Throwback Thursday - California Dreamin'

Scrap Wisdom

 

Scrap Wisdom

You sulk about opportunity lost.

I grieve a shared lifetime.

I didn’t trust her heart with you.

You are people careless.

Good faith meant nothing.

My bones picked clean, no longer of use,

A mere scrap to be flicked away

With subtle and not so subtle cruelties.

You are people careless.

I See You, now,

Stripped of your charming camouflage.

Hiding behind a borrowed dialect.

I have the receipts, your very own words.

You are people careless.

You keep your "truth" hidden, 

From the place of Alder trees

Expecting mine to be an open book.

Yours carefully protected, 

Mine, you shrug, collateral damage. 

You are people careless.

Untorn index cards do not lie.

Warm yourself with your delusions.

Reality having leached away.

An ugly truth dressed in silk ribbons

You are people careless.

Self lies and hypocrisy are your mantle 

I will not forget. We will not forget.

You are people careless.

 

Acqua davanti e ventu d’arreri.

© 10 July 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Miss you, Sissy

I really thought I could do it, this year.  I thought I could write about you and say how special you were to me.  Instead, I am crying and I can't seem to stop.  Coward that I am, I cannot look into my mother's and my father's faces and witness their pain.  Children are not supposed to die before their parents.  

No, three years is not enough time.  

I am so glad the last words we spoke to one another were, "I love you, Sissy."  and you said, "I love you, too."  I can still hear your words, your inflection, echoing in my head, echoing in my heart. 

This is the fourth birthday of yours that I cannot wish you a year of Happiness.  I miss our shared history. I miss knowing you are in this world.  I miss you, Sissy. 

 © 9 April 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

SAY HIS NAME

 

There is a tradition in Mexico that speaks of the three deaths.

 

The first death is when you take your last breath.

The second death is when you are returned to the earth.

The third death, that final consignment to oblivion, occurs the last time your name is spoken.

 

On September 13, 1904, Emma Gleffe Schröder, my great grandmother, gave birth to her second child, a son, in Groß Gansen in the Pommern region of what was then Germany but is now part of Poland. Paul Albert Carl was baptized on September 22 as a member of the church of Budow. This was the same church that his mother Emma, his father Leo, and his older brother Willi, were all baptized. There are records indicating that little Paul’s ancestors had been baptized at the church in Budow from at least, the early part of the 18^th century. (Paul’s ancestors were probably both Kashubian and German, as the liturgical services were spoken in both German and Kashubian until 1795.)

Paul’s baptism on that day in September of 1904 listed his sponsors as Albert Bacher, Frau Karoline Gleffe, and Franz Gleffe all residing in Groß Gansen. Paul’s baptism occurred on a Thursday, not the usual Sunday, indicating that the child must have been ill. On October 3, 1904, Paul Schröder died.

In 1906, when Leo and Emma along with their sons Willi and Max arrived in the United States, I can imagine their excitement, and their sadness. Leaving your mother, your father, your siblings, your cousins, and your friends had to be difficult. But I cannot discount, the sadness Emma must have felt leaving behind her son’s grave. As a mother of a deceased child, I know the small comfort of standing at my child’s final resting place. The bittersweet joy of placing flowers to honor that piece of my lost heart. The rough feel of the cold marble as I trace the letters of her name. I feel a kinship with Emma, not just of blood, but of a shared sorrow.

Paul’s parents are both long gone from this earth. His eight siblings, too, have found their final resting place. There are no children or grandchildren to remember, Paul. Today as I type his name - Paul. Albert. Carl. Schröder – I say his name aloud, for Paul, for Emma. One more day Paul’s memory lives. One more day oblivion cannot claim him.

Say his name.

 

 

A Thank you.

I have been blessed in my research of my German ancestors, with the kindness and generosity of many. Today, I single out one of them. My German friend, Siegfried Krause. Siegfried reached out to me over a decade ago after he read my blog. He not only helped me with research, but he also sent me pictures and videos of my ancestral towns. Thankfully, he spoke and wrote English very well, as I do not read or write German. (A complication my German friend, Jörg, could attest to.) Siegfried is the one who explained the German custom of having three baptismal sponsors. The Evangelische church allowed for three sponsors, any more than that, and you had to pay an additional fee. It is rare to see any 19^th century or early 20^th century German church registers listing more than three, but they do exist

I learned several years ago that my friend Siegfried had passed away. I think of him often. I say his name aloud, Siegfried. Krause. I promise you, Siegfried, while my brain still functions and I have a breath, your name will be on my lips. I miss your wisdom and kindness, my friend.

 

Sources:

1. Siegfried Krause, numerous email correspondence

2 Evangelische Kirche Budow Taufen, 1904/88

3. Manifest for the Ship, Amerika, first found on Website for Ellis Island in 2003 – now listed as https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/

4. Kashubia, Home of the Baltic Slavs – written originally in Polish by Jaroslaw Ellwart, translated to German by Peter Oliver Loew, and abridged and supplemented English translation by John M. Hingst and Liesel Herchenroether Hingst, 2000. PDF version found online, 20 July 2020.

© 26 March 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

 

For Heather - Another Year Without You

A Matter So Small 

I never saw her, my daughter, my Heather

I felt her prenatal kicks; I patted my belly

Named her Little Harry Eagleclaw

She liked my rocking chair, I think 

Kicking when I would pause to stop

She died, bones crushed by the weight of her own body fluids

A mystery, they said, so sad, they said, you'll have another, they said.

I nodded, the always acquiescent essence of a good girl

Not willing to bother anyone, for a matter so small.

Until one morning, when the sun came up a little slanted

Illuminating the white hot fierceness of loss 

I moaned and wailed and beat my fists upon the walls 

Demanding retribution, demanding an accounting

Demanding God to show himself, to strike me dead 

And when I was done, God being silent 

I lay spent, alive, yet not, pieces of my soul released and gone forever 

Buried with my perfect monster child, my daughter, my baby, my Heather.

© 14 Nov 2021, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Look Who's Turning 90!

© 4 October 2021, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

In Honor of the First US Woman Becoming a Presidential Nominee of a Major party

Love her- hate her, tonight we make history with Hillary Clinton  becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party for President of the United States.

In honor of this, I republish a post I first made on March 4, 2008.

Her Inalienable Right to the Elective Franchise

In precinct A of Roscoe, Ohio, Catherine Christofel, accompanied by her daughter, went to the polls at noon on November 2, 1920, and did the one thing that the 93-year-old woman had never been allowed to do before, she voted. When asked by a reporter of the Coshocton Tribune who would get her vote in this, her first presidential election, Catherine smiled and said, “I'm not telling my politics, and besides the ballot is secret.”

In Athens, Ohio, the 90-year-old mother of a congressman arrived at 5:30 AM to wait in line for the polls to open so she too could cast her very first ballot. In Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reported five sisters, aged 73 to 94, would also be voting in their first presidential election.

And so it went, across the country, women made their way to polling places and exercised the same rights as their fathers, brothers and husbands — the right to vote. The 19th Amendment that conferred this right had been proposed on June 4, 1919, and on August 18, 1920, the amendment received the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment. It was signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby on August 26. The amendment read:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

In Georgia and Mississippi, where the state legislatures had previously rejected the 19th Amendment, women were told they could not vote. These states claimed a requirement of registration six months prior to an election in order for an individual to vote. Either women who showed up at polling places were turned away or their ballots destroyed.

The road to women's suffrage had been a long one. Catherine Christofel would have been 21 when the first Woman's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the help of Lucretia Mott, created a written document called “Declaration of Sentiments” which proposed, among other things, extending voting rights to all citizens of the United States.

After the Civil War, this idea of universal suffrage was embraced by those supporting both black and woman Suffrage. Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned statesman and reformer, was an outspoken supporter of both black and woman suffrage. However, with the proposal and impending ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, some women in the movement were angry at Douglass's push for the two amendments’ passage pointing out that women were once again left out of the voting franchise.

Notice the difference in wording of the 15th Amendment and the 19th Amendment. The 15th Amendment states:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

Douglas defended his support of the 15th amendment at the Equal Rights Association in May 1869, stating:

“When women, because they are women, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed to the pavement; when they are objects of insults and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot.”

Some of the leaders of the women's movement refused to support the ratification of the 15th Amendment without the inclusion of women in the voting franchise. Others worked hard for its passage, feeling that this would be the first step to ensuring their own voting rights.

On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, giving all male citizens the right to vote. With a few notable exceptions (Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and for a time, Utah) women would wait another 50 years before their time would come.

For Catherine Christofel and the other women who voted that cold rainy day in November of 1920, the time had been long enough.

Until Next Time …

Original © 4 March 2008,  republished 7 June 2016