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September 26, 2015; Mary C. Weise
MCW: I just want to talk a little bit about my own family history before I get in to any local history. My mother was a Martin, she married a Weise. And in 1952, when I could have cared less about family orientation and family roots, she was called to Illinois because her first grandchild was being born. 1952 they kept women in the hospital for two weeks, or a week, whatever. My brother was getting his doctorate at the University of Illinois. They were living in this little government building, army barrack or whatever it was during World War II, with the heating stove in the middle of the whole thing.
Those one or two weeks when the grandmother, my mother, could do nothing for them--for Joan, my sister in law, or the baby--she went over to the university and said, "Where's your library?" And they told her where and she went. "Do you have a genealogy department?" "Oh, yes we do." And she said, "I am a Martin from Ohio." "Just give us all the information." And within an hour she had everything typed, copied, in her hand--from about 1600 on and particularly everything here in the United States. I still was not interested in family history. I was working, going to night school, singing. I just didn't have time to really care. But I should have, because that university, in 1952, to have her family history up to her grandfather, her great grandfather's, era was just a phenomenal gift to give to someone who cared. And she did.
Again, I really didn't have much to think about family history. I was still...I graduated in 1963 from Pitt and I was still working, still singing, still dating, still living And my mother always wanted to go somewhere, when I had the car and was free, where somebody in our family might be buried...and might not be buried. And down in the hills of Ohio, I saw the building where my mother was born--half log and half stone or brick. She was born in the log cabin side. And she wanted to go through all these...people down there have their cemeteries, a lot here do too, their private property. Well, if it got fenced in and it had rough kinds of fencing, I would not go under it. It had poison ivy, I would not do that. But she did. And we ended up in a church across the valley from where she was born and they had some family history.
Woopy. Woopy. Who cares, right? Until she died. And at that point, I found little messages around the house, like "Whatever happened to my great great great grandfather Killian?" He disappeared. Who was he? So I had to start research. Who was Killian that she cared? I ended up joining a...it's down at Ambridge, Pennsylvania...I'm one of the friends of...I can't think of the name of it right now, but it was founded in 1805-06 in Harmony. The Harmony Society, a religious organization out of West Germany--and I stress that, because a lot of my history will go into East Germany. But from West Germany, and she found, had found, quite a few records. But I went down and I joined their friends. And I went to an annual dinner and they said, "If anyone's here who has relatives who lived here, would you stand up?" I stood up, another gentleman stood up, and we were it. And she asked us to please stay at the end of the program, after the dinner--which we did. And she informed me that my whatever-cousin-you-want-to-call-it, however many generations back, Margarethe Faggart, had a picture taken in the gardens at Old Economy Village. Would I like one? Well, yes, I would. And so, about a year later it came in the mail, in colour. How they did that I don't know, but they did. And there was my aunt Margarethe, or cousin Margarethe, whatever, standing in the garden down at Old Economy Village. And she chose to stay there. She died there, of course it's a common burial ground, so she's buried there.
When I did my own family, my mother's people, the Harmonists, they arrived between 1812--how early can you get--1812 to 1818. 1812, they landed, and even 1818, they landed out in--how they did this I don't know either, trains, steamboats--but it's a little town on the Wabash River, about 15 miles north of the Ohio River and it's New Harmony, Indiana. Southwest corner of Indiana, across the river from Illinois. And that's where they had been living. It was a celibate society. And I'll go back to Killian.
Killian brought his wife and his two German children in 1818. And in 1819, she said she was pregnant. And he said, "It's not mine. It is not my child." And he left the entire organization. They said he went north, a little bit north of New Harmony, Indiana. And, he took Father Rapp to court, but the court was over in Illinois, and by that time Father Rapp had used some of this money...oh I shouldn't say that. But he probably put a little green in somebody's hands because either Killian never showed up for the trial or Killian went to that hearing and was found guilty, not allowed to have his children. We don't...except he disappeared off the face of the earth. He did not go back to Germany. He was born in Stetten am Heuchelberg--who would ever think of that name--which is near Eppingen, Illingen, Maulbronn, Lomersheim, Western Germany...45 miles, 45 kilometers, out of the Black Forest area. Anyway, he never reappeared over there. So we still have not found Killian, and we may never find him .
But in the meantime, I got wrapped up in family history. And then I realize, we went to Germany...my brother Chuck died in ‘97 and he left me the money to take a trip to Germany. And I went. 1998. And we did the tour--you know, twelve days of looking at cathedrals and castles, and by the ninth or tenth day, who cared? And, we decided we would try to find relatives in Lomersheim, West Germany. And we wrote down all the names of Weisserts and Faggarts, and brought it home.
We went over to East Germany, well first we'll back up. In the year 2000, we were in West Germany staying with cousins whom we had found. Well, we went to East Germany, we stayed in this hotel, motel, north of Zwickau, which is where the Weises left Saxony...this is bad English...from. And it was amazing. We sat in the hotel lobby, with one lamp. They had no other lamps. We wanted to use their telephone directory and they watched us like hawks because they had one telephone directory. This is the year 1998, and the war in Germany with East Germany with the Russians was over in 1991. At any rate, we sat there and wrote down any possible name that I could remember, that I had brought a list, of anybody and everybody related to the Weise family. I found that my great grandmother was a Dressel, from Lichtenfels/Lindenfels. And after we came back home, I wrote to Lichtnefels/Lindenfels to one of the names that we had copied that night in the hotel, when they wouldn't trust us with the telephone directory. And, we wrote to six families, all with the same last name. We should have known that they were all related. They invited us over in the year 2000, both West and East. The West were definitely our cousins and we stayed with them in Lomersheim, which was celebrating its--hear this--their 1,200th birthday. 1,200 years old. And then we spent five days or so over in East Germany, and I know the Russians hate the Germans, and I know the Germans hate the Russians...but with good reason.
My cousin Friedrich, whom we found in Lichtenfels/Lindenfels, ordered a car--he had the money, he worked at a fabric factory making drapes--beautiful drapes, beautiful curtains. And he rode the bus every day from Lichtenfels/Lindenfels to the little town where he worked, and back home again. But the KGB were always with them, in the van, the bus, whatever. But in 1972, he loved--they all loved music, they really dearly love music over there--and he went down in ‘72 to the Russian Whoever and ordered a car. And they wrote the order, and they took his money--and it was delivered in 1990. Nobody in the United States would wait 18 years, no one. But this German man, under the Russian regime, had to abide by that.
The other thing they had to abide by--well, a lot of things--you could not buy paint; you could not buy whitewash; you could not buy wall paper...because no house could be any better or worse than the one right next door. As I said, they were really…probably a very mutual hatred. But one of the interesting facts: the first day that we were there Friedrich told us why they HATE Americans. This is the year 2000. They were waiting for the allied troops to come in. And the allied troops came in one day, and the next day the Russians came. And they HATE Americans because of that.
None the less, we have pursued our family relationships, but could not really find any direct relatives. The year 2009, and this was not an April Fools joke, April 1, 2009, the Bridgeville Borough office received a package from Germany. Rightfully so, it was made out to them. They opened it and the odds of this happening anywhere else in the United States are probably a million to one. They had my phone number at work. They called me at work and told me that there was a package there that belonged to the Weise family. And it was a Weise cousin hunting us. She was living, still is living, in West Germany. She and her husband escaped from East Germany in 1976. It took them 6,000 kilometers and her husband had to very sadly leave his car there in East Germany--hidden behind a hotel, and bushes, and trees. But they made it, via, well, truck drivers. That's how they made it into West Germany. Made contact with his uncle, and at that point--that would have been they left in the spring of the year, this would have been the fall of the year--they finally were able to call their home in East Germany and tell her mother they had arrived safely in West Germany. They have done very well for themselves. Gisela has told me a lot of stories, and this is an interesting one for us Americans .
She was going to grade school, and of course her mother and dad were probably like my mother and dad...we got read to when we were little--any book fitting, we were read. We were taught to read the newspaper and books for ourselves. My cousin Alma taught music and taught me to play the piano when I was 4 or 5 years old. So, the learning thing is in the family. Early learning. Well, at any rate, Gisela was in first grade--they have what they call first through sixth, and that's the same as our first through eighth grade. And the Russians and the communists and the teachers were all urging Gisela to have her mother and dad become communists, or sign the papers, or whatever. And finally her mother and dad did break down and they did sign them. Gisela was one of two chosen by the Russians to go on to high school. And then to college. And then to medical school. One of two...the other 298 got their choice between a factory and a farm...that's it. If you think socialism and communism are good for this country, god bless you, because it isn't. It won't work .
Any rate, Gisela and her husband are both doctors. They both have settled in West Germany, and we stay in very close with them. Our great grandmothers were sisters. That's going back to Lichtenfels/Lindenfels. There's the tie. Both our great grandmothers were christened there. Any rate, that's the Weise family history, which we are still conducting. But I haven't gotten into my grandmother Weise's side yet. So, family studies just keep going on and on. But the roots became very important to me. Thank you. |
