{"id":5471,"date":"2015-09-12T22:19:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T02:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5471"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:48:37","slug":"day-68-stars-aligned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5471","title":{"rendered":"Day 68: Stars aligned"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a map of Germany with yellow stars, marking the stops of a trip for next spring. The stars do not mark tourist attractions. None of the names would be familiar to anyone outside the region: Kulsheim, Merdingen, Weisenheim, Dornberg…<\/p>\n

Until today, those towns were just words on a spreadsheet, matched up with names like Adelman and Greenfelder, Schaeffer and Ott. My immigrant ancestors.<\/p>\n

Today my research had gotten far enough along that I knew the town of origin for two-thirds of my 31 immigrant ancestors. So I decided it was time to map the trip to Germany.<\/p>\n

When I made the map and placed those stars, I saw a constellation of communications.<\/p>\n

They were from different towns, yes, but almost all those towns were within a day or two horseback ride of each other – what we now travel in an hour or two by car.<\/p>\n

And, between 1829 and 1854, those 31 Germans landed in Peru Township, Ohio, in the parish of St. Alphonsus.<\/p>\n

How did they know to come to Peru, Ohio\u00a0– and how did they know the way\u00a0to get there? Letters, merchants, newspapers? But so many of them were illiterate.<\/p>\n

How did they learn enough about the land and the conditions to overcome their fears and leave their homes forever?<\/p>\n

What did they imagine Ohio to be, and what was the reality?<\/p>\n

After arrival, they all knew each other in a short time because their lives revolved around the church, which was set smack in the midst of their\u00a0farms.
\nThey married, had children, and their children married and had children, and a century later it was my turn to be born.<\/p>\n

Next year, I’m going back to see the land they left behind. I wonder if it will feel like home.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2013… the reverse of 31 … for making the reverse journey of the 31 immigrant ancestors.<\/p>\n

\"Day<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a map of Germany with yellow stars, marking the stops of a trip for next spring. The stars do not mark tourist attractions. None of the names would be familiar to anyone outside the region: Kulsheim, Merdingen, Weisenheim, Dornberg… Until today, those towns were just words on a spreadsheet, matched up with names … read more Day 68: Stars aligned<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[94,101,250,71,88,135],"class_list":["post-5471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inheritance","tag-94","tag-ancestors","tag-germany","tag-immigrants","tag-ohio","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5471"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5503,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471\/revisions\/5503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}