[78-L] speaking english,

[Bill McClung]

And central Texas also has a large German population.  Fredericksburg, TX
public schools used German as it's primary language into the 1940s.  Go west
from here and you get to Bergheim and Boerne and go east and you get to New
Braunfels.   Many San Antonio streets have German names and many central
Texas towns have Octoberfest every year.  Galveston was a major port of
entry for European immigrants until the 1900 hurricane.  Not everyone here
is named Bubba.

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:23 PM, Steven C. Barr <stevenc at interlinks.net>wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------
> From: <fnarf at comcast.net>
> > When I was doing extensive newspaper research in places like Minnesota
> and
> > Iowa, I found that the Midwest states up until about WWI, and in some
> > cases WWII, had dozens upon dozens of German-language newspapers for the
> > many first-generation immigrants who, like all first-generation
> > immigrants, struggled with English, or never tried. The second gen speaks
> > both; the third gen only English. This has always been true.
> >
> In fact, Bloomington, Illinois (where I lived for several years while
> finishing university) had
> a German-language newspaper prior to WWI...and many of the small towns in
> its vicinity
> were heavily German-speaking! When the midwest was settled in the 1850's,
> many Germans
> (who had left Germany for political reasons in most cases) were immigrating
> to the US, if
> only because of the ready availibility of farmland. Also, the use of German
> stopped in most
> cases after the US entered WW I; there was widespread anti-German feeling
> at
> that time...!
>
> My first wife's parents had both been adopted into German-descent families;
> her surname
> was Glaser. My mother-in-law had relatives who lived in Chicago, whom we
> visited; they
> used the surname "Franklin," since their surname had been "Frankenstein"
> (hadly a name
> people would wish to use?!).
>
> Also, the in-laws belonged to (but rarely attended) a church in a nearby
> village, which
> had German inscriptions in its stained-glass windows...!
>
> Steven C. Barr
>
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