Our German origins

Minonk has always been a predominately German community. Most of the German immigrants to this area were farmers attracted to this area because of its rich soil. Twenty two years ago I visited the area of Germany from which my family emmigrated in the 1860's and 70's. The area is in the northwest corner of Germany called Ostfriesland near the towns of Aurich and Emden. Not surprisingly, the landscape was similar to the Minonk area. It was flat and wide open with many little farms dotting the countryside. Many of the farmhouses were built right next to the barns so that you could walk from the house directly into the barn without going outside.

I visited the local cemeteries and found Minonk names on the tombstones. Names like Harms, Janssen, Gerdes, Uphoff, all local names to the Minonk area. Evidently,Replica Watches word spread back to the old country about where one should come when emmigrating to America.

The original German settlers in this area continued to use the German language. St. Paul's Church in Minonk was originally founded to give the German immigrants spiritual guidance. The church continued to give German instruction to its youth up until 1915 when World War I created an anti-German sentiment in the community. In the wake of these events, Reverend Theodore Kettlehut developed an English program for the young members of the congregation. However, the church continued to hold separate German church services on Sunday afternoon into the 1950's with Reverend Paul Buchmueller.

My great grandmother spoke only German but my parents learned only a little German when they were young. My mother spoke enough to translate my conversations with great grandmother. Today hardly anyone can speak German.

I remember some of the words that my family used years ago that were definitely of German origin. When my Uncle Bill VonBehren would call the cows he would shout, "soooobaaaas, soooobaaas". I have no idea how to spell the word, I just know how to pronounce it.

When I was a young, I worked during the summer for Henry Harms who was a carpenter in Minonk. Whenever someone messed up he would start nervously tapping the tobacco in his pipe and utter the word "skeetmaus", which was a cuss word in German I cannot publish on a family website.

Most people in this area, including myself, mispronounce the word "wash" as "warsh". Rolex Replica Watches I don't know if this mispronounciation is of German origin or not but it seems likely.

Speaking of Low German, it is the German language that was used in the low country of Germany which is the northwest portion of Germany where most Germans in Minonk came from. Another name for the German spoken in this area was called "Flat Dutch" which came from the fact that this area of Germany was flat.

Most Germans in this area were referred to as dutchmen which doesn't make sense since people from Holland are known as the Dutch people. However, dutchmen is an anglicized word for the German word "Deutsch" which means "German" in the German language. So while dutchmen really refers to someone from Germany it probably isn't so much a misnomer as you would think because the people of German origin in this area come from an area in Germany that is right next to the Holland(Netherlands) border and could be considered Dutch. In fact, when I was in Amsterdam, Holland I felt more at home there than I did in Germany. The food served in Holland seemed more like what we eat here; roast beef, potatoes, and vegetables whereas in Germany there was more emphasis on bratwurst, sausage, sauerkraut, etc. To me it seems that our community has more of its cultural origins in Holland rather than Germany.

The article I wrote on my Great Grandmother Kettwich found its way over to Austria. Sue Kettwich Bruch, who is a great granddaughter of Grandma Kettwich, sent the website article to a Jens Kettwig in Austria who is doing research on the Kettwich family. He emailed me and asked and received my permission to publish the article. Jens said that Kettwich is probably an anglicized version of Kettwig and was probably the same family. To see the Austrian website of the Grandma Kettwich biography, click here.

The website said that the origin of the family name can be connected to the names of two towns. The former town of Kettwig, now part of Essen in Germany, could be the town of origin of the Kettwig families. However, there is another town in the Netherlands(Holland) with the name of Katwijk. It is not known which town is the source of the name.

The Grandma Ketttwich article is just another example of how the internet is bringing everyone together into one big global community. I would dare say that most people who are now users of the internet would probably rather give up their television before they would their internet. I know I would.