Stories

This section is dedicated to people who have offered their stories of their experience as a German immigrant to West Michigan, or their family's experience.

"My father was born in Korbach,Germany. As a Holocaust refugee,he moved to GR in the fifties. His favorite restaurant in town was the Schnitzelbank,a favorite among many local German-Americans. He told me once that a local German-American group held meetings at the restaurant. My mother worked at Wurzburg's,owned by German immigrants and once the largest and most upscale department store in GR. Both of my parents were members of Temple Emanuel."

Jeff Lebensbaum

"My German ancestors came to the US in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries I may have a Hessian soldier in the line (unconfirmed) but I know that my Dad's family came over in the 1850s to Pittsburgh from Hesse. My Mom was the daughter of a German-Swiss father and a German mother from Baden, who came to the US in 1884 and 1902, respectively.

Growing up in GR as a German-American was strange, because we did not belong to a German-identified church (both parents were baptized and confirmed Lutherans, but my dad was an organist in a Congregational church) or live in an ethnic neighborhood. When I was a kid in the 1960s, GR still had identifiable Dutch, Polish, Lithuanian, African-American and Latino neighborhoods, and these groups clearly had an identity as hyphenated-Americans. Growing up in the North End, this was pretty much lacking. There was a lot of pride in the ethnic group, a pride knitted by church identities (the Christian Reformed and Reformed neighborhood churches and Catholic parishes like St. Adalberts and Sacred Heart for the Polish-Americans or Sts. Peter and Paul for the Lithuanians.) The history of the Catholic Church in GR is a story of conflict between Irish and Germans, and the Marienkirche is a great example of a German parish. But I don't recall that the church had a particularly German cast, at least compared to the many Irish and Polish clergy locally... Other Lutheran churches in GR had a strong Scandinavian ethnic component.

If my parents had grown up in GR, we might have done more German-American things, but probably not. My Mom, whose older siblings experienced some anti-German prejudice when they were small kids, always emphasized how "American" her upbringing was. She told a story of how her father refused to give money when a pro-German group tried to get contributions for German war relief (this was before the entry of the US into WW I). "We are Americans!" He supposedly told a representative (though it could have been "Wir sind Amerikaner!" I have no idea.) There may be microfilms of German papers collected at the Public Library. Most Midwestern cities had at least one German language paper.

I don't know if this stream of anecdotes is of any use, but I remember being very disappointed that we did not have a more "ethnic" identity. This is probably not atypical for second generation Americans, who are so eager to blend that they will discount Old Country differences. My grandmother (who I never called "Oma") spoke English with a very strong German accent and as far as I know she and my grandfather continued to speak German between themselves for their lives together. My Mom's church in central Ohio was German speaking until the First World War and did not end German services until just before the Second. AFAIK, my mother was baptized in German. Her brothers and sisters all were given German names, which of course became Anglicized over time."

David Burhenn