Our Lost German Culture
The Germans have a saying -- “Wir sind ein volk” -- “We are one people.” As a family, while we have grown large in numbers and diverse lifestyles, our DNA and our sense of history are unique in uniting us. Our ancestors, Friedrich and Eva Maria (Weber) Meinert Sr., possibly second or third generation German-Americans, settled near Reading, Berks County, PA.
Today, some 270 years later, few traces of the family's German culture remain. Yet the German language of the clan was dominant for about 135 years, from the 1730s to the time of the American Civil War. It's amazing these "Pennsylvania Dutch" traits lasted as long as they did.
Digby Baltzell's authoritative and classic 1979 book, Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia, says that the Meinerts' eastern/central "Pennsylvania Dutch country, the richest farming land in America, is a remarkably [culturally] homogenous area even today. Indeed, for a long time the area was bilingual; the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch dialect is a mixture of English and German."
After the end of the Revolutionary War, German ways and means became even more dominant in the region, and "its distinct dialect exaggerated the isolation of the area from the rest of the new nation," says Frantz and Pencak's 1998 book, Beyond Philadelphia. "Adding to this insularity was the inclination of the Pennsylvania German subculture to marry within its own community, to remain wedded to the soil, and perhaps to be more religious, superstitious, and suspicious of the outside world than others."
While long-term assimilation is natural for any clan, other strong forces were at work to ultimately Americanize our family. Wright’s Franklin of Philadelphia reports that Benjamin Franklin was partly to blame for being “especially critical of the Germans in western Pennsylvania” during the colonial era. Franklin wrote:
Why should the Palatine boors be suffered to swarm into our settlements and, by herding together, establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them?”
Legislation
was introduced in Parliament in the 1750s that would have kept Pennsylvania
Germans from voting, as Wright says, “until they had acquired
‘a sufficient Knowledge of our Language and Constitution,’ and requiring
that all newspapers, almanacs, and legal documents in the province be written in
English.” Under such restraints,
it is little wonder that the German values were left behind.
Yet despite such pressure, German continued to be spoken by succeeding generations. In 1828, John Minerd of Kingwood, PA, was sued by a cousin for speaking libel in German. (Click here to read about the fascinating case.) In 1865, Minerd’s son Henry A. Miner likewise was sued for alleged slander spoken in German. In 1846, the grave marker of Heinrich Gaumer, a great-grandson of Friedrich and Maria, was written in German, in the old gothic script. The marker is seen here.
In one branch of our family, who settled in Kansas and Missouri, it was well known that the family's origins were German. However, the pronunciation of the family name underwent a change around 1920. According to one member of this branch:
Before World War I, the name was pronounced MY-nerd. It was German. When my brother, cousins and uncles returned from the war, they wanted no part of anything German. I remember my father and uncle talking about it more than once. And that was when our name was changed to the softer, French-sounding Meh-NARD.
Some old German songs continue to be passed down today though we don’t know what the words mean.
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Nancy Farabee’s Song - passed down to her grandson, Donnus F. Farabee, of Waynesburg, PA, who recited these lyrics in 1988: See-bee, quah-bee, English Mary, singlum, sanglum, buck...
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Somerset County Farm Song - a hybrid of German and English, was sung in the farm fields of Somerset County, PA, by the late Minnie (Miner) Gary. It was passed down to her daughter, the late Gladys (Gary) Kreger:
E hope mutta en de Rabie carric (repeat 3 times)
Way nibber en de Rabie carric awanie (onie)
en de hymnal crom crafting mine mutta room
Ugaena with angula en blonda rue (repeat 3 times)
I have a mother in the promised land (repeat 3 times)
When I get to Heaven then I will meet my mother there
Gone with the angels to wear God's crown (repeat 3 times)
Other Words: Mary A. (Luckey) Malone, daughter of Sadie (Minerd) Luckey, reported that "jangle" meant to argue or bicker. A granddaughter of Joanna (Minerd) Enos said "grumbeer" meant potatoes.
Copyright © 2000, 2002 Mark A. Miner