German City

[flea]

At the library, in a staff of perhaps 150, there are women named Irma, Erma, Ingeborg, and Elna.

Cincinnati is a German city!

(I have only met Erma, and she is probably in her 40s; no idea on other ages but as they are all fairly senior positions, probably also on the older end. I got emails from Erma, Irma, and Ingeborg all in one day, and then had to go looking through the staff list for others. In related but not close enough to lead with news, there are also a Lorna and an Edith.)

Oh, and actual baby born: Margaux Joelee, to Sarah and Jody (m.).

Comments

[loligo]

I grew up in a region with heavy Dutch influence, full of big blond people with the bone structure of draft horses (I am half-Dutch myself, but I got my mom's scrawny bones). Hardly anyone kept the Dutch first names going, though the V section of the phone book was enormous. We were in a store a couple days ago, and Andy nudged me and whispered, "Suddenly feeling nostalgic?" I looked up and saw that all five of the cashiers were blond -- light, natural blond. And I realized how rarely you see that outside of Western Michigan! (And it's probably much more rare there than it used to be, as the area becomes more diverse.)

[flea]

The interesting thing is that actual immigration from Germany probably largely ceased by 1915. But it's still soooo German. When I moved here the first time, in 1995, I was stunned at how few brunettes you'd see, just at the mall or something, and how many blondes (compared to New England, with its Italians and Irish).

[sara]

Cincinnati, ancestral homeland of my great-great-grandmother Frankenstein!

(Pronounced Fronk-en-schtein, thankyouverymuch.)

In other words, yes, yes, very German. Well, Alsatian, in our case. I may try to hit you up some day to go on a field trip and see if my great-grandparents' house is still there.

Oh, and this'll amuse you: the primary survival of our Cincinnati Germanness is a tendency to refer to infant males as "Fritzl." To such a degree that some friends were convinced that my son's name actually was Fritzl.

[flea]

I'd love to seek your ancestral mansion, though I should warn you that there are large swaths of Cincinnati that were once lovely, and are still full of enormous turn of the century houses, but are now in great distress and the houses are very sad. We drive through Avondale, north of the Zoo, which was once a wealthy Jewish neighborhood, as a shortcut to work, and the sad houses make me depressed.

[sara]

I will try to remember to ask Mom for the address tomorrow. I don't think it was all that enormous of a house, though it was a five or six-adult household at various points (both ggparents had unmarried sisters and mothers, and they all cohabitated. It was apparently a very very girly environment when Nana was growing up. By which I mean a total matriarchy.)

[forodwaith]

Hee. In my library: Irmy, Edith, and two Brunos.