How did Plain get its name? | Plain resident had ties with Salzburg, Austria One Plain immigrant - Mary Soeldner - had ties with Salzburg, Austria. She emigrated in 1883 at age 23 to America (twenty-three years after the Plain post office was established). "Mary was employed by a wealthy lawyer, later a judge, who lived in a castle in Salzburg. Mary had been with this family since the age of 12, eventually working up to the position of cook. Although herself of the poor class, in their company, she had learned High German and had even traveled with them on vacations to Switzerland and other parts of Europe." (Source: "A Kraemer Chronicle," by Claire Geesaman, 1992). Mary Soeldner was married to Joseph Frank of Plain and had 10 children, one of whom was Gisela Frank (married in 1912 to Edward Kraemer). Mary Soeldner Frank died at age 81 in 1941. In 1950, Edward and Gisela Kraemer took a Holy Year Pilgrimage to Germany. Edward and Gisela visited Irlach, Bavaria, the hometown of Edward's father Peter and grandparents Paul and Walburga (Stangl) Kraemer. Paul and Walburga and their 3 children were 1866 emigrants to America (the youngest child was born on the ship) and moved to Franklin Township in 1867. Perhaps, in 1950, Edward and Gisela also visited Salzburg to see the castle where Gisela's mother worked. When in Salzburg, they may have visited the Basilica Maria Plain and purchased a brochure/pamphlet or remarked at the similarity of the name of the Basilica to their town, Plain. A suggestion to Re-Christen Plain In the September 23, 1915 story, "Wants Plain Re-Christened" the author "Onlooker" wrote, "Within a few weeks very strong efforts will be made at proper headquarters to have the name of Plain changed, as that name does not agree with the rushing strides our burg is making. First of all there is no meaning to the word Plain, as it is an adjective; we must have at least a noun and why not put a “ville’ or “city” to it. I for my part would suggest a name not yet found in Wisconsin, and in order to avoid unnecessary criticisms and hallucinations, I reserve three in petto*, promising at the same time that they all will be delighted at its beautiful sound and easy spelling." Who could have written this letter?
If the town was already known as "Plain," why was the author of this letter hoping to change the name, if it were really true that Plain was named after "Maria Plain" by Salzburg, Austria? Could the author of the letter have been suggesting that Plain be
re-christened as "Maria Plain"? That certainly is a "beautiful sound
and easy spelling" and is a "name not yet found in Wisconsin." But "Maria Plain" does not make one think of "rushing strides" as the author wrote. More likely, the author was simply wanting to rename Plain because it was a boring name. Rev. Pesch was born July 18, 1862 in Aachen (aka Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany, near the Belgium/Netherlands border. He studied in Belgium (at Malmedy and St. Trond) and was ordained at All-Hallows Missionary college in Dublin, Ireland. From Dublin he emigrated to America in the fall of 1885. It's not known whether or not Rev. Pesch heard of the Basilica Maria Plain in Bergheim bei Salzburg, Austria.
Before WWII, Plain residents took trips to Europe In the 1920s and 1930s, several Plain residents took trips by sea to Germany, to visit their homeland. Perhaps during these trips, they also took a pilgrimage to Maria Plain, and upon returning to Plain, exclaimed in wonder at the similarities of the names. School student in Plain was told about Maria Plain A second-hand report from 2004 of a Franklin Township resident (born in 1930) was that she recalled that the nuns at St. Luke's said Plain was named for Maria Plain. This person graduated from St. Luke's 8th grade in 1944 and high school in 1948. Whether she heard this story while attending school, or years later is not known. She may have heard this story from any of her 10 younger siblings, or even her children's teachers. Unfortunately, more cannot be asked about this story because the former student has passed away. School teacher in Plain did not believe the Plain/Maria Plain connection She taught from the 1950s to about the 1970s at St. Luke's Catholic School in Plain. Sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, she told my family that the stories going around Plain were not true - that Plain was not named after the Basilica Maria Plain. Unfortunately, the school teacher has since passed away. Edward Kraemer published a pamphlet about the Basilica Maria Plain in Austria after 1951 The details of this can be found on this page Two miraculous paintings Perhaps people were confused with the miraculous story of the Mother God of Ast picture which the Hetzel family gave to St. Anne's Shrine in Plain in 1929; and with the miraculous painting at the basilica in Maria Plain in Austria. Perhaps this confusion
caused some residents of Plain to wonder if their town was named after
Maria Plain in Austria. Village of Plain website The Village of Plain website doesn't speculate on the naming of Plain: Writings taken from "A History of Plain, Wisconsin" by Hildegarde Thering:
Is Plain, Wisconsin, a sister city of Bergheim, Austria? Has
Plain, Wisconsin, been officially declared a "sister city" of Bergheim
bei Salzburg in Austria, and is there a sign located in the city?
Bergheim is the town where the Basilica Maria Plain, is located. Does
Plain, Wisconsin, have a "sister city" sign for Bergheim bei Salzburg? Having visited in both villages, I have not seen such a sign. Meanings of "Plain" Plain could mean grasslands (plains), even though the Plain, Wisconsin, area is hilly. Plain can also mean “simple.” My thoughts If Plain, Wisconsin, was named for the Basilica Maria Plain in Austria, then why wasn't it named "Maria Plain"? Why choose the ordinary name of "Plain"? In Austria, Maria Plain is not the name of the village, it is the name of a Basilica (a pilgrim church outside Salzburg). Going with the theory that Plain, Wisconsin, was named after Basilica Maria Plain in Austria, it seems odd to me that a town would be named after a church, but used only part of the church name. Perusing the list of current Wisconsin cities here, I see three towns that have Saint names (St. Francis, St. Joseph, St. Nazianz). There is no St. Mary or St. Maria. In the 1863 Wisconsin Blue Book (online here), there is St. Mary's and St. Rose. Plain could have been named "St. Maria" or "Maria" after Maria Plain. But why wasn't it? Why was "Plain" chosen? The list of current cities show there are a lot of Native American, French, and English-sounding town names. Several town names in Wisconsin are made up of two words, such as these from the 1863 Blue Book: Lone Star, Little Wolf, Lake Maria, Garden Valley, Pheasant Branch, Pigeon Grove, Pilot Knob, Pine Bluff, Roaring Creek; and these from the current Wisconsin cities list: Port Edwards, Rivers Falls, Round Lake, Grand Chute, and Wild Rose. Why wasn't Plain, Wisconsin, named using both words, "Maria Plain"? Reverend Maximillan Gaertner (of Innsbruck, Austria) was traveling from parish to parish from 1846 to 1858, establishing missions in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. He was very well regarded by the people he met on his travels. From September 21, 1857 to 1858, Rev. Max served as a mission priest for the Catholics at Plain. If he had any influence in the naming of the village, I would think Rev. Gaertner would have suggested naming the town after the Basilica of his homeland - Stift Wilten (a suburb of Innsbruck) in Tyrol, Austria. In December 1859, Rev. Weinhardt first recommended to the parish at Plain (the parish then consisted of 16 families) that a church be built. Rev. Weinhardt commented in a letter to Rev. Simonik that the people of the parish were too poor to build a church. Discussions about building a church continued until 1861. John Weishan gave $30 toward the new church. Nowhere in the letter does the Reverend mention Maria Plain in Austria. If the name "Maria Plain" was so beloved and revered by the residents in "Plain," when the church of St. Luke's was named by Bishop Henni of Milwaukee in 1861, why did he not suggest they also name the church after Maria Plain? Or in 1928 when St. Anne's Shrine was built, why was it not named Maria Plain Shrine? Instead of naming these churches Maria Plain, both the church and shrine were named after the Saint of the day: Oct. 18 (Feast of St. Luke) and July 26 (Feast of St. Anne). Taking this further, if the village of Plain was named for Maria Plain, why wasn't the church built on the top of the tallest hill in Plain, to simulate the Maria Plain church in Austria which is located on the top of a hill? I have visited Maria Plain two times. On both visits, I did not feel like the countryside resembled the rolling hills of Plain, Wisconsin. From the top of the hill in Bergheim, standing right in front of the Basilica Maria Plain, I could see tall alpine mountains looming over the city of Salzburg. To me, this view was not comparable to standing on the top of the hill at St. Anne's Shrine and looking down over the village of Plain. Naturally, while in Bergheim, I took pictures of every "Maria Plain" sign I saw. Two small streets were named Plainbergweg and Plainwaldweg. A restaurant at the bottom of the hill was named Plainlinde. Now wait a minute - even the Austrians took the "Maria" off their Plain! Could my thinking be all wrong? :) My theory as to how the Maria Plain rumor began: In 1950, Edward Kraemer and his wife visited the pilgrim church Maria Plain in Austria while on a pilgrimage in Europe. Ed bought a brochure at the gift shop. He got the idea (maybe from a passing comment by a priest) that it would be nice (or more religious) to associate the village of Plain with the Basilica in Austria. The names "Maria Plain" and "Plain" are similar. It may have reminded Ed of home when he saw the Maria Plain sign as they climbed the hill to the top. Both Plain and Bergheim have a hill. What a cute idea to suggest that the two places had something in common. Edward Kraemer re-copied the photos on the Maria Plain pamphlet, then had the German text translated to English. Or perhaps the gift shop sold an English version with poor photocopies of the front cover. In any case, Ed added his name as publisher of the English version but forgot to remove the German publisher's name from the front cover. Copies were made and handed out to Plain residents. The rumor escalated as more and more people began to believe the story. Perhaps some Plain residents still have a copy of this pamphlet in their attic and could look to see if someone had penciled in a date when they received their copy so I can narrow down the date when the Kraemer pamphlet was printed. I'm guessing it was in the mid-1950s. Today, the Kraemer Library in Plain has three copies of the pamphlet. In December 2011, I became aware of a transcript of a taped interview of Edward Kraemer. The transcript by Robert Gard was finished in 1990 though the interview took place well before Ed died in 1973. Robert Gard used Ed Kraemer's statements in his book, "The Romance of Wisconsin Place Names" dated 1968. I have not read the transcript, but I am told that in the interview, Ed tells his version of the story of the naming of Plain. The tape is garbled and the transcriber could not clearly hear the name Maria Plain; which may be why it was written as "Maria Von Plain" in Gard's book. The interview was somewhat mixed up and unclear, which may be due to Ed's stroke which happened some time before the interview. In the interview, Ed claimed that a priest from a neighboring town (maybe Roxbury or Sauk City) had visited Salzburg and had seen the Maria Plain church. This priest suggested the naming of Plain because the area around Plain reminded him of the area around the church because of the rolling hills. Ed (born in 1889) was 14 years old in 1904 when the 3rd new St. Luke's church was built. Before 1904, there were many many priests that passed through the Plain area (priests such as Gaertner, Spitzlberger, Beau, Heller, Duren, Droste zu Huelshoff, Frydrychowicz, Voissen, Heiss, Bernhardt, Sieghardt, Moppey, Boehm, Flammang, Metzler, Buss, Koenig, Laurer, Pesch, Surges, Monarski, Peters, Strickner, Port, Simeon, Sturm, Schwebach, Schaller, Muehlenkamp, Bertele). Plain was known as Plain as many as 26 years before Ed was born. Ed would not have heard first-hand from the priest who suggested naming Plain. I can believe that any number of priests who visited or served at Plain had commented on Maria Plain and the similarity in names and the landscape. I can believe that a priest may have exclaimed to Ed, "There is a church on a hill in Austria named Maria Plain! Your village is also named Plain, and it has a hill! I think your village was named after it! You've got to see it someday!" Ed had ties to Salzburg, through his wife's mother who once worked there, so it is highly likely he had heard of Maria Plain from his mother-in-law. See further above for more about Mary Soeldner. In the mid-1950s and 1960s, Ed told his story to many people. Some believed it, but some did not believe it. If Ed Kraemer's story about Maria Plain is true, the story would have been told and written about many years before the mid-1950s to 1960s. My research was not done to find out how Plain got its name. It was to find out "if" Plain got its name from Maria Plain in Austria. So far, my research has shown that there is no "proof" that Plain was named after Maria Plain, other than a claim by Ed Kraemer. Going with the facts, 1863 is the first printed evidence that I could find that showed the name "Plain" in Wisconsin. This was the 1863 Wisconsin Blue Book as mentioned on Part 1 of this study. I have to wonder, why, in the next 100 years, did no one refer to "Maria Plain" in Austria as the inspiration for naming Plain, Wisconsin? I have scoured books and newspapers and have found no reference to Plain being named for Maria Plain until Edward Kraemer copied a pamphlet and suggested his theory to the town folk at Plain. I really believe that Plain was named by the early settlers named Cramer. This Cramer family settled in Plain around 1848. I'm more inclined to believe that John Cramer, the "father of the village" suggested the name Plain, in honor of a town he once knew in Ohio. More about the Cramer family and similarities of their Ohio surroundings to their Wisconsin surroundings can be found in Part 4 of this study. Read all parts of my research and let me know what you think. Comments from readers Thanks for the interesting research! I can't shed any light, but it seems fairly odd and extremely unlikely (were this story actually true) that it would be over 100 years from the first use of "Plain" before anyone mentioned it was named for Maria Plain. Sounds more like somebody wanted to fancy it up well after the fact, because the truth wasn't exciting or interesting enough. Your work on this question is wonderful. Very thorough and impressive. I admire your scientific, skeptic approach . . . It is an interesting issue and you certainly have done a lot of impressive digging. . .
Conclusion This
concludes my study of whether or not Plain, Wisconsin, was named for
the Austrian Basilica called Maria Plain. I have not yet seen official
documents that connect Maria Plain in Austria with Plain, Wisconsin. More
information will be added as it becomes available. Please feel free to
contact me with your thoughts on the subject. My email address is
listed on the home page. Or you may contact me at RootsWeb Message Board where I posted a query here.
Back to Part 4 Back to the beginning History of the Naming of Plain:
Page created June 1, 2008. Plain pages edited December 3, 2011. Author: Debbie Blau Contact |
