Why is Ohio called the Buckeye State?

Since moving to the Northwest, I’ve found a number of friends who, like me, hail from Ohio. One is Heidi, who not only shares my Ohio origins, but also my interest in genealogy (and yoga). A while ago, Heidi gave a talk at Seattle Genealogical Society about the history of Ohio, the Buckeye State, at which time she passed around “buckeyes,” a delicious peanut butter and chocolate dessert (click on the link for the recipe).

Growing up in Ohio, it was fun to collect and play with buckeyes, but they were inedible as a nut, and seemed to my inexpert botanical eye as pretty useless. Boy, was I wrong.

While researching about early settlers to Ohio and the landscape they found, I came across the Historical Collection From Columbiana and Fairfield Township, in which Ray Hum explains reasons why Ohio is called the Buckeye State:

The buckeye, whose Indian name was “hetuck,” meaning “the eye of the buck,” was indeed a friend to the pioneers. Growing in the richest soil, it proved easiest to clear. When the first log cabins were hurriedly erected, the lightness and softness of he wood made it invaluable to the settlers because of the shortage of labor and tools.
… Sugar was unknown in[the Ohio] region, and residents relied on the sugar maple for sweetening. Here, also, the buckeye proved its usefulness. Not only did it grow side by side with the sugar maple, but it also furnished the best wood from which the evaporating troughs could be made.
Hats were made from its fibers; trays for pone and Johnny cake, the venison trencher, the noggin, the spoon and white bowl for mush and milk were carved from its trunk.
The buckeye, because of its slow burning, was considered unfit for fuel. But it was used as a backlog for the cabin fires. When it was finally burnt, it produced more alkaline than any other wood. The bark, prepared properly, was said to be effective in the cure of ague and fever; but, if improperly prepared, it proved to be a violent emetic.
In the absence of soap, the buckeye was an able substitute. The inner covering of the nut, when grated, was found to be soapy. When the powder was washed, large quantities of starch could be obtained, which, in case of famine, could be used as food. But the water used for this washing holds in solution a medicinal agent which, if swallowed, proves poisonous.
Of all the trees in the woods, none is so hard to kill as the buckeye. The deepest girdling does not kill it, and even after it is cut down and its logs are used to build cabins it will send out young branches — telling all the world that buckeyes are not easily conquered.
The abundance of the buckeye tree, the luxuriance of its foliage, its richly colored nuts, and its adaptability to the needs of the early settlers readily explain why Ohioans are called “Buckeyes.”

We think we’re so smart

When researching for history details in pre-photography days, I’m always on the look out for paintings. Take the Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket, by Eastman Johnson, which I came across when browsing around the Art Institute of Chicago.

Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket, 1876 by Eastman Johnson

The picture offers great details of community farming life in the 19th century, and also a bit of folk history. I had permission to snap this photo, without flash, and I also photographed the interpretive sign next to it, which has this cool detail. “[The artist] carefully included a woman discovering a red ear of corn, which, according to folk tradition, would allow her to kiss the person of her choice.”

I thought of this painting and its colorful glimpse of life in former days recently when reading Letters from America by James Flint. The book gives a first person account of the author’s walk from the East Coast to the U.S. interior in 1818, the things he observed along the way, the people, the climate, the farming methods, the terrain. On September 28, 1818 while passing through Ohio, James Flint writes: “The Indian Corn is nearly ripe, and is a great crop this year. The stalks are generally about eight feet high. The people have been picking the leaves off this sort of crop, and setting them up between the rows in conical bunches, to be preserved as winter food for the cattle.” (Flint, Letters from America, pp. 41-42.)

Instantly, I pictured our modern use of bundled cornstalks as Halloween decorations, and wondered if farmers also feed cornstalks to cattle. Apparently, it’s not standard practice. In our “modern” times, the winter diet of choice for cattle is generally hay. Only recently has the method of cornstalk grazing made a come back. About ten years ago, the website drovers.com published an article about it, Cornstalks for Cow Feed Is a No-Brainer. “University of Illinois researchers found that feeding co-products and cornstalk residue in the winter can save cow-calf producers up to $1 per day per cow compared to feeding hay. Grazing cornstalks is arguably the best cost-saving strategy Midwestern cattlemen can deploy.” And the practice not only saves money. When there’s a hay shortage like the one in 2012, it can also save the lives of horses who must have hay to survive.

These disconnects crop up (sorry) surprisingly often. It bemuses me, how researchers have gone to a lot of trouble to “discover” what cattle drovers knew centuries ago. And we think we’re so smart.

Ah yes, Hogmanay, the Scots’ New Year’s Eve celebration

Drawing by Hartley Ramsay, from “A Skinful of Scotch” by Clifford Hanley

When it comes to looking into history, “expect the unexpected” is my common refrain. Take Thanksgiving. Wasn’t that holiday always celebrated, since the birth of our nation, on the fourth Thursday of the month? Wrong. I’ve written a couple of posts on that, here (Thanksgiving Cockfights), and here (“We were not the Savages”).

Then there’s Christmas. While researching for my new novel set in part in the Highlands of Scotland, I’ve discovered that Scotland in the Reformation Era did not celebrate Christmas. Huh?! Weren’t they Presbyterians? Yes, in their own way. The Scots were most bitter toward Catholicism, and saw Christmas as a “Papist” holiday, hence, no yuletide cheer and feasting and presents. An article published in The Oldie, explains:

Things were done differently in Scotland. Our [Scottish] Reformation came to us from Geneva, and we drank the pure water of Calvinism. Anything that smacked of Papist idolatry was banned. Anything for which there was no scriptural authority was out of order. No celebration of Christmas, after the Nativity itself, is recorded in the Bible. Therefore there should be none in Scotland. Accordingly it was forbidden, along with the other feasts of the Roman Church.

Apart from anything, Christmas encouraged jollity, and jollity was suspect, feasting an invitation to sin. In any case the Presbyterian Kirk then, and for a long time after, paid little heed to ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. [From “The Oldie” article, January 2016, “How Scotland Discovered Christmas”]

The subhead of The Oldie‘s article begins: “Children in Scotland used to wait till Hogmanay for their presents …” Hogmanay?!?! What the devil is that? Duh. Hogmanay is a New Year’s Eve custom that goes back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And it’s … ahem … quite different than you might expect.

First of all, you don’t drink, at least not at first. Instead, you clean. That’s right, *clean.* It’s called “Redding the House.” Traditionally, Scots did not drink a drop on New Year’s Eve, but scoured the house top to bottom instead. That is, until the stroke of midnight, when the doorbell rings, a signal the new year is here with the arrival of the first foot, hopefully a tall dark and handsome one. First foot?! The custom goes like this:

“After the stroke of midnight, neighbors visit each other, bearing traditional symbolic gifts such as shortbread or black bun, a kind of fruit cake. The visitor, in turn, is offered a small whisky – a wee dram. … If you had a lot of friends, you’d be offered a great many wee drams. The first person to enter a house in the New Year, the first foot, could bring luck for the whole year to come. The luckiest was a tall, dark and handsome man. The unluckiest a redhead and the unluckiest of all a red-haired woman. And, in case you’re wondering why a red-haired woman is the unluckiest, just remember that Viking raiders first brought fair hair to Scotland. And if a Viking woman was first to enter, she would surely be followed by an angry Viking man. Whatever your gender or the color of your hair, don’t go first footing without a gift for your hosts …” by Ferne Arfin, from “5 Scottish Hogmanay Traditions You Probably Never Heard Of Celebrations, Fire Festivals and Hospitality Welcome the New Year”

Aye, a wee dram. Don’t mind if I do.

In the book A Skinful of Scotch (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965) author Clifford Hanley writes about Hogmanay with poignant hilarity.

“The Scots have always been early bedders and none of your night-club nonsense, [so Hogmanay] has always been the one night of all when the nation has a licence to be up turning night into day … In theory, this is the time when every Scotsman re-discovers his love for the whole of humanity, and the theory works well enough. What often makes Hogmanay memorable is the way our frail natures break down…” at which point Hanley follows up with a number of humorous examples. His final story is about the time he and friends celebrated Hogmanay at a ski lodge.

“An atmosphere of painful excitement burgeoned as the hours ticked away [to midnight], because the guests included a great mob of bright, healthy young schoolteachers from the North of England, spending their very first Hogmanay in the land that invented it. … Everything started on this quiet, reverential note [of producing bottles and ceremonially exchanging drinks], which is correct. As each member present insisted on a round from his bottle, the little group grew noisier and more creative. Athletic people, carried away with bonhomie, stood on their hands. Non-pianists tried a tune on the baby grand. Ancient tunes were dredged up from the collective unconscious. … And so, with many a song and frivolity, we were set to wheel the night away, when some of the keen young English teachers — all in their early twenties — came timidly through the door, and were welcomed in the true Hogmanay spirit by being offered a drink. Some of them didn’t take it, and a human being is entitled not to drink. But steeped in tradition as we were, we all noticed simultaneously that whether they drank or not, none of them had caught on to the infrangible rule that you bring a drink with you.”

Other traditions at Hogmanay, written and unwritten, endure, but in the spirit of ringing in 2021, I’ll mention just one more — the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” That’s right, the song is Scotland’s own, the most well-known version written by Robert Burns.

Happy New Year!!

Free Ohioana Book Festival this weekend, and more

As fall approaches, so do a lot of on-line events that are a boon to readers, writers, and book lovers.

The Ohioana Book Festival is this weekend, Friday, August 28- Sunday, August 30.

Since its inception in 2007, the Ohioana Book Festival has given readers the opportunity to connect with their favorite Ohio writers. The 2020 Book Festival is being held online from Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30 2020. It is a FREE event open to the public. For the full schedule, click here: Ohioana Book Festival 2020.

I’m honored to be one of the many “Ohio” authors this year, for my memoir How We Survive Here: Families Across Time (Coffeetown Press, 2018). Check out the whole list of authors here. Books are being sold through The Book Loft in German Village, Columbus, Ohio. (Support independent bookstores, they’re set up for online orders. And, if you’re ever in Columbus, visit The Book Loft, it’s awesome!)

Friday morning the Festival kicks off with “The Story of a Life: Memoir”, a panel discussion, 10 a.m. EST, 7 a.m. PST. For this panel I am a participant alongside Ohio memoir authors Dan Cryer, Jill Grunenwald, and Erin Hosier. Nancy Christie is the moderator; she asks probing questions about the challenges of writing our own stories and digging into our pasts.

Following that kick-off panel discussion are three packed days of presentations, on writing books of all genres, a crowdcast on Black Stories, Black Voices, on picture book illustrating, and much much more.

I hope to “see” you there!

What is a turnspit?

I can’t even remember where I read it — in my research of 18th century Highland home life, somewhere I came across a description of meat roasting over a fire with a dog turning the spit. Huh. A dog?

By this time I had developed an idea of the cooking fires in Highlander homes. Some were set in the middle of the room, the peat smoke rising up to a hole in the center of a conical roof. Alternatively, there would be a fire place at the end of a room, the smoke going up some kind of hood or chimney.

Living history exhibit at Highland Folk Museum, Newtonmore, UK
Photo by Claire Gebben

In either room arrangement, though, I couldn’t picture a dog turning a spit. How did they do it? By creating a hamster wheel contraption.

A turnspit dog at work in a wooden cooking wheel, Newcastle, Carmarthen, Wales, in 1869.
Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images

Can you even see it? Up there near the ceiling? Apparently the dog is so far from the fire to avoid overheating or fainting from exertion, but still, their lungs filled daily with smoke.

Turnspits were bred for this specific work, the breed canis vertigus. By all accounts, they’re now extinct. You can read more about the dogs and their centuries of toil here.

German immigrant names mentioned in 19th century letters

Oh my! the book How We Survive Here has been out for a year now, and it’s been a wonderful ride. It’s always nice to hear from readers. Several people have commented to me, “It’s a great read. I was right there with you the whole way.”

The book is the story of my quest to trace and write about my ancestors, which culminated in the historical novel The Last of the Blacksmiths (2014). In addition to being a memoir, the book How We Survive Here also includes letter translations by my German cousin, Angela Weber, making the letters available for the first time to genealogists and scholars.

The letters were written in Old German Script, the cursive used in many German nation states up until the early 20th century.

Dating between 1841 and 1908, the letters are written from Cleveland to Freinsheim, Germany, by Philipp Henrich Handrich (1), Jakob Handrich (1), Michael Harm (23), Michael Höhn (1), and Johann Rapparlie (7). So many other surnames are mentioned. German immigration to Cleveland in the 19th century is a prime example of chain migration. After the first people came and got established, others from the same village followed.

In the back of How We Survive Here, I’ve included an index with page numbers noting where various names are mentioned. Below is the complete list of names.

Aul, Jacob / Aul, John / Aul, Philipp

Bender, Konrad
Beringer, Ana / Beringer, Georg and Jakob
Bletschers (see also, Pletschers)
Böhl, village of
Borner, Franz, Joseph and Ana
Butler, Ernst

Crolly, Adam / Crolly, Elizabeth (Harm) / Crolly, Gerhard / Crolly, Katherine

Dackenheim, village of
Dietz, Friedrich
Dürkheim/Bad Dürkheim, village of

Filius
Fischer, Ana
Försters
Francke
Freinsheim, village of
Frey
Fuhrmann, Johannes

Gonnheim, village of
Gros, Franz Wilhelm

Haenderich. See Handrich
Handrich, Philipp / Handrich, Jacob / Handrich, Jakob / Handrich, Johannes / Handrich, William
Handrich, Anna (Steinbrick)
Handrich, Katherina (Ohler)
Handrich, Katherina (Rapparlie)
Handrich, K. Elisabetha (Harm)
Handrich, K. Margaretha (Scheuermann)
Harm, Edna (Witte)
Harm, Elizabeth
Harm, Emma (Becker)
Harm, Henry / Harm, Johann Michael / Harm, Johann Philipp / Harm, Katherina (Kitsch)
Harm, Michael of Cleveland
Harm, Michael of New Jersey
Harm, Philipp
Häuser, Philipp
Hawer
Heinrich
Herr, Hans Philipp
Hischen. See Hisgen
Hisgen, Susannah Margaretha (Harm)
Hisgen, Gertraud (Hoehn)
Hoffman, Jacob
Höge, Jacob
Hoehn (see Höhn)
Höhn, Adam / Höhn, Frank / Höhn, Gretel / Höhn, Jacob / Höhn, Johannes / Höhn, Matthias / Höhn, Michael
Hoppensack, Henry F. and Maria Illsabein Hissenkemper
Hoppensack, Olga (Gressle)
Hoppensack, W. F.
Hucks, Jacob
Joh. Ehrhard

Kallstadt, village of
Kirchner, Philipp
Krehter
Kröther

Laises
Lebhard
Lederer, Heinrich and Kate
Leises. See Laises
Leycker

Martinger, Hans
Mäurer, Heinrich
Meckenheim, village of
Michel, Anna Maria (Selzer) 43
Michel, Jacob / Michel, Johann / Michel, Reichert

Oberholz
Obersülzen, village of
Ohler, Daniel / Ohler, Jacob
Ohler, Elisabetha Katherina (Handrich)

Parma, Ohio
Pletscher (see also Bleschers)

Rabalier. See Rapparlie, Johann
Räder, Nicholas
Rapparlie, Elizabeth
Rapparlie, Jacob / Rapparlie, Johann / Rapparlie, John / Rapparlie, Wilhelm
Reibold, Anna Elisabetha
Rheingönnheim, town of
Riethaler
Risser

Schäfer, Philipp
Schantz
Scherer, Martin
Scheuermann, George
Scheuermann, John
Schmidt Hannes
Schmidt, Paul
Schuster, Fred and Mary (Crolly)
Schuster, Karl
Schweizer, F. B.
Selzer, Jacob / Selzer, Jean / Selzer, Michael
Siringer, Jacob
Stein
Stenzel, Wilhelm
Steppler, Rev.
Stützel

Umbstädter
Umstader. See Umbstader

Wachenheim, village of
Weisenheim am Sand, village of
Wekerling, George
Wernz
Westfalia
Winter, Ludwig

“How We Survive Here” memoir gets accolades

This June I was delighted to learn that How We Survive Here was honored as a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in the Memoirs (historical/career/legacy) category. The impressive medal they sent (I wasn’t able to attend the ceremony in DC) arrived a couple of weeks ago.

But it truly felt like I was hitting the big time when my local newspaper, the Mercer Island Reporter, published an article about my journey writing the book. It seems appropriate that the photo in the article shows me attempting to blacksmith, which strikes me (sorry) as a metaphor for what it’s like to forge an historical novel into being. The picture was taken in 2013 during the time I was seeking to better understand the protagonist, Michael Harm, of my historical novel The Last of the Blacksmiths.

Thanks to Corey Oldenhuis of Sound Publishing for writing up this article. (Click on article below to go to the full text on the MI Reporter website.)

Sacramento German family connections

I’m spending these three days (June 15-17) at the International German Genealogy Conference in Sacramento, California, having a great time sharing stories about the Rhineland-Palatinate, about the special wines from the Palatinate/Pfalz region, and about the importance of writing down our family stories for those who follow.

On arrival at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento, I passed this historic display in the hallway harking back to the time period of 1848-1858 when the California Gold Rush brought thousands from around the globe to dig for gold in the hills.

The sight jogged my memory, and I realized I have a distant ancestral connection to this place. According to one of my family letters, approximately 160 years ago my great-great grandfather’s uncle Jakob Handrich voyaged to this very town to seek his gold fortune. John Rapparlie described the journey in a letter to German relatives.

Cleveland 8 December 1858
Much loved brother-in-law and sister-in-law,
I can’t keep myself from writing a few lines to you about how it goes with us. We are, thanks to God, all still quite healthy like we are here, but we don’t know how our brother-in-law Jakob is in California. I have received a letter from him … on October 18, that he was in Sacramento Sutte but is still without work and he wanted to go from there to the gold digging places and try his luck there. He also wrote to me that because he doesn’t like it there and he doesn’t have an opportunity to work in his profession [blacksmith] he will want to see us again soon, that is, approximately within two years.
It may be the case that Jakob is very lucky as very many from here have become rich people, but it could also be the case that we will never see Jakob again. These are the words he wrote to me: “Dear brother-in-law, I am enormously far away from you and don’t know yet if I will be able to shake hands with you again or not,” and so on.

At the Fort Sutter Museum here in Sacramento one of the exhibits is a blacksmith shop. It’s fun to imagine my 3x-great uncle roaming these same streets so long ago. Little did he know a descendant of his would one day come to this place bearing a book that mentions his Gold Rush days. You just never know.

On preservation, writing groups, and Scotland’s Faerie Hill

Great news!  My memoir How We Survive Here is a Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist, and a child-sized buckboard wagon made by the Harm & Schuster Company has been completely restored for display at the Western Reserve Historical Society. Also in this May newsletter: 6 tips for forming genealogy writing groups. For the full newsletter, click here:

More …

The Ship of Gold: Fortune’s fool

In this morning’s paper, I sat down to an article in the Seattle Times that began “Few have heard of the SS Central America. But it has a place in history because of what happened over three days, beginning on Sept. 9, 1857.”

I’m one of the few. I first heard of the SS Central America, the “Ship of Gold” when researching the life trajectory of my German immigrant ancestor, Michael Harm for my historical novel The Last of the Blacksmiths. Michael Harm arrived in Cleveland, Ohio in July of 1857 to begin a blacksmith apprenticeship with his uncle, and two months later, due to the sinking of the SS Central America, which contained gold intended to back federal paper money, the economy went belly-up. The Panic of 1857 initiated a slump in the U.S. economy that lasted several years.

The sinking of the SS Central America, it turns out, ruined more lives than the 425 people who drowned, the failed businesses, etc. Today’s article is the story of how lives are still being ruined, even in 2019. The book Ship of Gold In the Deep Blue Sea (1998), by Gary Kinder, recounts the original sinking of the SS Central America in 1857 and its consequences, and also treasure-hunting efforts in the Atlantic that occurred from 1986-1988. But it’s not until this year, 2019, that those 13 treasure hunters, “most from the Seattle area,” have finally concluded lengthy court battles and earned a fraction of their find.

They were the engineers, technicians and owners of high-end sonar equipment who were promised a small share of the wreck’s bounty in return for their work, which found the Central America in 1988, some 160 miles off the South Carolina coast, 7,200 feet down on the ocean floor.

It took nearly 30 years of litigation and reams of legal documents before a court settlement got them at least a portion of what they were owed. The last of two payments arrived in February.

Full article in The Seattle Times.

The leader of the expedition apparently absconded with $50 million, suffered a failed marriage, and is now in federal prison.

Trouble in this tale includes the main visionary in the treasure hunt – a man named Tommy Thompson, now 66. He sits in an Ohio federal minimum security prison because he won’t divulge where 500 new gold coins struck from the Central America’s bounty have been hidden.

There’s a life lesson here. We seem bound to allow material things to wreck us. Even Ship of Gold author Gary Kinder, who took ten years to write his book, lost his father and his brother to death during those years, and his mother suffered a series of strokes and had to enter a nursing home. Kinder also mentions in his Acknowledgements that his “daughters have hardly known [him] when he was not working on ‘the book’.” Kinder sums up that these things were “all teachings of the bitter lesson that while we are tending relentlessly to one part of our lives, the other parts do not stand still.”

It strikes me as a reflection of how we survive here, a reminder to appreciate what we have, and just maybe, to focus less on material gain and more on quality time with loved ones.