In Search of ..... myself? Part 3

In search of myself...Part 3... or "why I quit 'doing' genealogy."

Sometime before my grandma died in 2009, a post showed up on the old MI-Macomb list about Spallers.  I asked my grandma about them, discovered she had known them from church in Mt. Clemens, and she was able to give information to report back to the person who was stumped looking for her family.  I got chewed out by another member of the list.  "Your grandparents don't know what they are talking about.  That is only hearsay." So on and so forth.   That was the final straw for me.  I deleted everything off of Rootsweb.

Over the years as I have tried to learn more about my family, I have been chastised time and time again by so-called "real" genealogists.  Floating around out there is the wrong birth date for my great-grandma Hummel.  Grandma Hummel and Aunt Annie (whom I remember!) were born Dec 11 and Dec 27, respectively.  When the clerk came around and recorded the births, a few years after the fact, he wrote the dates down wrong (got the years correct).  My grandpa could, and my mother can testify to the trouble that Grandma H and Aunt Annie had straightening that out.  It was fixed before Grandma H died in 1973 but apparently not noted in the early records.  So when I contacted someone who had that info incorrect, I was chewed out because that was hearsay.  Really?  I have her baptism certificate.  She is my great-grandma.  "That isn't really family," I was told and I was supposed to supply some stranger, who never did explain how he was connected to my family, my great-grandma's baptism certificate.

Then I understood.

My grandparents were apprehensive about sharing information much outside of the family.  They told me stories about their grandparents, Grandpa and Grandma Rohrbeck, Grandma Hurttgam, Grandpa and Grandma Saal.  I even heard stories from my grandma about her great-grandparents, Christ and Matilda Ahrens, and even Uncle Alfred's parents and grandparents (that would be the Daus and Schuett families.)  No one -- and I mean NO ONE -- will ever tell me that I am not really related to these people.  So I never got to meet some of them here.  Whatever.  I take care of their graves, yes, even my great-great grandparents' graves are checked, as I learned from my own grandparents.  They are all family.  On July 28, 2018, four out of five of Grandpa and Grandma Saal's children were represented at a family gathering for my great-uncle's 95 birthday.  Because Grandma's aunt married Grandpa's cousin, I had double family there.  There were other parts of the family there, too.

Don't get me started about the warped sense of family in today's society.  I have known too large a family to allow myself to say that my grandparents' cousins aren't really family.

So what am I?  I don't "really" live in my township, as I was told by elected township officials.(Because I live on the border in a cheap house, I'm not really a resident.)  I am neither a Mayflower descendant nor English, nor do I have family that fought in the Civil War, War of 1812, or Revolutionary War, so I'm not "really" an American, in the same sense on not "really" living in my township.  (Yes, I have been told that, too.  Plenty of family in WWI and WWII, however, and even a KIA in WWII.)  On my father's side I am part Moravian (Czech), Irish and the mysterious "German."  I never really grew up knowing that, so is that really part of my identity?  On my mother's side, I am part French, the mysterious "German," sometimes "Prussian"  was written down, and in one case, "Pomerania" was used.  At this point, all I have left is my religion as an identity.  I feel like Philip Nolan, "The Man Without a Country."

In Part 1, I wrote: I suspect that those of Polish descent will be able to sympathize with his story in a way that I cannot, but more about that later.    

I have yet to meet Polish Americans who are lackadaisical about their identities.  There seems to remain a pride in the descendants.  They know they are Polish, and the identity is carried through the generations with the food and customs.  I assume that comes from 200 years of keeping the identity alive when the country wasn't on the maps.  I don't have that.  One great-great-grandfather became an American citizen as soon as he could, the other did not until 1918.  However, I get the "identity crisis," if you will, in A Polish Son.  I understand what drove the writer to go to Poland and search for family.  I would do the same, if I had a distinct country and identity to search.  It is a brave person who opens himself to the criticism of the so-called "real genealogists," and Leonard Kniffel gets my respect for doing so.  

So check out those books.  They're worth the read.  Anything that makes me stop and think this hard is good.  Then again, An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott makes me think this hard.  I like to think.  Even my husband read them, and he's the first one to say he doesn't read books.

I might not know what I am, but I know WHO I am.

http://claraspet.blogspot.com/2009/12/trip-down-quilt-memory-lane.html

In Search of ..... myself? Part 2

Then I asked myself, "Why isn't there ever anything written about us of German descent?"

There are Polish Americans, there are Irish Americans.  Italian Americans.  So on and so forth.  My grandparents, who spoke Low German at home amongst themselves and with a few others well into the 1980s, never fell into being hyphenated Americans.  They were Americans, and they didn't appreciate it being advertised they still spoke Low German, thank you very much!

Of course, two World Wars have something to do with this.  In my church history book I talk about Rev. Justus Lohrmann, Pastor Lohrmann's son who almost stood trial in WWI, down in Southern Illinois.   (The man who was not American enough in WWI lost his son in WWII.  Justus was born in Richmond, Michigan.)  Whenever I would ask questions about the war years, my grandparents refused to talk about the "German" question except to say that one never, ever spoke German except when sure it was safe.  I've also heard the local stories of the farmer of German descent, whose family has been here since the 1830s, and the zealous milkman who dumped out into the ditch "that German milk."  Germans are racists, horrible people, uneducated, unrefined, you name it.  I know, I've heard it -- and gotten the treatment to go with it.  We're still immigrants, 4 and 5 and 6 generations later.

My family ditched "Germany" between 1840-1871.  Sometimes I have found towns, sometimes not, and some of the places seem to be those not found on maps.  When I ordered the Busia book, I also ordered two maps from the Polish Art Center.  I have looked for years for old maps showing old place names, and these are from the 1830s-40s.  Some of these place names are: Woderik Vorfonen,  Brandenburg, Schwaneburg/Schwanburg, Kadlow (Kartlow perhaps?) (Pomerania), Schmarsow (Pomerania), Pasewalk (Prussia), Rossow bei Prenzlau (that family originally moved to Germany from France!), and Schwerin.  These are the names written down in family records and sometimes church records.  For you see, all I have to do to go visit multiple generations of my family is drive down to Sterling Heights, Fraser, and Clinton Township, to some obscure cemeteries, and there I find generations going back to my 4th great-grandparents or so.

But these names -- they aren't all from Germany.  Some appear to be in modern day Poland.  Then there are the last names... I have been told by real Germans that some of my family names, like Rohrbeck, isn't German at all.  "Never heard of it before.  Are you sure it isn't Rohrbach?"  No, in the few records that have shown up from Germany (Schwaneburg area) it is very distinctly "Rohrbeck."   So tell me, do these people look German to you?  (My great-grandma is in the back row on the left, picture taken in 1929.  Grandpa and Grandma Rohrbeck are in the center, both of whom were born in "Germany" or "Prussia".)

So in the end I'm left with the question that all Lutherans learn in Luther's Small Catechism :  "What does this mean?"

Well, a few thoughts.  On my mother's side, I come from a long line of Lutherans, and German would have been the language of the church.  (Some Reformed/Calvinists show up also, but the language was still German.)  Lots of border changes, Prussian Union of Churches, etc, and throw in some moving around (Grandpa Rohrbeck and his siblings were born in different towns in "Germany") did nothing but confuse the nationality.   Throw in a couple wars and goodbye any records that may have been.  In many respects, I'm no further than when I started trying to work on "the family tree" over 20 years ago.  I have more questions than answers when it comes to "what am I?"

Stay tuned for Part 3.

In Search of ..... myself?

This post started out as a book review of two excellent books I read recently, but it has ended up with me staring at myself and asking questions I have successfully dodged for most of my life.  Before I get deep, the books I read:

These are two very excellent books, and I have my neighbor's son to thank for A Polish Son in the Motherland.  It was a thank you for having given him the entire ownership line for his parents' house. 

A Polish Son is the search of Leonard Kniffel for his Polish family, and as I read it, I felt there was a deeper search for identity: his grandmother's identity, yes, but more so his identity.  He lived the genealogist's dream, that of being able to go back to the "old country;" of seeing where his family came from and what influenced them; of being able to track family that may be left, with the help of his grandmother's surviving letters.  That is a long, awkward sentence that would make Henry James proud, but that is the book in a nutshell.  It is an intensely private story, yet it doesn't read like that. It is the work of a talented writer.  I suspect that those of Polish descent will be able to sympathize with his story in a way that I cannot, but more about that later.    

The glimpses of his life as a child piqued my curiosity, as he mentioned both the creek down the road from my house and the very road I live on.  Living as I do in "the Great Nothingness," to see my area in print was enough to make me say "Well, flying potatoes!"  For certainly, should I see flying potatoes I would no longer be surprised.  I suppose one would have to live here to understand how a place can exist and yet not exist.  At my house, we live by this line from The Hip's song "Fireworks,"  "... And believing in the country of me and you."   

All that said, once I had finished A Polish Son, I was curious if he had written anything about growing up out here.  That book is called Busia.  I felt that book was entirely too short, but that isn't a bad thing.  It really lays the groundwork for A Polish Son.  After reading the memories of growing up with his grandmother, his Busia (in Polish), one understands the love and the curiosity which caused him to go to Poland.  For certainly, it takes love to pack up and walk in footsteps almost a hundred years old, in a land where the language is not your first.

Then I asked myself, "Why isn't there ever anything written about us of German descent?"  

The next post deals with that question.

Michigan TOGA 2018

 I was a bad girl this year.  With all the stress in the family, I proceeded to forget the camera and that I could take pictures with my phone.  That said, I did get 2 pictures from the day before, when we packed the truck.

In the passenger seat, that was my 1874 Singer 12 riding shotgun, seatbelted in.  I hated to see her go, but I have too many machines for this stick-built trailer I live in.  

In the truck was a 1955 or so Necchi Supernova in a giant desk cabinet, the Singer 12, an Eldredge head (pony express), a German hand crank Atalanta, and the 1918 New Home hand crank I posted about just recently.  The New Home sold last minute, and so I came home this year with a record "no machines."  I did, however, come home with 3 sets of attachments (thank you, Sharon), needles for my Minnesotas (thank you Patience), and some fabric. 

In spite of the rain it was a pleasant day and fun to see the machines everyone brought to work on.  Lots of beautiful German hand cranks with perfect or nearly perfect decals, with a couple New Homes and a Singer 48 making an appearance.  I ended up not getting much work done as I sold the New Home I brought to work on, but that's OK.   

Our venue this year was in Charlotte at the Hen House quilt store, and it was a nice place to be.  

If I seem rather quiet about TOGA, it is only that things keep spiraling downward here and no matter what it's a hard thing to shake off.  However, for a few hours on Saturday the 21st, I forgot it all and got some good visits in, but not nearly enough!  One can never have too much TOGA.

Latest Project(s)

When the clouds gather and the wind shifts direction.... this is what my kitchen looks like.

Thanks to the upcoming Michigan TOGA, I'm working with a vengeance on sewing machines.  The idea was to get one ready to sell, but dang it, I'm getting attached to it, this lovely critter, a 1918 New Home with mismatched decals and botched up wiring.  It is now a hand crank.

But of course, I can't just work on one machine, right?  I mean, really, with the fruit production around here right now, this is not the time to get sucked into multiple machine-cleaning and restoring.  Therefore, this is my other project, an 1889-90 New Home.

It's not a very promising machine with heavy decal wear and rust, but I got it from my now-deceased "neighbor" Chuck, and let's just say, it's a tribute machine to him.  I've had it for long enough, and I guess it just had to hang around long enough for me to see its potential.  That and it has a decal set I had not seen before, what's left of the decals, anyway.  It came in a complete cabinet, with full set of attachments and all.  Can't wait to get to the cabinet.  As some of you may remember, part of the cabinet has been at my inlaws for a while now.....  Very soon it will come back here, and I'll be able to call Chuck's wife and say, "Come see your sewing machine...."

Fourth of July thoughts

Which way does this picture go? This way ----

---- or this way????

I thought of this picture when my neighbor, "The World's Best Neighbor" TM, was over the other night. She found out the hard way that she no longer has internet service. The tech was at her house to set up another service and told her she has no internet. That was news to her, as she has had it longer than we have, and she's had better connection speeds, too. She can't get it back, as the house next to her managed to grab it, and there's only enough signal for 2 out of 4 houses.  Oh, and dial up is now her only choice.  Yes, folks, in 2018....

Some of you reading this may remember me talking about the fun of living on a main road without any real choice for internet. ATT DSL is all that we have, other than going back to dial up.  ATT recently asked me to find another provider and leave them -- at $125 a month, I would think they would want to keep us -- and I informed them I would gladly leave if I had anything else available here. (We live on a main road, a main artery between Canada and Oakland County.)

"Oh." That was all the employee in Missouri had to say after telling me to take my business elsewhere.

There is this "trompe l'oeil" (fool the eye) in our society, like my picture above (taken in 1998), of two worlds. The news/social media/etc would have everyone believe that EVERYONE no longer uses cash, is connected 24/7/365, and lives in a perfect house with multiple bathrooms, marble and tile and spits money out like trees suck in carbon dioxide. EVERYONE lives in a manicured neighborhood where the houses are miniature compounds, with personal gyms, movie rooms, or whatever else floats your boat.

Then there is the real reality. The world where, in Michigan, laws were passed in 2014 that make it easier to throw customers off of landlines (and apparently DSL internet, which travels over said landlines.) It's called, "Michigan Public act 52 of 2014," people.   You know that real world -- the disgusting one where people turn their heads and look at their feet if one implies that it exists. The world where a poor college student with good grades can't get a scholarship because said student had to work to live to get through high school and couldn't play the required sports.  The one where a news reporter, who makes much more than $19 an hour, can imply the Detroit Police are overpaid if they make that.   The one where if a political candidate dares to show up in certain areas, he gets nervous quickly and disappears because he was scared to have us "northenders" talk to him. (To be fair, lately we have had some decent state representatives, even if this one is afraid of using my sledge hammer.)    

Strangely enough, this all fits in with today, the 4th of July. Just yesterday my 16 year old informed me that he does not believe America ever gave people a chance to succeed, because even a hundred years ago and more businesses still ran everything. I can't completely agree with him, and yet he is right. I know my family had chances here they never had in Prussia, but they also had agriculture open to them. They were farmers, and the businessmen hadn't taken that away yet as a profession. I remember well when I wanted to follow in my grandpa's footsteps and farm, and I remember him telling me that those days were gone. He was right. The day of the small farmer is gone.

Thomas Jefferson, who died 192 years ago today, was a visionary when he wrote to James Madison in 1787, "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."

However, it is Benjamin Franklin who nailed it when he wrote,"Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry."

By the way, the 2nd picture is the correct one.  That is Deer Creek.  I grew up playing around there.

From the Great Nothingness, Claraspet.

Happy Birthday, Treadle On

20 years ago today a place called Treadle On was created.  Internet Archive can show you how the site looked, for it has changed since then.  I joined in the 8th year (2006) and so was not around at its inception.  I will say the mythical place of Olde Treadleonia has often been a refuge for me in this crazy world.

That said, I celebrated today in proper style.  I sewed on my Minnesota C treadle -- aka Uncle Charlie's treadle.

  

So what did I work on?  Well, some years ago, a wonderful Onion (Treadle On members are called "Onions" -- long story) posted a link to a book of embroidery patterns that looked neat.  She said she's never do it but thought someone would enjoy looking at them.  Well, I did and I bought the book.  Helen at Bustle & Sew had designed a series of Rosie and Bear for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

My grandpa had died some months before, and the book made me think of my grandma, who died in 2009.  So I read the book, and a nagging thought "I could do this" kept running through my mind.  Grandma taught me to embroider when I was about 10, but it was something I didn't do because I wasn't very good at it.

I had that book for a year and read it faithfully.  Then CNV (choroidal neovascularization) struck and I lost my eyesight in my left eye temporarily.  Let me tell you it is no joke that there are times one's life goes before one's eyes.  Mine certainly did, in the 3 days it took me to pull it together and get my desire to fight back.  So, in 2015, once my vision had responded to the shots, I began embroidering (and I found out I was better than I thought.  I think.)

I am only talking about a few blocks here.  The rest (including the unfinished USA) can be found here: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/24805158

I got a lot of questions while working on these.  I was asked if I was Canadian a few times.  Not the first time I've heard that!  (Mostly I was asked when I was around Oakland County.)  I live in Michigan close to Canada, and we can get some Canadian tv channels, but that's about it.  (It's Hockey Night in Canada right now!!  Woo-hoo!)    I've been accused of sounding Canadian once in a while, too.  I guess there's something weird about an American embroidering blocks from around the Commonwealth.

Anyway, here is Canada #1:

Then the finished Canada:

Notice anything??

I had finished the block by the time The Tragically Hip played the August 20, 2016 Kingston show, but I wanted to commemorate it.  A maple leaf balloon with "Hip '16" in silver seemed like the best way to do so.  One of Gord Downie's suits was silver during the tour.  (I watched the show on CBC.)  Yes, Virginia, I am a Hip Head.

I ran out of time today and so the only block I have left to finish is the USA block.  If I didn't love some of the other things, George Washington would have been reason enough to do this project.

I'll post the finished picture when it is done.

It's actually fitting to have worked on this today, Treadle On's anniversary.  I have gotten to know people from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain (where one of my former school mates now lives.)   The Canadian flag fabric was a gift at my first Michigan TOGA from some of our Canadian members, so only fitting I used it.  

Happy Anniversary Treadle On!  May there be many more.