Germany

EVERYDAY LIFE IN GERMANY

All Under One Roof in Germany: 

In the time of our German ancestors, animals and people lived under one roof. This was especially common in the years previous to the beginning of the 20th century, all across Germany but especially in the northern sections of what is today the states of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony); Schleswig Holstein, Nordrhein - Westfalen (Westphalia) and Hessen.

This is what the typical farmer's life was like. Keep in mind as you read this that nearly everyone in the days previous to the early years of the 1900s were classified as "farmers" as we would think of the term. Few people were businessmen or landowners. Most of our ancestors who came to America to start a new life left this kind of life behind:

In the villages and across the countryside stood these large barn-like structures which served many purposes.  Usually, the farmer entered through the front of this long structure with his horses and cattle, through a large door that usually had a smaller door cut into it, so that in cooler weather, he could keep the large double doors closed and family members could just use the smaller cut out door to come and go.

Animals were kept in the large front part of the barn and there was no separation between animals and the family members. Separation between livestock and people only came in the very late 1800s or the early 1900s. In the former times, the cattle, horses, pigs, chickens and whatever else the farmer used to support his family slept in the same space as the family members who tended them and depended on them for their food and support..

Here's what a typical farmhouse and barn were like:

The farmer comes through the large double doors of the barn leading his team of oxen. Only the rich could afford draft horses to pull their plow. Thick smoke billows out of the doors as he enters from a hard day spent in the fields. Is the house on fire? No, it's just the open fire that is kept burning day and night in the center of the living quarters at the back of the house.  This large open fire sends smoke throughout the house. Smoke is a good thing. It cleanses the air of bacteria. It also dries the crops, which are stored in the loft high in the rafters of the house. The smoke cures meat, hanging from hooks above the living area. The smoke drives away insects. But the smoke also causes health problems and a sort of "black lung" disease that kills people long before the end of their normal lifespan. That's why in the 1800s and before, people normally slept sitting up. This helped to keep their lungs clear of the soot and grime that accumulates there during the day. We've all seen the little beds that people slept in during those days, and the usual explanation is that "people were smaller in those days." That's not true. The beds are shorter because if you are sleeping sitting up, you only need slightly more than half the length of bed that you'd need if you were laying flat on your back.

In all seasons, winter or summer, the fire was kept burning to cure the meats and to dry the crops and for bug control. There was no chimney, nor was there any kind of "hood" over the flames. Imagine the house from the exterior, smoke billowing out every open window and door. Imagine the problems that this created with barns that had grass roofs, a common feature throughout Germany up into the 1900s. Families hoped for a cool, damp day. That's because during these days, the smoke and sparks were usually minimized.

The family used their dog not as a pet, but as a source of power. Dog-driven grinding mills for corn or wheat can still be seen in many of these old barns today.

In the stalls along the sides of the barn, the cattle were kept lined up lengthwise, to follow the walls of the barn. This kept the cattle smaller than we are accustomed to seeing, because the slope of the roofline would prevent them from growing larger.

In places such as the open air museum at Cloppenburg, Niedersachsen; where these photographs were made, one can see the old way of life represented accurately through exhibits that show what life was like before the dawn of the 20th century. There are similar museums in many of the other regions of Germany. They are usually called by the name "Freilichtmuseum."

Burial

Death has always been very much part of life.  Back a century ago bad diet, poor hygiene and very limited medical attention didn't help to prolong life.  Back then diseases — scarlet fever, whooping cough, influenza and such — took the lives of children.  Hard work and childbearing took wives and mothers.  Cemeteries will often show a man with two or three wives flanking him.  With farms to run, crops to plant and kids to feed/raise, grieving time was short for men.  Of course, burial customs have always depended somewhat on one's income and ethnic background.  Queen Victoria made mourning a decade long affair for her Albert.  Though there were funeral homes in the [large] cities, mostly all arrangements were carried out by the immediate family.  Due to the lack of embalming, one can imagine that those arrangements weren't put off very long.

The first arrangement was for the deceased to be carefully washed.  They did have "deodorizing washes", but there was good reason to surround the deceased with lots of fragrant flowers.  If there were no flowers in bloom, evergreen branches were used.  If the eyes were open at death, coins were used to weigh them shut.  They were usually silver coins because copper would discolor the skin.  Superstitions have always had a part in our customs. Closing the eyes was important because it was believed that the "dearly departed" could see and if you were recognized, you could be "taken" with the corpse.

Corpses were not buried with shoes.  This could be just practical recycling, however, in some cultures is was considered bad luck. Men were usually buried in dark suits.  Children were buried in white to signify their purity and innocence.  Young women wore a white burial dress, middle aged women were often in gray, while  older women were dressed in color.  Orchid, light lavender were often used.  Black was reserved for those who died in childbirth.

Usually women prepared the body, while the men made the coffins.  Pre-made coffins were not at all popular, so it was a task that waited for someone to need one.  They were usually wide at one end and narrower at the other end.  In the south, coffins often had an opening covered with mesh so that the mourners could see the deceased without the flies crawling over the body.  A wooden plate was screwed down covering the opening before burial.  Cotton was often used to pad and line the coffins.  This was covered with cloth.  Grandma Oliver once said that older quilts were sometimes used to pad a coffin.  If there was a newspaper, families would place a death notice in them. Otherwise it was a practice to put notices on fences or posts.

While the casket was being made and the body was being placed in it, the women would prepare the house.  There was the draping the front door in black cloth.  There also was the covering of all mirrors and photographs of the deceased with black cloth or veils. [The thought behind this was to prevent the deceased from seeing themselves.] All clocks were stopped.  The filled coffins were placed on saw horses with the foot of the coffin toward the entrance of the house.  If candles were lit they were to light the way to heaven for the deceased.  Often a [last] picture was taken of the deceased for the family to have as a "keepsake".  This type of "keepsake" was probably a technological advancement from the custom of making "death masks" of the deceased's face.

Kin and close friends would arrive by horse and buggy, the women to fix and prepare food, and the men to dig and later fill in the grave.  In those days, when neighbors helped neighbors, doing these necessary tasks was seen as a sign of respect for the deceased and the family.  No matter the wealth or status of the deceased, the food at the "wake" was much the same.  It was usually simple, cheese and crackers, and gallons of coffee.  Some families would also serve sausage with the crackers.  Any hard liquor, though not served at a wake, was often brought by the men and shared outside on the porch or lawn.  As in most family gatherings, the women usually congregated in the viewing room or kitchen, while the men, after paying their short respects would gather out on the porch and side yards.  Funerals always brought some expenses.  Thus, it was custom to place a bowl or basket by the coffin and folks were expected to put in a coin or two to defray those costs.

When it was time, the casket lid would be screwed down and  the casket would be placed in a wagon.  Caskets were carried and loaded onto wagons feet first.  They were transported to graveyards, for the term cemetery was unknown.  In rural areas, the deceased could be buried in a family graveyard on the property or in a community/church cemetery.  Whether the pallbearers carried the casket to the family graveyard or to the church cemetery the mourners walked behind the casket.  Only in the cities were wagons, called hearses, rented to transport the casket to its final resting place.  There they usually put a sign on the side of the wagon with the name, age, date of death and place of interment.  In cities hearses were pulled by black horses, unless it was a youth, then the horses were white.  City  burials were usually some distance from where the funeral ceremony was held.  Thus, caravans replaced the walkers to the gravesite.  After the hearse, the procession next held the religious personages, followed by immediate family, then parents, grandparents, etc, with other mourners following in the order of degree of kinship.  The horses pulling the hearse were trained to pull one step at a time.  In New Orleans style funerals, this was usually to the sound of music.

Following funerals, it was the duty of the man to get on with the daily life, so there were very short periods of time for mourning for men.  For women there was a much more rigid time line for mourning.  First there was the first year and one day of "deep" mourning, then nine months of "second" mourning, followed by three months of "ordinary" mourning. All this was culminated with an additional six months of "half" mourning.  During the "deep" mourning period a black veil reaching to the mid-calf was worn in public.  This was called a "widow's mantle" or "weeping veil".  During the "second" period the veil disappeared and a "bit" of white trim could be added to the black dress.  When "half" mourning was reached colors such as lavender, gray, lilac, or white could be worn.  Usually, if black was continued the woman was signaling that she would not marry again.

The Recycling of Graves in Germany: 

Genealogists who plan research trips around visitation of cemeteries may find this is a hard pill to swallow - but the fact of the matter is, in Germany and in many other central European countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Austria, space is too tight to allow the constant expansion of cemeteries. With 83 million people living above ground in Germany, there isn't much room leftover for new burial plots. The outlines and dimensions of a cemetery are usually constant, kept the same as they have been for hundreds of years. Sometimes the cemetery surrounds the church. In this case, right across the wall from the cemetery there could be homes, businesses and streets. There just isn't any room for expansion. Even when the cemetery is located on the edge of the town it's oftentimes competing with homes, apartment buildings and industrial parks for space. So what the Germans and many of the other Europeans do, is after a period of about 15-20 years, if the family no longer pays for the upkeep and ``rental" of the burial plot, the remains of the person buried there are removed, the headstone is taken away, and a new person is buried in that spot. The removal of remains is made a little easier by the fact that unlike here in the USA, people are not buried in thick, concrete vaults, along with a coffin. In Germany, after 15 or 20 years, the leftovers from a person's mortal life could probably fit inside of a shoebox.   In some towns, these remains are placed into a common grave, which is marked but not catalogued. So in other words, if a genealogist has fantasies about going to Germany and finding dead relatives in the cemetery from the 1800s or even the early 1900s, those dreams need to be held in check against the possibility that the grave may no longer exist.  Headstones are not always kept around. In my travels, I have seen them used as foundations, steps, pieces of roads, and discarded on a pile of rubbish. This is not a reflection of the lack of sentimentality of the Germans, it's just a fact of life as it continues.  Typically, when a person passes on, the daughter or the son of the deceased will take on the responsibility of caring for the plot. These graves are maintained with extreme care and thoughtfulness, with fresh flowers grown right on the grave, a weekly visit to make sure the flowers and other plants are tended, and in some cases, a candle that is lit on the grave for the celebration of the person's birthday. In all cases, German cemeteries resemble parks or flower gardens more than they resemble a final resting place. They are, to put it quite simply, beautiful places to walk through.  When that son or daughter gets to be in their middle or late 50s, the desire to continue tending the grave of their parents dwindles, as they start thinking about their own final resting place. This is the time when usually, that grave is given up for someone else. That someone may or may not be a family member.  In some cases, a grave will have a stone that reads simply ``Familie Meyer." This grave will oftentimes contain the remains of generations of family members, with only the living relatives knowing exactly who is buried there.

LINKS:

See this site for our collection of links on Germany:  https://sites.google.com/site/faqcuyahogactyresearch/home/helpful-websites?authuser=0

Germans in Cleveland:  https://sites.google.com/site/clevelandanditsneighborhoods/home/ethnic-groups-in-cleveland/germans?authuser=0

See the Germany section in my Books list:  https://sites.google.com/site/faqcuyahogactyresearch/home/books-about-cleveland?authuser=0