters wide and its depth was about 3.5 meters. At the tip of the foredeck one would find a beech spar. The anchor which hung from the spar was held in place over the water by a strong chain that could be raised or lowered. On each side of this deck and also on the afterdeck there were 2 strong Rangen (sturdy posts?) that were 50 to 60 cm high. Looped with strong rope, these Rangen were used to moor the barge when it was in port. On the forward deck there was a covered entrance leading down to the space under the foredeck where the rope and other necessary work equipment were kept.

Between the forward- and afterdeck was the barge's Laderaum or hold. Here coal, wine barrels, crated goods, bales, sacks of fruit--whatever there was to be transported--was stored. The hold was fully covered by a roof; the floor made of pine boards. This kept everything well protected and water could easily be pumped out. The mast was attached to the hold. The slender mast could be lowered over the hold when the barge passed under bridges.



The heavy tiller wheel or Steuerruder was located at the tip of the afterdeck. Under the afterdeck lay the small space for cooking and sleeping" (described by Ewald Meyer in the section above).

*Nikolaus Ritzler grew up in Saarburg. In 1912, after he had retired he wrote Burg und Kreisstadt Saarburg.

Saar River Sailors and Their Helpers

Upper - model of a barge owned by the grandfather of H.D. Jung of Saarburg

Lower - post card in collection of H.D. Jung, Saarburg

Grandma's StoryWhen I was twenty or so, my grandmother told me that her own grandmother, Magdalena Rauls, had run away from home to marry my great-great grandfather, Johann Meier, who was a sailor. For many years I pictured Johann as a seaman on an majestic sailing ship, a glamorous occupation indeed. No wonder Magdalena was smitten. But when my genealogical research started, I learned that Johann had always lived in Irsch and was listed as a farmer. I wrote the romantic story off as pure fiction.

But as I delved into history books about Saarburg and vicinity, I saw another possibility that gave me a far more likely scenario for Johann or for any man who lived so close to the Saar River. It was possible that as a farm boy who could handle horses, Johann might have looked for extra work on the river as a way to improve his economic situation. Was he a Halfen?

Nickolaus Ritzler in his book, Burg und Kreisstadt Saarburg, says that sailing families lived along the Saar River in Saarburg from the very beginnings of the city and that when the barges sailed, there were always men, known as "Halfen" traveling with them. These were the men who handled the horses that towed the barges against the current. Both of these occupations were held in high respect.

The sections which follow are taken from a village history by Klaus Hammächer called Serrig: Landschaft, Geschichte & Geschichten. In a section called "Earlier Village Life," information from Nikolaus Ritzler, Adam Görgen, and Peter Faas describe shipping on the Saar during the "Golden Age" of the river barges.

The Sailors

According to Ritzler, the sailors from Saarburg dressed in high vests topped by blue jackets. On their heads they wore blue caps. This distinctive uniform, along with their deeply tanned skin, marked them as the men who built and sailed the barges that carried cargo on the Saar. Their homes were in the lower city close to the water's edge, as were the buildings where they carefully fashioned their barges. The names Schulges and Mettloch are especially associated with the boat building and sailing families in Saarburg.

The Barges

The Saar barges were made from solid oak without any blemish, and held together by strong iron nails made especially for this purpose by the local nail smiths. When a newly built ship was ready to make its first trip, there was always a celebration in one of the inns in the lower city, with hardy food and drink for all. Once on the river, the barges carried a wide variety of cargo such as coal, wood, iron, hay, straw, and most kinds of produce. During the many wars over the centuries, the barges also carried soldiers, weaponry, horses and food rations.

The Halfen

The helpers or Halfen, a word that seems to have originated in the region of Cologne, came mostly from the small villages of Irsch, Serrig, Beurig, Krutweiler and Zerf. According to Nikolaus Ritzler, who wrote his account about 1912, the Halfen had broad chests and were usually of middle height. They were easy to identify from their clothing and their walk, a swinging gait which developed from the amount of time they spent riding the strong barge horses. Their arms, too, moved in a distinctive way as a result of swinging a "Peitsche" or whip while they worked.

The dress of the Halfen consisted of white woolen (but not knitted) socks, linen trousers of blue or white, and coarse, strongly nailed cowleather shoes. Under a strong, warm white overjacket with horn buttons, they wore unbleached linen shirts. Headware could be either a black, round hat made of coarse felt, or, when it was cold, a knit "zipfel" cap. This was a sort of a stocking cap worn under the felt hat to protect ears and neck from the cold. Red cotton kerchiefs with white stripes were tied around their necks.

In 1904, Adam Görgen also wrote a description of the Halfen. He said they were healthy, strongly built men of middle size. A humble black hat with a large brim fastened to the head by a thin, colorful cord was their headgear. A blue, red, or white striped cotton cap was put on whenever the other hat was taken off. A red scarf was knotted around the neck and a rough linen shirt covered by a gray or white short linen or "Tirtey" jacket was typical. Their trousers were made of thick, white canvas. Over their jackets, they pulled on a still shorter blue coat and over the stockings that reached above the knee, they wore gaiters. Wool stockings and sturdy nailed shoes completed the outfit.

Gorgen says that when a barge owner needed extra help, he would go to a tavern (most likely in the lower city) to find Halfen. To seal the contract between "Schiffer" and "Halfen", a bottle of wine would be set on the table and both men would drink a glass. Wine was also part of the Halfens' workday. At 10 a.m., a helper received a half quart of wine. At noon and in the evening, the helper was entitled to a quart. When a particularly dangerous stretch was successfully navigated, the Halfen received the so called "wave wine."

No matter the weather, the Halfen would lead the horses along the towpath, if there was one, or ride the horses if the landscape was rough or if their was a ford to be crossed. The horses struggled to pull the barges when the boats were sailing against the Saar's strong current, but they were well cared for and were never mistreated. At the end of the day, the men who handled them were probably as tired as their horses. When the horses faced an especially difficult pull, there was a great deal of shouting by the Halfen as they drove the animals forward. The whip was used then but only when it could not be avoided.

The Trip on the River

Ritzler says that a trip from Trier to Saarbrucken would take about three days. Typically it would involve three or more barges which traveled together. Three horses were needed to pull each of the larger barges. The horses were attached to the barge by means of a strong line attached to the tip of the mast. When the trip began, the sailors would shout "In God's name" and then "Johleit rack". The barges were pushed away from the bank and the horses began to pull. There was a great deal of shouting between the sailors and the men leading the horses. The sound, "juh, juh" signaled the horses. By nightfall the barges had usually reached Saarburg where the sailors and Halfen spent the first night. (The vacation apartment that my sister and I rented when we were in Saarburg was once a barge owner's home; our apartment the sleeping area for the Halfen).

Each day there were also rest stops and during that time the sailors and the Halfen would discuss any problems along the next stretch in the river. Lunch would be carried ashore from the ship and eaten at an inn or tavern, with the landlord providing the dishes, tableware and the wine. The shipowner, of course. paid for the wine that the landlord of the inn placed on the table.

During the trip the sailors and helpers might shout and curse and sometime come to blows with one another, but at lunch time and after there was rest. The men would sit outside, smoke a pipe, and enjoy camaraderie. Once rested, the hard work, shouts and grumbles began again. At night the sailors slept in a "Hef," the Halfen in a strawsack bed and the horses in their stalls aboard the ship.

According to Ritzler, the Halfen were paid cash for each day worked with the shipowners also providing food, drink, and feed for the horses. A lesser payment per day was given to each man for his trip back home. This amount paid for the cost of food, night quarters, bridge tolls, as well as hay and grain for the horses.