Vancouver Barbara left a comment yesterday that she wants to see the spoiled quilt, even with its typo (or as my art pal calls it, a stitcho). So here it is. Sorry that it's difficult to read -- in the flesh it's not quite so monotone, although it certainly is deliberately low-contrast. (If only I had given more thought from the start to how it might look in photos....)
I know this information because we found the record of their arrival in the huge Germans To America reference books, which list every passenger on every ship from Germany to the US for much of the 19th century. I was delighted to find this illustration, an engraving of the actual ship they traveled on.
By the way, I think this piece is going to be cut into little bits and reincarnated. I'll keep you posted!
Postcards? Journeying....
ReplyDeleteI think you should stitch an X over the extra word and donate it to the geneology roon of your library for display; if they don't have one, find one that does. You wouldn't discard it if it had been a letter...and anyone working on geneology would appreciate both the work and the story!
ReplyDeleteYou've motivated me to do a little research on my relatives, I also have a Whilhelmina and an Augusta in my family tree. Mine settled in La Crosse WI. Are those Germans to America reference books available on line?
ReplyDeleteI think they are but won't testify to it. We used the hard copy at the public library, which was interesting. You have to look up the names phonetically, since the spelling varied so much due to sloppy recordkeeping on the ships, language barriers, illiteracy among the passengers, and creative naming by US immigration officers. So (as I recall) I had to type in something like KLKR to pull up Cholcher.
DeleteCan you use the panels separately? The work is lovely even though you are disappointed with some aspects.
ReplyDeleteVery cool! My husband have ggparents from Tawas. It's a very pretty spot! It seems to be one of the Michigan areas to attract Germans.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, lots and lots of Germans in that part of the state. Do you know about Frankenmuth, Frankentrost and Frankenhilf? A bunch of Germans from Franconia (hence the names) decided to put their Christian principles into action by migrating to the wilds of Michigan and forming Christian communities, showing the heathen Indians how much better it would be to convert. They all shlepped over to Michigan, entire villages plus their pastors, only to find that the Indians had been driven out of the state decades before. So what the heck, they just made their communities and continued living a lot like they had in Germany.
DeleteI remember walking down the street in Frankenmuth with my father when I was little; half the people he would greet in English and half in German. And this is after WW2!!!!
Thank you so much for showing us the quilt. What an amazing story. I hope you do not destroy this quilt. The extra "and" is a bonus if you think about it and also one of the easiest typos to make and be oblivious to (speaking as a former proofreader). Your lineage is blessed by your making this piece of art. I also have family that emigrated from Germany to the USA in the 19th century and now have a way to find them.
ReplyDeleteThank you on so many levels.
Vancouver Barbara
Wow, I totally love this work, great story telling!
ReplyDeleteI hope that you keep it. It is a sweet story, and it is well told. I think the uneven letters and the extra word just go hand in hand and go with the folksy, personal story, feel of the piece. I would leave it exactly as is. Don't mark it with an X. I've also been studying German genealogy, and many of the names sounded like the names in the family I was researching.
ReplyDelete