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| Format | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Author, Analytic | Trenckmann, William A. |
| Title, Analytic | Christmas in Troubled Times |
| Journal Title | The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society) |
| Date of Publication | Winter 2008 |
| Volume ID | 30 |
| Issue ID | 4 |
| Location in Work | 310-315 |
| ISSN | 0730-3106 |
| Abstract | From the translator's preface: "William Andreas Trenckmann was a settled man of 34, married and father of three, when he wrote this memoir of a Texas-German Christmas. Two years earlier, in 1891, and with only two paid subscriptions in hand, he had started Das Bellville Wochenblatt, a weekly newspaper published in Bellville, Texas and intended for the neighboring Texas-German communities in which English was still a second language. . . . The setting [of this memoir] is the community of Millheim on Mill Creek in Austin county, where a number of Germans had settled in the 1840s and '50s in reaction to their political and economic frustrations in Germany. . . . As the Civil War drew closer and finally broke out, these struggling, high-principled Texas-Germans were confronted with political and moral dilemmas beyond their comprehension and seemingly without solution: though opposed to slavery, would they still not have to accept that Texas--one of only three of the eleven states of the Confederacy to have a referendum on the matter--by majority vote had chosen to secede from the Union? Or should they put personal principle and conviction above community decision when an immoral cause was pursued? The Christmas memoir tells us what they did in actual practice. Friends and neighbors were divided; there were splits within families; some who remained loyal to their personal convictions fled to Mexico, while others felt equally obligated to serve in the Confederate Army." |
| Notes | Translated by Anders Saustrup. Originally printed in Round Top, Texas by the Friends of Winedale, 1976. Reprinted with permission of Mrs. Charles (Helen) Trenckmann of Austin. Original article appeared in German in the Wochenblatt Kalender fuer 1894/Beilage zu No. 11 des Bellville Wochenblatt/Jahrgang 3 (December 1893), pp. 8-13. |
| Call Number | MKI Periodicals |
| MKI Terms | German Americans -- Texas/ Newspapers, German-American/ Christmas/ Civil War, 1861-1865 -- German Americans/ 19th century |