A Conversation with my Great Great Great Great Grandmother

A Conversation with my Great Great Great Great Grandmother

Michael: You first appear in the Schmieheim town records as the wife of Sandel Schnurmann and the mother of three children. Weren’t you born there?

Mathilde: No. I was born Mathilde Kornmann in 1770, and the Kornmann family lived in a different town. Since most of our villages in Baden, in rural southwest Germany, were small, and there were only several hundred Jewish families in total at that time, it was customary for those families to find husbands and wives in neighboring towns or even across the Rhine in nearby French Alsace with its larger Jewish population, or in Switzerland, about one hundred kilometers to the south. The Schnurmanns, my husband’s family, lived in Schmieheim at least since 1704, and who knows how long before that? They were one of the earliest Jewish families in Baden.

Michael: Do you know you are the matriarch of a female line, now nine generations old, and that your genes have been passed on, daughter to daughter, right down to 2018?

Mathilde: I hope it continues. I was not clairvoyant so I had no way of knowing the future. I tried to be a good wife to my husband and a good mother to my children and a good Jew in my community. I hope the current generation has inherited some of that. Besides, I had no idea about genes. Genetics only began in the nineteenth century, and DNA is a twentieth century science, way ahead of my time.

Michael: Your daughter, my GGG grandmother, Mariam or Maria Schnurmann, born in 1800, has been a great mystery to me. According to the town records she had three children with the last name Schnurmann and no recorded husband.

Could she have been a single mother? Could she have married a gentile? Could she have married a man named Schnurmann, who has disappeared from history?

Mathilde: Her being a single mother is an anachronistic idea on your part. Such concepts did not exist in our time and culture. She was a part of the Schmieheim Jewish community and is buried in the Jewish cemetery along with hundreds of your other relatives, so your gentile husband theory, while it may be theoretically possible, is weak. Since the Jewish families in the area intermarried and our family names are woven together like a tapestry, it was really not uncommon for a couple with the same name to marry. The OSB (Ortssippenbuch, our German town records) is ordinarily quite accurate in recording spouses. So that’s a puzzle. But you are the researcher and I will leave it to you to keep exploring and find the answer. You may be my GGGG grandson, but there are no short cuts or easy answers here.

Michael: You mean I’ll never solve this, that Maria will always be inscrutable?

Mathilde: I didn’t say that. Don’t hyperbolize. Go into German records beyond the OSB. Improve your German language skills. You need to do a deep dive into historical archives. Maybe you’ll find a clue to her life. I’m saying you will have to work harder as a researcher. We all worked hard in my generation. My descendants, including you, should also take work seriously. Sandel, my husband, was a merchant. He, like many Baden Jews, was multilingual. I helped him and I raised my children. We didn’t have your so called modern conveniences but we didn’t miss them. No one, Jew or Christian, was rich, except for the nobles and landowners. But we were not poor or destitute, the way Jews in the Russian Empire sometimes were.

The Baden gentiles worked in agriculture or the trades. The Jews were merchants and traders, especially in livestock, and money lenders and middle men in commerce. In Schmieheim we lived side by side, usually without problems. The

Ortenau Kreis, our province in Baden, was beautiful: to the west vineyards and agricultural fields stretching sixteen kilometers to the Rhine, to the east the dense woodlands of the Black Forest. Our relative, a cousin by marriage, Berthold Auerbach, wrote “Black Forest Village Stories” which was published in 1843, as I clearly remember. The book became a great success and was translated into most European languages. With his other books, Berthold became one of the most published German authors of the nineteenth century.

But back to daily life. Jews were at times prohibited from owning agricultural land and tilling the fields. And there were other restrictions. But we created the markets for the farmers so we were essential to the economy.

Michael: You lived at an interesting time when life for the Jews was changing. Were you aware of the changes?

Mathilde: Of course I was aware. For centuries Jews had been subject to restrictions and expulsion. I witnessed the change when Napoleon followed his military victories with liberal reformist policies. Napoleon brought the revolutionary French idea of freedom and equality to the German states, resulting in the emancipation of German Jews. After the creation of the grand duchy of Baden in 1806 Judaism become a recognized religion and certain civil rights were guaranteed. The laws were passed quickly, but the effects on our lives were more incremental. When Napoleon was later defeated by the British, many reforms were rolled back. Full civic equality came much later for us.

Michael: Maria had three children, two boys and one girl, Karolina, your granddaughter and my GG grandmother, who was born in 1833. The boys immigrated to America where they did well financially selling horses to the Union Army during the Civil War and then as business owners in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I have wondered if Karolina was tempted to emigrate but stayed behind to care for her mother.

Mathilde: Horse and cattle dealing was one of the common Jewish professions in Baden and indeed in our family, so it made sense that Joshua and Joseph would have continued that in their new home. All three children watched over their mother. The boys sent money back home as they prospered. Her beautiful gravestone, suitable for a woman of substance, must have been purchased by them.

I can’t tell you what was in Karolina’s mind when she was young. But I don’t think she was desirous of living anyplace else. Home and family were important to her. Kaula, as she was called, knew what she wanted. The only sibling left at home, she stayed in Schmieheim close to Maria, who lived to 81 years old. Kaula married Leopold (Loeb) Hofmann, from another old Schmieheim family—I was at the wedding—and had eleven children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. She was a resilient woman with good values and a full life. We can be proud of her. Leopold and Karolina are buried in the Schmieheim Jewish cemetery.

Michael: By the way, one of Karolina‘s great granddaughters born in the United States was named after her. That would be my mother, Caroline. Now, continuing with this female line, I am very curious about Karolina’s daughter, Esther Emma Hofmann, who married Samuel Durlacher. They are my great grandparents.

Mathilde: Esther Emma was my great granddaughter, born in 1852. I remember her as a young child. You know I lived for 87 years so I saw a lot. The Esther Emma combination of names was repeated in various branches of the family. We liked tradition.

Michael: By the way, your name seems very European to me.

Mathilde: It was used in the various German states and in France in my time. Perhaps other places also, but I never traveled far and can only judge from experience. We had our synagogue and mikveh and school in Schmieheim. But I would walk to farther places, most often to Kippenheim or Ettenheim, or to Lahr, the nearest larger town, about ten kilometers away, but also to other villages, sometimes many kilometers away, for weddings and funerals and shiva calls, for brit milahs and bar mitzvahs, and sometimes just to visit relatives and friends for birthdays or the sabbath or holy days. We all walked a great deal.

The English cognate of my name would be Matilda. But don’t ever call me Tilly. I was always known as Melga, even, as I am sure you’ve seen, in the town records. Call me that if you’d like. Certainly briefer and more direct than calling me great great great great grandmother all the time.

Michael: Thank you, Melga. I never knew Esther Emma, and you only knew her as a child, so we have a gap of direct knowledge about her. Here is what I uncovered in my research and why I am curious. I came across a document in the Baden State Archives from 1893 in which Emma Durlacher brought an action against Samuel Durlacher for a separation of assets. I only have access to the title page, not the whole dossier. What am I make of this?

Mathilde: As you point out I would have no direct knowledge. Maybe it was some legal convenience. Maybe they were separated and at a rocky point in their marriage. Divorce was not common in that milieu. I wonder what assets they had that were worth disputing. Properties, I would guess.

Michael: I suspect she was a strong-willed and assertive woman. They remained married long after that district court case and immigrated to the United States in 1898. The OSB reports that “the wife and children” left for America but notes nothing about Samuel leaving. However I found his American immigration documents so it appears Samuel traveled on a different ship from Esther Emma and five children. That in itself is not remarkable, but still I wonder if it is a clue of some sort.

They were then in New York together, although I do not know anything about their living arrangements. I have a New York studio photo of them with their youngest son dated 1901. I can only guess it was a troubled marriage. When I visited their graves at Mount Zion cemetery in Queens I noticed the gravestones are not adjoining. Close to one another but not side by side. Could this mean something or was it just the way it was done by the burial society?

Mathilde: Everything means something, at least according to the Talmudic scholars. But I would not jump to the conclusion that it was a metaphor for their marriage. You have to get all your facts and then know how to interpret them. Maybe it was a troubled marriage. Maybe they had complicated emotional lives. But that does not necessarily mean Esther Emma was a difficult woman or the problems were her fault, as you seem to imply. Perhaps Samuel was no picnic. You shouldn’t rule anything in or out without a close and fair examination. Another challenge to your researching skills.

Michael: Let me tell you about my grandmother. She was born Mina Durlacher in Schmieheim in 1876. She immigrated alone to the United States in 1893 when she was barely 17 years old. One sister preceded her; Esther Emma and the rest of the family, as we know, followed five years later. Mina married Isaac Rosenblum in 1899. Isaac died in 1920 at only 43 years old and Minnie, her Americanized name, never remarried but chose to live as a widow for the next fifty years, dying in 1970 at 93 years old. I understood her. She had great strength of character and as a result was an indomitable and secure woman.

My mother, Caroline, born in 1901, was the eldest of Minnie and Isaac’s four surviving children. She went to work after high school, to help support the family and to put her brother William through pharmacy school. She was quite an intelligent woman, well read, and kept detailed records. I have a typewritten list from her wedding shower in 1930 of the guests and their gifts to her. She also had remarkable skills with numbers. She could add and multiply in her head faster than I could on paper. She worked as a bookkeeper for my father and her brother in their businesses.

Mathilde: She has the qualities of a bright and accomplished woman. I think she must have taken after me.

Michael: Melga, that sounds a bit vain.

Mathilde: You confuse pride and vanity. Regardless, I have earned any vanity you see, and I enjoy it. I see no reason for false modesty. Why do you think women should be self-effacing? Why shouldn’t I be forthright in a private family conversation like this?

Michael: Agreed, I am glad you are candid. But back to history. I think because my mother and her siblings lost their father at such young ages, their family bonds were particularly strong. The four of them remained close to Minnie and were genuinely bonded to one another for the rest of their lives.

The female line continues with my sister, Adrienne, who lives in Manhattan, and with her daughter, Lisa, who lives in East Hampton, as I do. Lisa’s two daughters, both in their thirties and married, are your ninth generation descendants. Marci gave birth to a boy in December, 2017, so we will have to wait to see about the tenth generation of your female line.

Mathilde: Thank you for explaining. Now we are both up to date on 250 years of family life.

Michael: One more question, Melga. Maria, Esther Emma, Minnie, Caroline—they are my ancestors and your direct female descendants—seem to have been strong women, intelligent, independent, capable, but maybe also difficult. As a researcher and descendant I found that interesting and unexpected.

What do you think?

Mathilde: What were your expectations? You have a rather judgmental point of view. Are men still questioning women’s behavior? I was confident that in the two and a half centuries since I was born men had become more enlightened about women’s aspirations and abilities. You are getting old now, Michael, perhaps a little narrow minded and illiberal as you age. I hope the succeeding generations of my male descendants will have a more nuanced and insightful understanding than you do.

If there is a legacy of self-reliance and purposefulness it started with someone, and as you point out I am Mathilde Schnurmann, the originator and matriarch of this line. Credit that heritage to me. Don’t expect me to disregard your viewpoints that I will politely call imbalanced just because we are related. But keep researching, and maybe you’ll comprehend more about this family and gain more sensibility about its women. It’s been a very interesting conversation, Michael. I hope we’ll stay in touch.