“Later that night, still turning the parable over in his head, the rich man returned to the place where the disciples slept. He found Jesus at the fire and sat down with him. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I think understand who my neighbor is. But . . . how shall I love myself?’” 

Margaretha Graue Henneke Englemann, 1890s

One of the first stories I heard about an ancestor was that of my great-great grandmother, Margareta, on my dad’s side of the family. My grandfather Heie Johnson wrote about her in a little notebook, and I have a copy of that story in his handwriting. He said:

Margareta Graue Henneke Engelman was born in Westphalia Germany, no dates. Parents died when grandma was 12 (she told of having to carry water for cows with a yoke until neighbors & friends interceded.) Seems she was given over to someone as bond servant. When she grew up, the brother of her husband, grandfather Henneke, came to US went to Calif. found gold. Sent for his bride & grandma Graue Henneke & her husband. Grandma’s husband died leaving her several small children. (Don’t know what happened to brother Henneke & wife). Later grandma married Menke Engelman. He was killed by a runaway team of horses & plow when our mom was very young. Grandma Henneke Engelman is buried somewhere in Kansas. Mom and I went to see Grandpa’s (Engelman) grave one time but I can’t remember the name of cemetery. I do remember that the tombstone needed attention. Wonder if it is still there. I often wondered what Grandpa looked like. That seems to be about all I can remember. Doesn’t sound like much does it? However I do feel thankful that they all came over when they did.

I feel thankful that my grandfather preserved this story! I’ve always thought of her as someone who overcame much adversity.  Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about her life, but her parents and the exact place of her birth have remained a mystery, even after 30 years research by my cousin Jim.

However, I am beginning to wonder if she too might be from East Friesland, like all the others of my grandfather’s ancestors. Here is why: according to a census in 1880, she described her birthplace, and the birthplace of her parents, as “Hanover.” The Kingdom of Hanover lasted from 1814 to 1866, at which time it became a province of Prussia. Margareta was born about 1827-9, and emigrated about 1861, so even though this area is now part of Germany, she would have known it as Hanover.  And, Hanover included East Friesland during that time, where notes seem to indicate that she was married to her first husband, Johann Heinrich Henneke, about 1852, [though I haven’t seen a source for this] and perhaps birthed her first children.

I excerpted this brief history of Hanover from another genealogy site:

Until 1708, Hanover had been a minor principality within the Holy Roman Empire. In 1708, its lands were combined with most of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and became an electorate (essentially, a voting member state) of the Holy Roman Empire. Its rulers belonged to the dynastic lineage of the House of Hanover. …The status quo persisted until 1803 when Hanover was conquered by both Napoleon and the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1806, …16 states from the Holy Roman Empire, including Hanover, were joined together to form the rather weak Confederation of the Rhine. In 1807, the Treaty of Tilsit declared that Hanover would be joined with part of Prussia to create the Kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon’s brother Jérôme Bonaparte. Westphalia joined the Confederation of the Rhine soon after… When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1813, it spelled the end for both the Confederation of the Rhine and the Kingdom of Westphalia. Rulership over Hanover reverted back to the House of Hanover.

The Congress of Vienna of 1815 …created the German Confederation, a loosely-knit group of 39 Germanic nation-states of which Hanover was a member. …The March Revolution in 1848 caused Hanover to temporarily leave the German Confederation, but after they failed, it rejoined in 1850. Hanover remained within the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian War (or “Seven Weeks War”) in 1866.

1815-1866 Kingdom of Hanover/Konigreich Hannover, in yellow, near the top.

But my grandfather said she was born in Westphalia, so I looked more closely at the Kingdom of Westphalia, which included Hannover (striped and purple on map) but didn’t include East Friesland, which came under the rule of Holland during those years. So another possibility is that she was born in an area of Hanover that was also included in the Kingdom of Westphalia during that time.

1808 confederation of the Rhine

Finally, down below, there is a map of the Province of Westphalia, after the kingdom was dissolved and it was part of Prussia. It is adjacent to Hannover, and just south of East Friesland. So it wouldn’t be impossible for her to be from there, later traveling north into Hannover, or East Friesland.  A further argument for this place is that both parents of her husband Johann Heinrich Henneke were born there. So perhaps they met up in Westphalia, and then moved to Hanover. However, another argument for East Friesland is that when her first husband died, in Illinois, she later married Meenke Engelmann, who was from East Friesland. People tended to cluster with others from their own regions and who spoke their own dialects.

I have been so interested in this question, since one of the reasons I am exploring my ancestors is to find out their connections to the lands that they lived in before they came to America. I also want to tell more about the family she created, but that will be another post. For now, her original home sadly remains a mystery, but I am so thankful to have her photo and part of her story.

1815 Map by Milenioscuro – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110103555/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/margareta-graue.jpg

For all our talk of connection, it is also true that there are times when we must disconnect to protect ourselves from harm. How do we maintain healthy boundaries while still upholding our sense of interconnection?

“Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.” How do we stay true to our deepest sense of self in a world that demands so much compromise on our parts?

Holle Sand in East Frisia: a nature preserve on the duneland forest, near where my ancestors lived.

Are there any European ancestors who might help us to find a mutually beneficial relationship with the earth in our time? Today I was remembering that this was my original motivation for reaching back to these ancestors. Oh, it has also been helpful to gain a better understanding of how my ancestors fit into the larger story of the colonization of this continent in which I live.

But on a spiritual level, why would I reach for a true connection, if not to ask for help in the struggles we are facing in our time? Much of Australia is burning right now, fascism is running rampant over our country, hurting the plants and animals, and the people of our land, leaders plot for power and violence, and so much is being destroyed.

And I remembered what sparked my heart last spring about my patrilineal East Frisian ancestors. It was a line in a letter, a mocking recounting of a piece of old wives’ advice: “Remain in the land and nourish it.”   I wanted to reach out to those “old wives” to see if they might help me, help us.  During our Ancestor Wounds and Healing workshop in October, I introduced the group to the East Frisian tea ceremony, as part of our ritual of gratitude for the gifts of the ancestors.  We were short on time, and I considered leaving out the tea ceremony, but felt an unmistakable tug from spirit–“No! You must do the tea.”  And so I did.

Two days later I led our group on a trance journey with the intention for each of us to find an ancient ancestor–maybe from centuries ago–for each of us to meet someone who was at one with their land, in harmony with their land and people. So we traveled through time and out of time to make a connection. In that journey, I met my East Frisian ancient many-greats-grandmother, the same one who called for the tea.

When she arrives, I burst into tears and suddenly feel how wounded I am, we are. She is whole, she can traverse deep time and be called upon in any time. I burst into tears and she is loving me, with healing hands, and she knows how all of us have been broken. I felt the holding power of her love to contain the pain of centuries.  She is a healing presence, a witness to it all. She touches my heart, she says, “I can teach you how to laugh, even though the later Germans in your family lost how to feel.” She has a joy deeper than I know. She wants to continue our connection. She says, “Drink the tea ceremony to call me.”  

I was profoundly moved. I didn’t have a name for her that day, but later, a name came to me.  The German/Frisian affectionate name for grandma is Oma or Ooma. But a great-grandmother would be, in German, Ur-grossmutter and I am moved to call this ancient great-grandmother Ur-ma, or Oor-ma. The word also reminds me of the rune Uruz, which represents the aurochs, an ancient wild cattle species, now extinct, that was the symbol of wild strength, persistence, healing, and courage.

At the end of December, Margy and I shared in a rune reading. I used the runes to reach out to Ur-ma, and the first rune I pulled was Uruz.  Sweet.  Then came Nauthiz–which means Need, or difficulty, or struggle. How we are.  Finally I pulled Gebo, which means Gift, and the power of reciprocity which is love.

And so when I reach out to Ur-ma, I drink the tea and I pray: “You have wholeness, we are so broken. Bring your healing energies to our time. We have lost the connection to all beings and the land. We have forgotten our kinship. Help us heal. Help us to love the land, to love the spirit.” And I keep remembering those words, which somehow came down the centuries even so: “Remain in the land and nourish it.”

January 6 is Epiphany, the day legend says the Magi arrived at the cradle of the infant Jesus, having followed a star to Bethelehem. What meanings might we draw from these mysterious travelers? And what about our own epiphanies and guiding stars? The Dolejsi family joins us as storytellers and Yelena Mealy offers music.

With these last few quiet days at home, Margy and I were finally (after almost four years) able to take down from the attic all of our wall pictures, and decide how we wanted to decorate the walls of our living room and kitchen. It was especially wonderful to place over our fireplace hearth this print, Stewardship of the Earth, by James E. Francis and Arla Patch. We had purchased it several years ago in a fundraiser for Maine Wabanaki REACH.  Here is more information about it from an article in the Friends Journal.

This work of art is a collaboration between James E. Francis, Penobscot artist and director of cultural and historic preservation for the Penobscot Nation, and Arla Patch, artist, teacher, and [at that time] member of the communications subcommittee of the Wabanaki Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It was made for a western Maine community celebration of the native woman Molly Ockett (c. 1740–1816, Abenaki nation, Pequawket band). The theme of 2013’s MollyOckett Days Festival was “Stewardship of the Earth.” James created the central image of the tree that becomes the earth. Arla created the context based on the European American tradition of quilts. James provided the symbols, which represent the four remaining tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, the Passamaquoddy, the Maliseet, and the Micmac.

A theme of the four directions, which comes from both Native American spirituality and ancient Celtic tradition, is depicted as the night sky for the north; the sun rising over “second island” next to the Passamaquoddy land of Sipayik; the midday sky for the south; and the sun setting over the White Mountains for the west. “Agiocochook” (home of the Great Spirit), also known as Mt. Washington, is included in the western sky.

Blueberries are included for the role they have played in sustaining Maine native peoples historically and to this day. Maple leaves are in the upper corners to honor the development of maple syrup by the Wabanaki.

When we put this picture on the wall, along with a few others around the room, I found myself feeling rooted and joyful, at home in a deeper way that before. It was as if some mysterious magic had created a circle around us, and we were aligning into harmony and beauty.

May that beauty bring us hope and strength as we enter a new decade, a decade that will be pivotal in our collective stewardship of the Earth. May we human beings find a way to live in harmony with all of our relatives on this planet that is our home.

In the early days of my feminist awakening, I began to trace the ancestry of my mother line, to learn who my grandmothers might be, and what land we originally came from. I learned this: my matrilineal great-great-great-grandmother was an Innu woman, identified in the records as Marie Madeleine, Montagnaise. She married a Scottish trapper who worked for the Hudson Bay Company in Quebec. His name was Peter Macleod, and he called her Marie de Terres Rompues, after the place where they came to live on the Saguenay River. Her name might be translated, Marie of Broken Lands, which resonates with what came later.

When I have been able to travel to Quebec, to the place the Innu call Nitasinnan [our land], I have felt the presence of the ghosts of my ancestors in the land. The very first time I drove into Chicoutimi on the Saguenay River, I came upon a book on the shelves of the Welcome Center in the rest area—it was about my ancestor Peter Macleod and his family. There have been other encounters over the years, a feeling of my ancestors reaching out to me as I reach out to them.

Learning about their stories has been an important part of my journey. I discovered many dislocations and relocations that occurred for my grandmothers, ways they were separated daughter from mother, separated from the land and the people from which they came. Marie de Terres Rompues bore several children with Peter MacLeod. Her daughter, Angele, was only twelve when her mother died, and Peter married another wife; Angele’s stepmother was a white woman. I wonder if Angele kept a connection to her Innu relatives? She was married at the age of twenty to a French Quebecois farmer, Joseph Tremblay, and they lived in the area of Peribonka near Lac St. Jean. I only know one story about them, from a census report. One year, all their grain burned in May, and they replanted with fresh grain but all of it was frozen and “not fit to be threshed.”

Her daughter Claudia was only eighteen when Angele died. At twenty-two, Claudia married Ferdinand, and during an economic downturn in their region, they moved over four hundred miles away to the town of Hull in the suburbs of Ottawa. Later, they traveled over seventeen hundred miles to the Black Hills of South Dakota, where Ferdinand worked in the mica mines for five years, during the boom years when Westinghouse Electric was producing over $100,000 per year in mica. Then the mines closed.

Their daughter, my grandmother Yvonne, was born in Hull in 1897; she was nine when they moved to the Black Hills, and fourteen when they returned to Quebec. She became a chamber maid in a hotel in the Canadian capital city of Ottawa, where she met Johann, an Austrian immigrant working as a waiter. At seventeen, she followed him five hundred miles to the United States, marrying at the border in Detroit Michigan.

My mother tells me Yvonne and her sisters worried that someone might think they looked Indian. Did she fear prejudice learned in Quebec, or in South Dakota? In Detroit, she became fully assimilated into the white and English-speaking world. Most of the stories were lost, but she did tell my mother they were part-Indian, and my mom grew up feeling proud of that heritage. There were occasional visits to family in Canada. When my mother was a four years old, the news came of Claudia’s death at the age of seventy-three.

My great-grandmother, Claudia Tremblay, age/date unknown

My mother was not quite twenty-one when her mother, Yvonne, died. I was a baby then. I have a picture [below] of my grandmother holding me in her arms. When I ponder this story of my mothers and grandmothers, I am struck by how most of these women lost their mothers before, or just as they were entering, adulthood. None of them had a chance to be with their grandmothers. They each turned to the life and the culture of their husbands. And I am struck by the many miles each generation traveled away from the place in which they might have felt a sense of belonging to the land. My mother, too, followed her husband on his travels across the United States. I grew up during those travels and none of those places ever truly felt like home. I didn’t know any other way.

My grandmother Yvonne holding me as a baby.

It has been a long and important process for me to reclaim these stories and reweave a connection to my grandmothers.

[This story first appeared in my book, Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community.]

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110095501/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/grandmother-yvonne-with-myke.jpg

Today we’ll be exploring the idea of Janus, the Roman god of doorways and transitions.

Kim Cummins delivered four full bags of donated gifts to the Northern Rivers prevention and foster care programs last week, from the UUSS Holiday Giving Tree. Thank you all for your kind donations – Every bit helps in improving lives during this holiday season. – Rev. Wendy & Rev. Lynn

The Nursery is available for children five and under during services (except for Christmas Eve and December 29th). As always, all Children and Youth are welcome to attend worship services.

Happiest of Holidays and Peace to all!
Love and blessings,
Robin

It is December 24th, the third night of Hanukkah, as well as Christmas Eve. We look forward to seeing many of you this evening in the Great Hall for a service filled with music, a story of hope and love, and lighting candles in the dark. For those of you who will be traveling, may your journeys be safe and wonderful. No matter where you will be, may you experience some of the mystery and wonder this time of year can bring. And, as the choir sang on Sunday (with ‘brothers’ changed to ‘people’):

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart. – by the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman

with love, and in faith~ Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

Rev. John tells a story or two about the spirit of the season

We have always had birds in our back yard in the winter, coming to our feeder, or rooting around on the ground. But this year, we’ve seen almost none at all. We didn’t fill the feeder over the summer–but many birds visited during that time, in the orchard and in the nearby trees and all over the place. So we expected that filling it up again would bring the usual winter birds. But I can count on one hand the birds I’ve seen. And no cardinals.

In trying to comprehend this, I noticed that only one other thing has changed. The lot behind our neighbor’s house–not visible in this photo–had been overgrown with bittersweet, and then the vines took down part of a big maple tree. Plus Margy had been cutting a lot of the invasive bittersweet.  So that field has less tree and vine cover, which some birds may have preferred.  More ominously, I’ve read that in North America the total number of birds has declined by 25% in the last fifty years.  Is it finally affecting our own yard?

I have seen a few birds here and there on my walk in the neighborhood, and there have been a few in the crabapples in the front yard. But despite our full feeder, plus a thistle feeder, and even a suet cake, no one is around.  It seems so strange and empty.  Have you noticed fewer birds where you live?

All of this got me thinking sadly about extinction, and I happened to see a documentary about the early Neanderthal humans, who lived in Europe and Asia for several hundred thousand years, before becoming extinct about 40,000 years ago. According to the DNA testing company “23 and Me”, all modern humans, except for those from sub-Saharan Africa, have between 1 and 4 % Neanderthal DNA, from interbreeding of the two related species. So the Neanderthals can be counted among my ancestors too. By the way, they were much smarter and more cultured than the myths that were taught about them early on.

There are a lot of theories about why they went extinct. But this particular documentary, Neanderthal Apocalypse, made the hypothesis that one factor was the eruption of a super-volcano near present day Naples 39,000 years ago. However that might have effected the Neanderthals, I found myself more focused on what it might do to us today. If a super-volcano were to erupt in our time, ash and debris would cover miles and miles of land, and kill all vegetation, crops, and the animals who rely on them (including us.)  Ashes and toxic gases would rise up into the upper atmosphere and block out sunlight, plunging a large portion of the earth into a volcanic winter. Civilization over.

Now this might be a depressing thing to think about, but for some reason, I didn’t feel depressed. Instead, I was reminded of how very powerful the Earth really is.  We are so small, and so reliant on all of the Earth’s interwoven life.  So, in a funny way, I felt less afraid. We humans know some things, and the activity of our species is causing damage to the climate, and wreaking havoc everywhere. But so much is beyond our control and even our understanding. It is profoundly humbling and reminds me to be grateful for how the earth provides everything we need.

So I come round to this Winter Solstice holiday, today, and say thanks to the Earth for birthing us, for feeding us, for fire that warms us in winter, for so much beauty that inspires our lives.  And I say a prayer for the birds: please come back to once again feast with us in this little patch of land we call home.

As I explore my Germanic ancestors,  I have been struck by the repeated rise and fall of empires in Europe, somehow timely during these days in the United States when it seems that the impulse to empire is battling the impulse to democracy.  I didn’t study much European history during my educational exploits, so much of this has been new information. But most important to me, it seemed that the places where my ancestors lived were deeply shaped by the struggles of empires.

My grandfather Hochreiter’s birthplace, Linz, Austria, for example, was first named “Lentia” during the Roman Empire, one of the many frontier fortifications along the Danube River.  The Rhine River was also pivotal to the Roman frontier, and the Gerling’s town of Osterath was near the old Roman frontier settlement of Novaeseum, now Neuss.

The fall of the Roman Empire saw the rise of the Frankish Empire, the center of which was in the Rhineland. From Wikipedia:

Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic tribes on the West bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine, but the Romans never succeeded in gaining a firm footing on the East bank. As the power of the Roman empire declined the Franks pushed forward along both banks of the Rhine, and by the end of the 5th century had conquered all the lands that had formerly been under Roman influence. The Frankish conquerors of the Rhenish districts were singularly little affected by the culture of the Roman provincials they subdued, and all traces of Roman civilization were submerged. By the 8th century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul.

On the map below, the dark green area of “Austrasia” is centered in the Lower Rhineland. (Note that the city of Cologne is just south of where my ancestors were from many centuries later. They lived on the west/left bank of the Rhine.)

I somehow had always thought of Charlemagne as French, but he was actually Frankish, and likely born in the lower Rhineland area as well. The center of his court was in Aachen. The Franks were precursors to both modern France and Germany. Perhaps this explains something that my grandmother Johnson said about her family being both German and French. The Rhineland where they were from was Frankish, and went back and forth in later days between Germanic and French rule.

Soon after Charlemagne, his empire was divided into three parts.  I will skip right over the “Holy Roman Empire,” which was mostly a Germanic coalition of many kingdoms and cities that persisted through to the time of Napoleon. (My apologies to all true historians!)  But moving closer to the time before my own Gerling ancestors emigrated, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine was taken by Napoleon’s empire for France in 1795. I found out more about this time from a very helpful website describing the Rhineland Under the French.

The “Rhineland” only emerged as a united political entity in the first half of the 19th century. Before 1794 the area on both sides of the Rhine, between the river Moselle and the Dutch border, comprised a patchwork “rag-rug”, made up of many different territories and princedoms. …The French Revolution of 1789 was the event which influenced the political landscape in that epoch, beyond the borders of France and also in the longer term. …In 1794 revolutionary France conquered the regions left of the Rhine, which Napoleon subsequently annexed in 1801. They were systematically brought into line with the legal, administrative and political conditions in France. In 1802 the French constitution, le Code Civil, was introduced. The achievements of the revolution enacted in the Code Civil included the equality of all people before the law, an independent judiciary and the universal right to vote. However, “people” were still only defined as men; women were regarded as the chattels of men and were not recognized as independent persons.

It seems that the forces of empire and the forces of democratic ideals were beginning to wrestle with each other in those times, and I am very curious what my Gerling ancestors might have made of it all. Gerhard Gerling is described as a “hotel meister” (manager?) so he would have fit into the newly emerging class of small business people–whether by owning or working in a hotel.

In 1815, Prussia gained control of the area, and it became the new Prussian Rhine Province, but it had been irrevocably shaped by the prior years.

In 1815 the time of French influence was over, but had left behind far-reaching changes, which had been appreciated as a change for the better, especially in the areas of commercial law and administration. Therefore the population also resisted having to sacrifice such achievements for the sake of Prussian citizenship.

One thing that I wonder about. When sources say, “France took control,” or “Prussia took control”–they don’t mention the armies or the battles or what human cost might have been part of these shifts of power. It must have been difficult to live on the edges of these empires. In 1840, France threatened once more to claim the west bank, but it did not materialize. That was the year that the Gerlings, and many in their town of Osterath left it all behind to come to Missouri.

We are sad to share that Joan Cheesman passed away on December 12th, while in care at Baptist Health in Scotia. Joan was a life-long resident of New York, having been born in Rochester, in 1931. She was 88. Joan, and her beloved husband, Bob, joined the congregation over 50 years ago. Her family intends to have a celebration of her life at UUSS sometime in the future. Bob currently is recovering from pneumonia, and so welcomes cards of care and support rather than phone calls.

Our congregation has had quite a few dear elders pass away in the last few months. This is a tender time, especially for those who have lost so many friends in such a short time. Please know that we here if you need us. With care, and in faith- Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

The complexities of world events and the logistics of life had me feeling a bit Grinchy a couple of Saturdays ago, before the Homemade Holidays gathering, but when I walked into the dining room filled with familiar faces and laughter, my heart immediately grew a little, and by the end of the afternoon it was back to a healthy size. Whether due to extended conversations about a common interest or just a shared smile of greeting, being together here at UUSS nurtures me. I’m excited about the upcoming week’s many opportunities to gather with this community, for Solstice and Christmas Eve celebrations and for the December 22nd worship and Cocoa, Cookies & Caroling party.

In my role as the Congregational Life Coordinator for UUSS, I am charged with helping new folks and members to get connected in ways that feel meaningful, and to reconnect in new ways as their lives change. The upcoming events offer a perfect way to grow your connections, and to help us all grow our hearts. Please join me at one or more of these gatherings if you are able. I’d love to see your face.

If you want to get more involved in congregational life as we enter the new year and new decade, I am happy to help you find ways to do that. Contact me at clc@uuschenectady.org or 518-374-4446 X7 to have a conversation. – Kristin Cleveland.

Dear ones,

As snow gently falls,
like powered sugar
on gray branches,
squirrels rush about
to fill their bellies
scattering the white crystals;
the shock of red and orange
as a pair of cardinals visit the feeder
and then flit away, no time for song;
these are moments of wonder.
Let us give one another permission to be
present to the mystery of beauty,
the balance of peace,
the quiet coming of the longest night,
the daring of hope,
and the power of love.
With mystery and wonder,

Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn

(Content warning-tragic deaths)

Theresa (Gerling) Heisler 1886, the year of her marriage.

Continuing with my study of ancestors, I want to talk about the family of my great grandmother, my dad’s mother’s mother, Maria Theresia (called Theresa) Gerling. Earlier, I spoke of her marriage to Thomas Heisler in 1886 in St. Thomas, Missouri. Her parents were Heinrich (Henry) Gerling and Sibella Agnes Hahn. They were both born in what is now part of Germany, but came to Missouri before they met and married. They were devout Catholics.

Heinrich Gerling was born 18 April 1824, in Osterath, in the Lower Rhine region (in German, Niederrhine).  Osterath is now part of the town of Meerbusch, west across the Rhine River from the city of Dusseldorf.  His parents were Gerhard Gerling and his first wife Anna Christina Wilms (or Wilmes), who were married Oct 23, 1821 in Osterath. They had three children: Wilhelm (1822), Heinrich (1824), and Maria Catharina (1830).

When Heinrich was five, his 7 year old brother died.  When he was nine, his mother died, and some months later, on 22 Oct 1833, his father married Maria Christina Kronen (b. 1800-1805?). Heinrich’s sister also died the next year, but three more children were born to Gerhard and Christina: Joseph Herman (1834), Ludovicus (1836), and Michael (1839).  I am moved by how many children died at such a young age, in the stories of these families of the 1800s. This was also true for the Heisler family during a similar time frame.

Gerhard Gerling was identified as a “hotelmeister/hotel master” in Osterath.  In any case, they decided to leave, apparently along with several other families from their town. I found a great story of another family from Osterath who came over on the same ship at the same time.  They left from Havre, on the ship Edmund Perkins, and arrived in New Orleans on November 7, 1840.  They came with their children, Heinrich, who was 16 1/2, Herman, 6, Ludwig, 4, & Michael, 1.  One source said they were “early Niederrhine settlers in the Loose Creek area.” Another source said, “They were the second group of settlers that arrived in the St. Thomas area.”

Perhaps they started in Loose Creek, but they did end up in St. Thomas, where both Gerhard and Christina eventually died (Gerhard about 1852 and Christina 1885-6) and were buried.  Heinrich, it is said, had red hair! He married Agnes Hahn October 21, 1851, at St. Joseph Church in Westphalia, MO, but all their children were born in St. Thomas.  (All of these small rural towns are within 30 miles of each other.)

Agnes was born in July of 1833, but I don’t have much more information about where in Germany it was, or when she came to Missouri.  Her parents were Mathias Hahn (1778) and Margaret Durst (1788) and they remained in Germany, but her brother Philip also came to Missouri. It might be most likely that she was also from the Rhineland/Westphalia region, since people tended to congregate with those from similar regions.

Agnes apparently had an earlier marriage to a John Peter Loethen, but he must have died quite soon, since she was only 18 when she married Heinrich (26). She and Heinrich had nine children together, three of whom had died in childhood, when another tragedy struck, just a few months after baby Theresa was born. We have a letter from Heinrich’s second cousin Heinrich Koersches to family in Germany, loosely translated:

May 24 1868

I received your letter on April 20th. I’m so late in answering your letter because on the following Sunday an accident happened to Heinrich Gerling when we had divine service. In the afternoon after the divine service he wanted to mount his horse. Having one foot in the stirrup, he went to swing his other foot over the saddle. As he did so the horse jumped and threw him off so that his right leg hit on a tree stump that was cut about one foot above the ground and broke his shin, so that the bone could be seen from the outside. There lives in St. Thomas a German physician who was close to the church where the accident happened. They carried Gerling to a house where the bone was set. In the evening eight men took him to his home. There they had to put cold water and compresses on the leg every five minutes. The leg wound didn’t bleed.

Heinrich was a big, thick and heavy man. The compresses and water were put on as long as the doctor ordered it to be done. The doctor came on horseback every day. One day Heinrich would complain of backache, on another he would complain of chest pains. He had to cough up what looked like pus. He asked the doctor for medicine. The chest pains were increasing. The doctor ordered more medicine. On the ninth day it got so bad that the doctor said that he did not think that Heinrich would live another 48 hours. Then they asked for the priest to give him the Last Sacraments. Heinrich lived until the 15 of May.

Heinrich’s accident happened on April 26, 1868.  The following year, the 35 year old widow Agnes married his cousin Heinrich Koersches. They had four more children together, two of whom died in infancy. Then two more of her children died of illness in 1872, leaving only six of 13 to survive to adulthood.  Heinrich Koersches died at the age of 45 sometime after 1877.  I wonder how Agnes carried all of the grief she must have felt from so many deaths, and whether she found a balance to appreciate the joyous moments of life.

I also wonder what life was like for her daughter Theresa Gerling, my great-grandmother? Her father died when she was just a baby, and her step-father died when she was still a young girl. She never knew her grandparents, though her step-grandmother was alive until she was about 17. She married just before her 18th birthday, and had twelve children of her own, my grandmother the sixth of those twelve.  Perhaps the strength and sternness of my grandmother was somehow the inheritance of the grief and survival of those who came before?

Great-great grandmother Agnes herself died on Sept 14, 1901, at the age of 68. I want to close with this photo of Agnes from the 1890s.

Agnes Hahn Gerling Koersches

Note: There seem to be even more ads lately attached by WordPress to my posts. So sorry about that. I don’t have any choice about what ads are posted.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110093144/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/agnes-hahn-gerling-g-g-grandmother.jpg

This week, we’ll gather together to tell one another the story of the rebirth of the Sun King.

(Be sure to join us on Saturday the 14th for a mask-making workshop for this year’s Yule pageant.)

This week, we’ll gather together to tell one another the story of the rebirth of the Sun King.

(Be sure to join us on Saturday the 14th for a mask-making workshop for this year’s Yule pageant.)

This Sunday and next, there will be a candle assembly station for Christmas Eve near the fireplace on the piano side of the Great Hall. We need to slide bobeches onto 275 candles and place them in baskets. If you and/or family members can spend some time helping out, that would be great! These candles are distributed on Christmas Eve for the candle-lighting ritual and singing of Silent Night together. – Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

We were very sad to share that Bob Ringlee passed away on Wednesday, Nov. 27th, at his home. Bob was a longtime member of the congregation, and cared deeply about its well-being. He worked as an engineer, first at GE, then at Power Technologies, Inc, where we he was both a mentor and a colleague. He loved the outdoors, and had a long history of hiking and mountain climbing. He was a caring person, with a gentle sense of humour, and will be greatly missed by his family and friends. There is a Celebration of Life planned for Dec. 28th, at 2:00 p.m. All are welcome. With care- Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

Dear UUSS congregation,

This past Sunday, we explored the Mysterious Blues in the worship service, acknowledging that sometimes we know why we are feeling Scroogey and other times, its as if we’ve simply woken up on the wrong side of the bed. We noted that depression and sadness are not the same thing. So if you are experiencing debilitating sadness or deep apathy for longer than two weeks, that you seek assistance from a therapist or doctor. If you need support to do that, we can help.

After, we heard from some of you that it was meaningful to have the complexity of December holidays named. We witnessed people offering care and support to one another, and taking us up on the offer to hang an ornament on the tree, in honor of a loss, someone they are missing, or a challenge they are facing. What a gift, to know that we need not be alone during difficult times, and that there are many opportunities to celebrate, as well.

We also welcomed 12 new members with joy and singing! (thank you Choir and the Membership Team)

We hope you will attend many of the upcoming December services, (Sunday mornings plus evening services on the Solstice and Christmas Eve,). Whether you are at home, or traveling this holiday season, may you continue to live our shared mission of creating justice, growing in compassion, and celebrating life with joy!

And at this time of impeachment proceedings, may we choose sorrow rather than glee, for our nation that the situation has come to this. We have a long road to recovery from the damage that has been done to our own nation, to our relationships with other nations, and to the Earth. May we practice our UU values and further encourage leaders to act humanely and humbly moving forward.

In faith~ Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

As we enter into the fullness of the Holiday season, let us take some time to explore what it means to be a people of Awe.

As we enter into the fullness of the Holiday season, let us take some time to explore what it means to be a people of Awe.

This year our congregations has an opportunity to support children and families served by Northern Rivers, which provides help and hope to those who struggle with abuse, neglect, trauma, mental health challenges, and educational difficulties. The greatest need is for new, unwrapped gifts for youth aged 13-19 including: arts and craft supplies, board and cards games for all ages; hygiene supplies:body wash, deodorant, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, combs, brushes (no aerosols, please), cosmetics (mascara, lip gloss, eye shadow, nail polish,) Books: books for all ages and reading levels, book sets and series for teens (Maze Runner, Hunger Games, Divergent, James Frye’s Endgame,) Sporting goods: Sporting goods (basketballs, footballs, soccer balls, etc,) For the full list click here. The gifts will be collected on December 17th.

There was a ritual of confession and lamentation for the wrongs we have done. Those were written on paper which was placed in water. The water dissolved the papers and then was used to bless the gift of a tree. The Rev. Jonathan Vanderbeck, serves as minister at Trinity Reformed Church in Rotterdam, said, “Following the service, the tree will be planted here, at the Unitarian Universalist Society, in honor of the ways that this particular faith community has chosen to model unity. May it be a witness and conviction to us to exist together and be against hatred. May the waters that have held our confessions be the waters that bring about restorative justice. May these things bring about new and good things for all.”

We are so grateful and honored that UUSS got to host this community event. Thank you to the folks who showed up on Saturday to set-up, the greeters (many of whom stood outside in the cold, to warmly welcome folks to our space), the kitchen crew who helped make sure there was kosher, halal, vegan, gluten-free, and peanut-free food for all of our guests, the clean-up crew, the choir, everyone who brought desserts, for folks who just jumped in and helped when they saw a need, including Christy Multer who made flyers. Thank you one and all.

We are so grateful for such a great staff who did a hundred behind-the-scenes and a few very obvious things to help this event be such a fabulous gathering. This event was made possible in part through funds from the bequest of William Kleinhandler and the Board of Trustees.

With profound gratitude,
Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

Worthy organizations all over the country are seeking financial support today on Giving Tuesday. Many of the values of Unitarian Universalism are under attack right now-integrity; compassion; the inherent worth and dignity of every person; the interdependent web of life on this precious Earth; Black Lives Matter; the right of conscience and the democratic process; there are many things to learn from studying religions of the world, philosophies, and science; people who are transgender, gender non-binary, and cis-gender are valued here; that the responsible search for truth and meaning is lifelong; that those whose sexual orientation is bisexual, gay, lesbian, heterosexual, asexual, or queer identified are welcome here, and so much more.

Your financial support helps sustain this congregation so that it, so that we all, can continue to proclaim our values of love, inclusion, justice, equity, and compassion. Please consider including UU Schenectady in your Giving Tuesday plans. You can give through Breeze if you are a member or you can donate through our website – by choosing ‘Non-pledge Contribution 43001’ from the dropdown menu. If you want to text a contribution: 1-518-282-0565 amount tuesday (ex. 20 tuesday).

Or visit the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) or UU Service Committee (UUSC) or UU Ministry for Earth and give to them! Together, we are more!
-Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn

There is a poem by Amanda Udis-Kessler in the UUA publication Lifting Our Voices that includes the line, “The stars pierce our hearts, peace envelops us, we are blessed; we give thanks for the mystery and the miracle of wonder.” As we lean into the darkness, what mysteries await there? As we wind our way through December, what wonders might we behold?

So I come round to the question, What does it mean for me to be of 1/4 Austrian heritage? All of my ancestor research has been linked to my quest to understand the colonization process, and how my family fits into that long history. How might I be connected to my Austrian ancestors, and how were they connected to the land where they lived?  What might I learn from them? I have had very mixed and often troubled feelings during this particular search.

Johann Hochreiter as a baby, in Linz

Linz, the city where my grandfather Hochreiter was born in 1884 and lived until 1910, was also the home of Adolf Hitler for several years, from 1898 to 1907. It is not a connection I feel good about. Wikipedia noted, “Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[34] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically variegated empire.[35][36]”  Learning the history of Austria’s connection and disconnection from other Germanic states, (see my last post) helps me to understand this somewhat, but the outcome was terrifying.

I was glad to read that in 1996, Linz became the first city in Austria to deal intensively with its own Nazi past.  There was widespread research by the municipal archives, and the culture of remembrance extended to the construction of monuments for the victims of National Socialism. But of course all of these events, including both World Wars, were after my own ancestor had emigrated to North America.

In my family, we didn’t really learn anything about Austria when we were growing up. As far as I can tell, there were no cultural aspects that were carried forward to us, except that, ironically and randomly, the only classical music album in our house was Johann Strauss’s Vienna Waltzes, including “The Blue Danube.”

In fact, it is the Danube River (German Donau) which has called most strongly to my heart, of all that I have learned about Austria.  (Not insignificantly, the Danube also flows through the city of Ulm where the Swabian line of my ancestors is located.) The Danube begins in the Black Forest and flows through southern Germany and through Austria, and then on to the Black Sea. The Danube valley in Austria is north of the Alps, and one of the most fertile and populous regions of Austria. This river is at the center of all its history and culture, and was the major East-West transport on the continent of Europe.

Linked to its location on the Danube, the Linz area was settled continuously, from the late Stone Age Neolithic period, in 4000 BCE. They have also found early Bronze Age urn sites and burial sites from the Hallstatt-period. In the first century AD, the Romans constructed a wood-and-earth fort to secure the important Danube river crossing to control traffic and for military reasons. They named it Lentia. In the second century it was expanded into a stone fort. It was part of the Roman frontier called the limes.

The official history site for the city of Linz notes there were many Goth invasions during the second century and that by the end of the 4th century A.D., the indigenous population is thought to have withdrawn to the easily defensible district of Martinsfeld in reaction to the advance of peoples from the East and West.

Upper Austria on the Danube seems to have been a crossroads of many peoples–who knows whether our ancient ancestors were part of the Roman colonizer settlements, or were the “Barbarian” hordes on the other side of the river? Or some combination of the peoples from “the East and the West”? In my personal DNA analysis, there seem to be fragments (less than 2%) of Italian and Eastern European ancestry–maybe they met along the Danube river in Austria.

So much is up to conjecture and imagination, except that it is clear they were of the so-called “lower” classes. Maybe my very ancient ancestors lived along the river, and then later migrated north to clear the forests and farm. Maybe they were a part of the Peasant Uprisings in 1626, or one of the 62 known uprisings in Upper Austria between 1356 and 1849. Maybe they were not. Day laborers. Weavers. Farmers. But in any case, around 1884, they left their rural connection to land and became urban city dwellers, and thus also came my grandfather to the cities of Ottawa, Ontario, and then to Detroit, Michigan. So much is lost in the translation. But I am glad to make the acquaintance of the great river Danube.

Linz in the year 1594.

Linz on the Danube, date ?1889

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110090224/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/linsvm_avstriae_anno_1594.jpeg

The Buddha once addressed his monks, saying: “Monks, all is burning. What is burning? The eye is burning, forms are burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion.” Called “The Fire Sermon”, it is one of the Buddha’s most famous discourses, and considered one of the most important. An allusion to the Fire Sermon appears in T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” with a footnote stating that it “corresponds in importance to the ‘Sermon on the Mount’.” In our sermon we will talk about how the Fire Sermon is a keystone to understanding the Buddha’s remarkable discovery, 2500 years ago, about the essential nature of suffering, its cause, and its remedy.

John Ambrosiano is a retired physicist and dharma student who teaches meditation and dharma at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Los Alamos. He has been a student of the Vipassana teacher Matthew Flickstein for 12 years.

In searching to understand my Austrian heritage, I was able to find a few further generations of the Hochreiter family who lived in the Mühlviertel. This region consists of the four Upper Austrian districts that lie north of the river Danube: Rohrbach, Urfahr-Umgebung (where my ancestors were from), Freistadt and Perg. The parts of the state capital Linz that lie north of the Danube also belong to the Mühlviertel.

My grandfather Johann’s father, as I have said, was also named Johann Hochreiter. Johann, Sr. was the son of Michael Hochreiter (who would be my great-great-grandfather), born in 1832 in Waldschlag (now Oberneukirchen) and Theresia Foisner (my great-great-grandmother) who was born in 1828. She had an earlier marriage to Joseph Waldhör in 1851, at age 23. (Joseph was born in Unterwaldschlag, also Oberneukirchen). They had two sons, and then later Theresia married Michael Hochreither in Oberneukirchen on 13th of July 7, 1856, when she was age 28 and Michael was 24. They had four sons: Johann, Franz, Joseph, and Matthias, all of whom lived to marry and have children. (The records I have don’t indicate if there were any other children who did not survive.)

I also found each of their parents listed: Theresia’s parents were Michael Foisner and Cäcilia Pichler. Michael’s parents were Philipp Hochreiter (who came from Bad Leonfelden) and Theresia Rammerstorfer.

One of the ways I try to learn about my ancestors is simply to look up their towns on Google Maps. Bad Leonfelden is about 12-13 kilometers northeast of Oberneukirchen, and 28 kilometers north of Linz.  When I zoomed into Bad Leonfelden, a few businesses appeared with “Hochreiter” in the name. So that’s cool. Bad means “bath” in German, and there are spa mud baths in the town. It is only 6 kilometers south of the border with the Czech Republic.

A Wikipedia listing for Oberneukirchen said that settlement and then village life probably started in the area in the 12th century.  Around the year 1500 agriculture and the weaving industry served as the main source of income. Very important was the trade in flax and linen, and also in wood, wine and salt. So it is possible that my ancestors lived there a very long time.  In the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), the area was occupied several times, and in 1809 there were major fires that destroyed many buildings in Oberneukirchen.

But what did it mean to be Austrian? After learning about the Swabian roots of some other Germanic ancestors, I wondered what kind of “Germanic” the Austrians might be. I found out the question has many historical complications. Some sources indicate that the Austrians and Bavarians were essentially the same culturally and linguistically. Austria is just to the east of Bavaria. But when Germany was nationalizing from smaller kingdoms and duchies and so on, Austria was a rival to Prussia, and there were also fierce Protestant/Catholic rivalries.  According to Leif Jerram, (Senior Lecturer in History, University of Manchester, UK) on Quora.com,

Historically, Bavaria and Austria were much more similar. At the time of the formation of the modern state of Germany in the 1860s-70s, Bavarian politicians very much wanted Austria inside the new nation – they shared Roman Catholicism. Further, at that time, Bavaria tended to be more liberal and tolerant than the rest of the new state of Germany, and they wished to be able to preserve that. The Prussian elites who forced the unification of Germany, however (through warfare and blackmail), wanted to ensure that a) Catholics would be in a minority in the new nation, and b) that Prussian aristocratic elites would not face any competition for political power. If Austria were included, then many more Catholics would be included in the new state, and the might of the Austrian empire (such as it was – let’s say its wealth and prestige) would mean Prussian aristocratic landholders would have to make many compromises. So, Austria was excluded from the new state, and Catholics were vigorously persecuted as a minority for the first 20-or-so years of its foundation.

The history of the place seems incredibly complex, (but that seems true of most places I’ve tried to learn about in Europe.) A decisive moment for these developments was the Austro-Prussian War, in the summer of 1866.  Each side had ally states who were part of the loosely bound German Confederation, but the Prussians won that seven week war, and shaped the resulting eventual German Empire to the exclusion of Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was then established in 1867 in the aftermath, as a constitutional monarchy (with Austria and Hungary as equal partners) that lasted until 1918.

So my grandfather’s parents and grandparents would have lived through these and other–often violent–transitions, but who knows how much or how little they were involved or effected by them personally in their small rural villages.  All of this helps me to understand just a little of the complex relationship between Austria and Germany in the World Wars of the twentieth century, (though my grandfather and all of my other Germanic ancestors) were gone from Europe by then. In each of those conflicts, there were some people who wanted Austria to be part of a wider Germany, and in the resulting peace treaties, that was explicitly forbidden. No wonder I find it all very confusing.

John Hochreiter at 31

My most recent ancestor immigrant to this continent was my grandfather, John Hochreiter. He was born “Johann” on June 1, 1884 in Linz, Austria, when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Johann Hochreiter (senior), born 1857, was a day-laborer originally from the village of Waldschlag, (now part of the town of Oberneukirchen), in the northern part of Upper Austria, an area called Mühlviertel. From the information I can gather, the next few generations of ancestors were from that area as well. His mother was born Anna Bartl, about 1851, daughter of the weaver Michael Bartl and his wife Katharina.

I turned to etymology for some clues this time. The name “Hochreiter” originally meant those persons who made higher-lying surfaces arable, who cleared forested areas for farms. “Wald schlag might mean “Forest Strike”, and “Ober neu kirchen” is “Upper New Churches.” According to Wikipedia, settlement and then village life probably started in the area of ​​the municipality Oberneukirchen in the 12th century. The spread and colonization of the forest clearing areas and the religious care of the settlers soon made a chapel or church building required.  One last etymology: “Mühlviertel” translates “Mill Quarter.” The Oberneukirchen economy was centered around agriculture and weaving for several centuries.

However, Johann and Anna did not stay in this rural area, the place of their families. For some reason, I would guess related to work, they moved about 25 kilometers south to the city of Linz where Johann was a day-laborer. It was in the city that their children were born—they had at least five sons, Johann (junior) in 1884, Georg in 1885, Franz in 1888, Franz Joseph in 1892, and Julius in 1895. (I seem to remember hearing stories that my grandfather was the oldest of several brothers—even eight, but that number might be a error.) They later also died in the city of Linz, in 1933 and 1930.

My mom told of a story that my grandfather as a young man had carried bread on his back to deliver it, or another story was that he delivered beer by horse-drawn cart. But in any case, at some point he became a waiter, and remained so until his retirement many years later. He left Linz in his twenties, somewhere about 1910 or 11, with a group of buddies, working as waiters in hotels as they traveled, going first to France, and then England. Finally they took the ship called “Lake Manitoba” and landed in Quebec, Canada on June 16, 1912. Then, he worked as a waiter at the new, and very grand, Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was there he met my grandmother, Yvonne Tremblay, who worked as a chamber maid.

In late 1915, John emigrated once again, traveling via Windsor to Detroit, Michigan. By this point, Canada had entered the first World War, and he was registered as an “enemy alien.” I wonder if that contributed to his decision to come to the United States, which was still a neutral country. (According to that registration, in 1915 at 31 he was 5’3”, weighed 125 pounds, and had dark hair, and wore glasses.) He soon sent for Yvonne, and they were married in Detroit on January 14, 1916. She was just 18.

John and Yvonne in Detroit 1916

They stayed in Detroit, and he worked as a room service waiter at the Hotel Statler (which had been completed earlier in 1915), until he retired (at 70) after my grandmother died in l954.

When I have wondered about why he left Austria, I haven’t found clear answers. It was a few years before war would break out there, so I don’t think it was about that. It seems perhaps he and his friends were looking for adventure, and they’d found a way to do it even without many financial resources.  As waiters, they could work wherever they could find hotel jobs.  I was impressed that these men continued to be friends years later in Detroit. My grandfather was a quiet man, and he died when I was only 13, so I never felt that I knew him very well.

Ironically, even though my siblings and I are of 25% Austrian ancestry, and our grandfather was the most recent immigrant of our heritage, I found it difficult to find a sense of connection to that culture and place. It has bewildered me as I have continued to explore the region in Austria from which he came. I’ll write more in a future post.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110084738/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/john-hochreiter-at-31.jpg

Have you wanted to take UU Wellspring but the timing hasn’t worked for you? Or you travel and can’t make all of the sessions? Take the first year program with UUs across the country using the Zoom platform. You can connect wherever you are. The Sources class runs online Jan-Nov, except July. More info and registration here. Sign up deadline Dec. 15.  For more information contact Linnea Nelson, UU Wellspring Executive Director at uuwellspring.org, or Sandra Rouse UUSS Wellspring Coordinator on Breeze for more information, or at Sandra.rouse@gmail.com 

Continuing through the month of December, Green Sanctuary is selling Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, and tea. Stop by our table to learn about Fair Trade and buy these products. Contact Paula georgeandpaula@verizon.net or Nancy gs.uuss06@gmail.com

Thank you to all who nominated and all who turned in a ballot to determine this year’s special collections recipients. The Top 9 Vote Getters are (in alpha order): Electric City Bike Rescue; Environmental Advocates of New York; Girls, Inc. of the Greater Capital Region; Hamilton Hill Arts Center; The Legal Project; Miracle on Craig St.; Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy, Lansing Farm Project; Planned Parenthood Schenectady; and UUSC Emergency Campaign to Support Migrant Justice. Each of these groups will be assigned to a month in which their work is somehow related to the topic of the service or the theme of the month.

Some other wonderful organizations that were nominated who met the criteria and didn’t get the most votes but are still worthy organizations are: Community Loan Fund of the Capital Region; Empire State Youth Orchestra/CHIME; In Our Own Voices; Safe Inc of Schenectady; Schenectady JCC; Sleep in Heavenly Peace; Spina Bifida Association of Northeastern New York; UUSC Asylum Access Mexico; Wildwood Programs. -Special Collections sub-team Chrissy Bisceglia, Kim Cummins, Crys Hammelink, Rev. Lynn, and Rev. Wendy

We are SOOO grateful to the many volunteers and staff who helped make the Schenectady Clergy Against Hate event so meaningful. We had over 200 people in the Great Hall gathered to acknowledge our grief and to express our gratitude. A couple dozen clergy and religious leaders of many faiths gathered and offered their wisdom, care, and grace in collaboration across different traditions.

There was a ritual of confession and lamentation for the wrongs we have done. Those were written on paper which was placed in water. The water dissolved the papers and then was used to bless the gift of a tree. The Rev. Jonathan Vanderbeck, serves as minister at Trinity Reformed Church in Rotterdam, said, “Following the service, the tree will be planted here, at the Unitarian Universalist Society, in honor of the ways that this particular faith community has chosen to model unity. May it be a witness and conviction to us to exist together and be against hatred. May the waters that have held our confessions be the waters that bring about restorative justice. May these things bring about new and good things for all.”

We are so grateful and honored that UUSS got to host this community event. Thank you to the folks who showed up on Saturday to set-up, the greeters (many of whom stood outside in the cold, to warmly welcome folks to our space), the kitchen crew who helped make sure there was kosher, halal, vegan, gluten-free, and peanut-free food for all of our guests, the clean-up crew, the choir, everyone who brought desserts, for folks who just jumped in and helped when they saw a need, including Christy Multer who made flyers. Thank you one and all.

We are so grateful for such a great staff who did a hundred behind-the-scenes and a few very obvious things to help this event be such a fabulous gathering. This event was made possible in part through funds from the bequest of William Kleinhandler and the Board of Trustees.

With profound gratitude,
Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

12/8: Everyone will begin together in the Great Hall. Following the Story for All Ages, K/1 Children will be led by their teachers to their classroom in the church hallway. Children in grades 2-7 and 10-12 will meet in the church entryway and be led across the street to their Waters House classrooms. Coming of Age Youth (grades 8 and 9) will attend the service and then meet in their classroom from 12-2 (be sure to pack a lunch!).

December 8th is our last RE “class” of the calendar year! We hope you’ll join us for the 12/15 and 12/22 multigenerational services as religious education opportunities, as well as the December 24th candlelight service, which will take place at 7 pm. There will be no RE on 12/29. RE will resume 1/5/20!

The Nursery is available for children five and under during services. As always, all Children and Youth are welcome to attend worship services.

No words today, just a few photos from my walk…

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110084351/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sunlight-on-wildseeds.jpg

Come share a meal with your church family, along with stories of how we use food to show love, concern, and hospitality.

At this time of year, the UU Service Committee-the UUSC- invites congregations to participate in the Guest at Your Table program. Basically, you bring a box home and each time you have a meal, read a bit of the stories i.e. invite them as a virtual guest to your table. Then on Christmas Eve or early January, bring the box back and a check to the UUSC to help support their work locally and in the world. In order for this to succeed, we need someone to coordinate it. Interested? Contact Rev. Lynn at revlynn@uuschenectady.org

“What are the core values that shape our stewardship of money and how shall we express those values in our budget?”

We hope to get comments from as many members as possible by December 1, 2019. If you were not able to return your comments at the meeting, please email your thoughts to Gerry Schuth, Co-chair of the Strategic Advisory Committee at gerry@schuth.com. Thank you.

Have you felt the active hope that is alive and well in the congregation? We felt it as eleven new people joined UUSS Saturday morning at the membership class. We felt it on Sunday morning as we participated in worship, in the Coming of Age class, and then the Congregational Meeting! We are experiencing active hope as we prepare for a weekend of connection and community, singing in an interfaith choir, and hosting a community-wide Thanksgiving service and meal. The world we hope for is one of radical hospitality, compassionate communication, greater justice, deeper peace, a stronger community, a deeper love. And it will only become that way when each of us becomes that way.

When you arrive this Sunday morning, consider what it might be like to come into our building for the first time. Look around the place. Does it communicate the inclusive place we are striving to be? Is it inviting? Is the stuff on walls current? relevant? How does it feel here? We get to practice preemptive radical inclusion as we learned with CB Beal in October. You can learn more about the event down below. We hope to see you there as we host people of a variety of faiths including Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Pagans, Christians, Druids, Catholics, Unitarian Universalists, and more!

With hope, and in faith~ Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy

As I researched my Swabian roots, I realized that one eighth of my ancestral heritage is most likely tied to that place. One aspect of the decolonization process is for those of us with non-native ancestry to explore our roots in other places across the globe, places in which our ancestors might hold their own Indigeneity.  I found myself strangely moved yesterday as I watched Youtube videos about Swabia. See here is the thing:  before this week, I had never even heard of Swabia.  This is the forgetting that comes over so many families through several generations in the United States.

We begin to amalgamate, and make reference to a vague Germanic ancestry. But the more I learn, the more I realize that each of my various family lines came from distinct cultures and landscapes that are now considered “German.”  I want to record some things about that Swabian culture and place–nothing that can’t be found in Wikipedia and other online sources–but new to me. (Most of this is just copy and paste or mildly edited from public domain sources.)

Germany was slowly becoming unified over the 18th and 19th centuries (mostly after my ancestors had emigrated.)  This process was politically dominated by the northern Kingdom of Prussia, and therefore “Weimar Classicism” became the expression of German national “high culture.” As a consequence, southern Germany and by extension both the Swabians and the Bavarians came to be seen as deviations from a generic standard German, and a number of clichés or stereotypes developed about them.

These portrayed the Swabians as stingy, overly serious, or prudish petty bourgeois simpletons, for example as reflected in “The Seven Swabians” story published by the Brothers Grimm. On the positive side, however, the same stereotypes may be expressed in portraying the Swabians as frugal, clever, entrepreneurial and hard-working. Realistically, they lived on a land with thin soil and difficult access to water, so likely they had to be frugal and hard-working to survive.

The Swabian Alb (or Swabian Jura) occupies the region bounded by the Danube River in the southeast and the upper Neckar River in the northwest. In the southwest it rises to the higher mountains of the Black Forest. The highest mountain of the region is the Lemberg (1,015 m.). The area’s profile resembles a high plateau, which slowly falls away to the southeast. The northwestern edge is a steep escarpment covered with forests, while the top is flat or gently rolling.

The geology of the Swabian Alb is mostly limestone, which formed the seabed during the Jurassic period. The sea receded 50 million years ago. Since limestone is soluble in water, rain seeps through cracks everywhere and forms subterranean rivers which flow through a large system of caves until they emerge. Thus there are hardly any rivers, lakes or other forms of surface water on the plateau.

Many different types of beautiful caves can be found there, from dry dripstone caves to caves that can only be entered by boat. Sometimes the discharge of the water from subterranean rivers can be spectacular, too, for example, the Blautopf, (“Blue Bowl”) a source for a tributary of the Danube.

Also because of the porous limestone, the Danube nearly disappears near Immendingen only to reappear several kilometers further down. Most of the water lost by the Danube resurfaces in the Aachtopf, a spring for a tributary to the Rhine.

Much of the Swabian Alb consists of gentle to moderate hills often covered with forest or cleared for small-scale agriculture. The traditional landscape was grass fields with juniper bushes. Today this has become a comparatively rare sight. However, in certain places it is protected by the government (the province of Baden-Württemberg.) The soil is not very fertile, the humus is often as thin as 10 cm (4 in). Many small limestone pebbles are found on the surface.

Fossils can be found everywhere in the Swabian Alb. In a number of caves (including Vogelherd, Hohlenstein-Stadel, Geißenklösterle and Hohle Fels), all just a few kilometers apart, some of the oldest signs of human artifacts were found. Best known are: a mammoth, a horse head, a water bird, and two statues of a lion man all more than 30,000 years old. The oldest known musical instruments have been found here, too: flutes made from the bones of swans and griffon vultures, some 35,000 years old, and a flute carved from the tusk of a mammoth dating from the Ice Age, around 37,000 years ago. Perhaps most astounding is the oldest representation found so far of the human body, the Venus of Hohle Fels.

This Goddess figure, carved from mammoth ivory, and likely worn as a pendant, was found in caves that my very ancient ancestors may have frequented. Of course, people moved around between those ancient times and more recent times, the Celts and the Gauls intermarried with Germanic tribes, but some of the ancestors of the Swabians may have been present even then.

So as I think about my place on this earth, this is one of my places!

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110083040/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/blue-pot.jpg

I have been delving into the stories of my ancestors again, and the last few days I was researching my great-great-great grandparents, Johann Nepomuk Heisler (b. 1781 in Westerstetten) and Barbara (Zeller) Heisler (b. 1788 in Tomerdingen). They lived in the small town of Westerstetten, in the Swabian Alb, now a part of Germany. 

Johann was a shoemaker and farmer. They were married in 1805, when he was 24 and she was 17, and moved into their house at Haupstrasse 19 in 1806. [The house was built in 1757 and was still there at the turn of this century.] The first of their children was born in 1806, when Barbara was 18. They had 14 children, but several died in childhood, and Barbara herself died at the age of 37 in October of 1825, one week after the birth of her last child. I would say it is likely that she died of childbirth related issues. At that time, only eight children were still living.

Four years later, in 1829, when Johann married his second wife, Magdalena Rimmele, who was 45, only six of the children remained: Jacob was 20, Martha was 13 (and died 5 years later), Nikolas was 11, Johann was 9, Augustin was 8 and Anton was 4. The youngest four boys would eventually emigrate to the United States—but I will talk more about that in separate stories. [One of which can be found here.]

It is uncertain how long the family ancestors had lived in Westerstetten. Their parents are just identified as “German,” in the records I have. But we might conclude that they were from the area of the Swabian Alb, because Johann Nepomuk Heisler’s grandfather Johann Leonhard Heisler is listed as born in Essingen in the north part of the Swabian Alb. His great-great-grandfather is also listed as born in Essingen, and that one’s wife was born in Westerstetten. So the family were most likely of Swabian heritage.

That whole region was part of the Swabian Alb, centered in the city of Ulm, but including both Westerstetten, and Tomerdingen which were each perhaps 15-17 kilometers north of Ulm. Their small town at that time however was on the edge of rival political entities, and they would have experienced many transitions in the early 1800s.

From 1414 to 1803, Westerstetten, and Tomerdingen as well, were part of the territory of Elchingen Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. For much of its history, Elchingen was one of the 40-odd self-ruling imperial abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire and, as such, was a virtually independent state that contained several villages aside from the monastery itself. This meant it was independent of the jurisdiction of any lord, and answered directly to the Holy Roman Emperor. Perhaps the devout Catholicism of the Heislers is related to their connection to the Abbey. 

Like all the imperial abbeys, Elchingen lost its independence in the course of the German Mediatisation in 1803 (a secularisation and land redistribution process put in place by the French conquests of Napolean) and the monastery was dissolved. When this happened, the village of Westerstetten was given to the “Elector (and then Kingdom) of Bavaria” along with Elchingen, and the city of Ulm. Seven years later, in 1810, the border between Bavaria and Württemberg was re-negotiated and Westerstetten and Ulm both became part of the “Kingdom of Württemberg.”

The Heislers were most likely struggling villagers during all of this. According to one Wikipedia entry, life was extremely hard in the Swabian Alb. There was a lack of water and the soil was poor in quality. For many villages fetching water required a long journey by horse. Since water often needed to be stored over a long time, it became stagnant. Thus disinfection via alcohol was very popular: “Most” (cider) was mixed with water and even given to babies.

I wonder how much the decision to send four sons to the United States was influenced by these difficult conditions, and by the tumultuous political landscape. As it turned out, only one son remained behind, of all of the 14 children. In 1978, my grandmother Lucille Heisler Johnson wrote to her sister, “I remember Papa (Thomas Heisler) telling us about his father and two brothers coming over from Germany. They all had to be under twenty-one because they left Germany to avoid military service.” The last brother came later on his own. I am beginning to imagine these ancestors.

Map of Württemberg before the French Revolutionary Wars, showing the Free Imperial City of Ulm, separating the two parts of the Imperial Abbey of Elchingen, with the Danube shown running through the centre of the image. Cropped from German States Before and since the French Revolution: II. Wurtemberg, from The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1923, from the Perry-Castañeda map collection. Public Domain 

Social scientists say that only 10% of us (at least here in the USA) are truly effective listeners – people who listen to others in order to understand and grow. The rest of us, so they tell us, are simply listening to reply, to make the conversation as much about ourselves as possible (it’s comfortable territory, after all). As we continue to explore the theme of ATTENTION this week, some thoughts on how to be a better listener, to be in relationships with others that are not merely transactional, but transformative.

Sunday, 11/24: Everyone will attend the multigenerational Thanksgiving service.

The Nursery is available for children five and under during services. As always, all Children and Youth are welcome to attend worship services.

I just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer, a powerful novel set in the days of slavery and the underground railroad, told through the voice of one young man who is among “the tasked.” There is so much I could say about this story.  Starting with this word, “tasked.” Coates never has his characters who are in bondage call themselves “slaves,” but rather, “the tasked.” And this subtle shift of language helps to transport us beyond the familiar words (of the masters) that have been written as history, into the direct perspective of those who were counted as property.

Even though I learned about slavery from my early days in school, it was easy to discount (even by benign repetition) the pervasive way this institution shaped the whole of our nation from its beginnings, it was easy to mask its reach and extent and corruption.  I grew up in the north, and it was easy to think of it as something far away, other.  But in recounting exploits of folks in the underground railroad, Coates makes clear that people in the north weren’t safe from slavery, or immune to its power. Any person of African descent could be captured off the streets of Philadelphia and transported away into bondage. A person of European descent who devoted themselves to ending slavery risked being murdered.  It was everywhere in this country.

It is not that the novel opened my eyes to some new knowledge, but that it helped me remember what I have already known, and bring it alive in a vivid way.  The whole practice and institution of slavery makes a lie of any notion of “greatest country” or “good old days” or “American dream.”  From the earliest settler invasions in 1619, through the creation of the “United States,” through the Civil War, up to 1865–246 years–the country was bound up in these practices of forced labor, torture, separation of families, sexual abuse. We are part of a horrible legacy that still shapes everything about our country, even though there are strong incentives for us to “forget.”

In The Water Dancer, the central character, Hiram Walker, has a magical gift that is tied to the power of memory.  He was a precocious child with a photographic memory of everything, except for the memory of his mother, who was sold away from him when he was only a young boy.  That trauma erased all memories of her from his consciousness. But later, crossing a bridge over the river Goose, the bridge where so many people had been lost into the deeper south, he sees a vision of his mother dancing with a water jar on her head.

The story begins here.  On the first page he says,

“knowing now the awesome power of memory, how it can open a blue door from one world to another, how it can move us from mountains to meadows, from green woods to fields caked in snow, knowing now that memory can fold the land like cloth, and knowing, too, how I had pushed my memory of her into the “down there” of my mind, how I forgot, but did not forget, I know now that this story, this Conduction, had to begin there on that fantastic bridge between the land of the living and the land of the lost.”

He doesn’t come into the power of his own magical gifts until he can awaken the full memory of all that he has lost, and the painfulness of that loss. And perhaps we too will never find healing for all that we face in our world today, until we open our minds to the painfulness of what we call the “past,” (because it is never “past”), until we are willing to face it as it lives within the “down there” of this land we call home.

The Water Dancer creates that kind of magic, conjures the power of memory to transform all that we are.

Details about ordering meals will be published later, but for now, coordinators are seeking new volunteers. If you can deliver meals on the 11th or help cook on the 10th or 11th, contact Ellie von Wellsheim at ellie@mooncatcher.org or 518-859-5114. Or, to bake a couple dozen cookies to be included in the meals, please add your contact information to the clipboard by the Cookie Monster at the back of the Great Hall on Sundays or email Jill McGrath at mcgrathjm@icloud.com.

This month we explore the theme of hope. Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker writes, “Hope rises. It rises from the heart of life, here and now, beating with joy and sorrow.” James Baldwin and Audre Lorde spoke of revolutionary hope. How do we find hope when so much is wrong in the world? Let’s hope we find it in community, together.

Sunday, 11/17: Everyone except for Coming of Age will begin together in the Great Hall. Following the Story for All Ages, K/1 Children will be led by their teachers to their classroom in the church hallway. Children in grades 2-7 and 10-12 will meet in the church entryway and be led across the street to their Waters House classrooms. Coming of Age will meet with one of the ministers in their classroom from 10:30-12:30.

The Nursery is available for children five and under during services. As always, all Children and Youth are welcome to attend worship services.

Director of Lifespan Religious Education Robin Ahearn will be out of the office for professional development on 11/10. If you have an urgent RE-related matter, please see Congregational Life Coordinator Kristin Cleveland.

On Tuesday we were out in the garden, tucking it in before snow possibly arrives later this week. We harvested the last of the green tomatoes, cut down the sunflower stalks, made a few bundles of herbs to hang and dry, and clipped the remaining marigolds to bring inside.We mulched some leaves, and then some more leaves, and put away the electric lawnmower, and made the electric snowblower more accessible. Time passes and seasons change…

Cycles of life and death are always present, and at this time of year, we may particularly feel sadness and loss. This is the time of year of remembering our ancestors, of giving thanks for lives well lived, of honouring those who have died. This feels particularly tender this year, with the recent passing of four UUSS elders, Ned Bigelow, Jean Wilkinson, Helen Webster, and Owen Sutton. We know that each loss is connected to all other losses. Let us be gentle with ourselves and one another. May we find hope in the memories of ancestors of our families, communities, and the congregation.

With care~ Rev. Lynn & Rev. Wendy

An exploration of diversity of belief in America with pulpit guest the Rev. Munro Sickafoose, a consulting minister at the Unitarian Congregation of Taos and a community minister at the UU Congregation of Santa Fe. Munro is a graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry and focuses much of his work on healing our human relationship with the earth.

My seminary friend, Tim, was once the religion page editor for the Toledo Blade newspaper. As such, he came into contact with just about every faith community in the Toledo area. Once, he shared one of his experiences with us.

“Here’s the best ‘welcome’ message in town,” he said:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, y no habla ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying newborns, skinny as a rail, or could afford to lose a few pounds. We welcome you if you sing like Pavarotti or can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re just browsing, just woke up, or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s baptism. We welcome our disabled worshipers who have brought their service dogs with them. We welcome Muslims, Jews, politicians, and sinners like us. We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems, or you’re down in the dumps, or you don’t like “organized religion;” we’ve been there too. If you blew all your offering money at the casino, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, who work hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or come because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church. We welcome those who are inked, pierced, or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid, or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers, doubters, bleeding hearts . . . and you!

Talk about leaving no doubt as to how open their church’s doors are! And here, friends, is the kicker. What church do you think offers this message of welcome to all who walk through those open doors? If you guessed a Unitarian Universalist church . . . you would be wrong. The above is the welcome message of Toledo’s First Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Remarkable, no?

Each week, we open our service by telling those gathered, “Whoever you are, wherever you are on your life’s journey, you are welcome here.” I wonder, though, how many people hearing this message for the first time think to themselves, Even me? Just as I am? Maybe the laundry list of just who’s included in the “whoever, wherever” might help to answer those questions and allay those fears.

Then again, it might make the greeting message longer than the sermon.

In truth, it’s what happens after that initial welcome that truly matters. Beyond that welcome message, the Adventists have a pretty strict view of sin and salvation that might very well leave some first-timers feeling cold, oppressed, even wounded. The open door is wonderful, but not if one is left to wonder whether or not there’s a seat at the table after they enter.

The same is true for us. The “whoever, wherever” message is welcoming enough, the laundry list implicit. The answer to those questions — Even me? Just as I am? — come in those ever-important moments that follow the welcome, inside the open door. How do we make room in the sanctuary? At the table? How do we lay aside our own needs and expectations about who the person at the door should be so that we might accept them as they are?

True welcome is a continual practice. We must open our hearts as well as our doors for our invitation to be more than just words.

Speaking of welcome, our Thanksgiving service this year will focus on the ways we show care, attention, and hospitality with food. We’ll be trying something a little different with a potluck worship on November 24 titled, “Sacred Tables,” where we’ll share dishes we serve to visitors, extended family, and even strangers, with stories about how food and hospitality strengthen connections. Watch your email and our Facebook page for more details.

Rev. John Cullinan