by Katharine Trauger

My harvest germinated in Europe.

Specifically, this harvest began in Germany.

My best harvest often, but not always, germinated in Europe and found itself transplanted, here.

It’s a harvest of the planting of seeds of hope and courage.

Many motives lay behind the growers of hope and courage who left Germany decades ago. It was a widespread if daunting and dangerous practice.  

So, a fledgling couple boarded a ship bound for the New World. Were they terrified as they departed? More terrified once they disembarked? No doubt they were. Simple farming folk, who’d found farming in Europe to be a mode of slow starvation, parted with everything to start over, elsewhere, to take up farming again, here.

Consider their faces. Frederick and Wilhelmina look stern, matter-of-factual. And do they look a bit smug? I think it. I imagine their faces say, “We made it. We can afford clothing and a photograph, a house with windows and good sturdy shingles on the roof. Coats. Shoes. Things we never had before. We did it.”

Did they send the photo back to Germany? I think it.

That was their harvest from seeds of hope, courage and brutal hard work. That, and an abundant harvest of children.

Here is one of them, Laura, and her initial harvest, with her happy determination to increase even more all that was handed her. His name is Otto Jacob. His dad’s name was Jacob Otto, and before him, the name was reversed again. You could call that “branding the harvest” if you wanted.

Otto was a farmer, a vigneron, if you will, who also sold grapes by the peck, and played accordion with a band on Friday nights, in town. In many ways, those were his harvest, but he and Laura also raised six children.

This is Laura with the kids, standing in age order. Otto died after surgery when the youngest was only six years old. How Laura continued after that horrible blow, I can partly guess, because, during our Great Depression, our ancestors collected many tales of bare subsistence. Partly, she sold the farm. Partly, Laura made money selling strawberries, the entirety of her back yard devoted to growing, weeding, mulching, and harvesting them. Partly, she did all the flour-sack, make-do things we’ve all heard about. Partly, the children worked outside the home, for income that they gave to Laura. In age-order, these kids became: blacksmith, manufacturer, wife of a butcher, wife of a car dealer, school superintendent, and wife of a manufacturer. This was her harvest. You can see the grim pride in her face. She struck out, made good, and even made an increase with all the seeds of hope and courage others had forwarded to her.

Laura’s youngest, named Lucile, has imparted to me sagas of owning only three dresses: for Sunday, for choring, and for all the rest of the time. She has shared tales of how worn clothing became cleaning rags and rag rugs, and even a method for curling hair. Employed for a while in an office in Kansas City, she met Ted, a dashing military man who’d seen action in Korea, and she felt he was her destiny. Here they are, overflowing with happy dreams of what they might harvest from this life. They overcame job loss, re-branding themselves as small shop-owners, and much more.

And here we are, their harvest, myself as eldest, and my siblings, who’ve become: educator/writer/speaker, telecommunications expert, wife of a physician, IT specialist, and dental hygienist. Together, we have fourteen children (five are mine) and 16 grandchildren.

I’ve tried to count how many hard-working, clean-living people sprang from the seeds of courage and hope that Fred and Willie brought over from Germany, but I cannot. I am related to countless cousins and have lost touch with too many.

But I know it is a harvest of hundreds.

And I am glad for all who planted.

Katharine Trauger is a retired educator and a women’s counselor. She has spent 25 years managing a home and school for children who would otherwise have been homeless, and has worked 15 years as contributor and/or columnist for several small professional magazines, with over 60 published articles. She blogs about the rising popularity of “being at home” from a sun room on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South at: Home’s Cool! and The Conquering Mom and tweets at Katharine Trauger (@KathaTrau). She is currently working on a self-help book entitled: Yes, It Hurts, But . . .
Retired educator. Women’s counselor. Managed (25 years) a home and school for children who would otherwise be homeless. Contributor and/or columnist (15 years) several small professional magazines (60+ articles). Blogs from a sunroom on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South.