Home for Holy Week

I am at home for a few days for Easter. This is the first time I've been home for Easter with my family for many, many years. At Ball State, we had no time off for Easter (indeed, many of our studio deadlines seemed to fall on Good Friday) so my family would come down to Muncie for the weekend.

Yesterday, I arrived home and spent much of the afternoon napping. Last night after dinner, I went with my parents for a drive out to the lake. It was the first time in a few years that I'd been to Grand Haven. We parked and walked along the riverfront out to the pier. It was sunny and mild, but as we reached the lake, it got windier and colder. There was still a lot of ice on the pier and on the beach side of the pier. The wind blowing across the ice made it pretty chilly. Still, it was nice to walk around and enjoy the sunlight and the beautiful sunset. We met an old man on the pier who appeared to be a local photographer. He was eager to tell us how much ice has melted in the past week (and how it compares to last year at this time, and sundry other factoids). Later, we joked that that would be my dad in retirement because he likes to strike up random conversations with strangers. We drove back to Grand Rapids and got ice cream with my little sister from the ice cream stand where I used to work. It was in the 60s even that late in the evening.

Grand Haven beach

Along the pier

"crazy people"

The snow fences are still up

Sunset

Pier

Today the rain was torrential. I went to the bank and paid off a loan I had taken to go to Paris. It was a nice feeling to have that taken care of. The teller was surprised when I asked for my balance to pay in its entirety. She said, "Like, the whole thing? We don't get too many people wanting to pay off the whole thing! Good for you!" I don't like the idea of being in debt. I read Independent People by Halldór Laxness last fall, and the plot centers on a character who has worked for eighteen years to be free of debt and has been overtaken with an extreme aversion to being indebted to anyone - even to the point of refusing charity. His quest for "independence" is exaggerated to point out its faults. But that was in rural Iceland in the early 20th Century. One was in debt to one's neighbors, not to vast banking conglomerates.

Christmas Greetings

If there is anyone out there who still reads this blog, I extend you joyful Christmas greetings and my best wishes for the new year! It's true, I've been rather neglectful of these pages the past weeks, or, as I now look at things, months. I must say, it's been weighing on me a bit lately. Whenever I get a moment or two of down time, I hear a little voice in the back of my mind pestering ever so quietly "write on your blog". I do love writing and sharing bits of my life through this medium, but it's the life, not the medium, that's been the tiring thing of late.

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I returned to God's own land of Michigan late on the evening of December 12th, before much of the wicked winter weather had descended upon the Upper Midwest with much ferocity. I must say, though, that I had begun to miss winter in Washington - a feeling which was exacerbated by the pitiable way in which the region dealt with a mere two inches of snowfall the week before I left. In any event, I am home safe with one semester at the Catholic University of America behind me.

I don't wish to really delve into academics too much (at the risk of boring you, kind reader), but, suffice to say it was a successful semester on both important fronts: the lesser being the grades and the greater being the personal intellectual growth sustained. I must say that I am pleased with my choice to move to Washington and to attend CUA. It has afforded me much in the way of new perspectives and experiences, and I feel as though I am making good connections personally and professionally. But, that's all rather detached-sounding, as if I am writing for a CUA prospectus or something. I'll have thaw my writing fingers a bit more before talking more in depth about people and ideas that have made impressions on me this semester.

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The weekend before Thanksgiving I made my first visit to New York City. I went with a friend who I know from Ball State who currently lives in Washington. We took the Megabus and stayed with a mutual friend who was in the city for the semester on a co-op internship program. We scurried about like good little tourists, attempting and mostly succeeding in seeing the major sites. I was sad that St. Patrick's was almost entirely coated in scaffolding both inside and out, but I was rewarded somewhat by happening upon a mass for the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. It was the first time I had ever seen the Knights in any formal occasion, and it left quite an impression. I think such groups are good for the Church and for civilization in general. I may be accused for being motivated by nostalgia or mere conservatism, but I think such groups can truly raise the mind to the chivalric virtues they strive toward. Modern culture is wimpy. The knights of anything are inherently vigorous.

New York is entirely unlivable. Washington is the upper limit of urbanity that I could possibly ever deal with on a day-to-day basis. There are too many people in New York. There's no breathing room. There's the incessant monotonous march of regular blocks. Urbanistically, Washington wins, hands down. However, as far as the arts are concerned, New York beats everyone else, hands down. But, that doesn't make the city more livable in my eyes, it just makes me happy that I live only a short four hours away at this point.

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I've missed Grand Rapids. I try not to cloud my mind unnecessarily with future plans, but one that I do fixate upon is that I would like to move back to Grand Rapids when the time comes. A professor whom I admire at Ball State would always admonish us, "Never give up on your hometown and never be ashamed of where you're from." This admonition, I think, stings the Hoosiers a bit more than it stung me, because it's very difficult for me to ever feel ashamed of West Michigan. I'm not going to gush on and on about how it's a "special place", but I will say there's a lot of raw material, so to speak, that makes it an interesting place to live.

People I meet in DC are utterly fascinated and bewildered by the Midwest. A classmate from New Jersey has never been further west than Penn State, and she was baffled when we had a lecture on Chicago, declaring "I never knew Lake Michigan was that big!" It's interesting being a stereotype. For many people I meet, Michigan is indistinguishable from anything else between Ohio and Colorado. This confronts my thinking in a harsh way, because there's a strong current of what you might call Michigander Exceptionalism in the Midwest. Michigan is different from everything around it. You can compare Indiana with Ohio and Illinois and be ok. Minnesota and Wisconsin are similar. But, Michigan is different.

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I've made a lot of progress on my genealogical research in the past few weeks. For a long time, I had no information on my paternal grandfather's ancestors. I just new my great-grandparents' names and that they were from eastern Austria. I have since been able to trace back from my great-grandparents back to the beginning of the 19th Century. They were all ethnic Germans who lived in what was then the western edge of the Kingdom of Hungary. Nowadays, the territory they hailed from is a part of Austria. 

An interesting thing I've discovered throughout my research is how heterogenous my family is. There are unexpected little blips of different ethnicities that just pop up sometimes, much to my surprise. For instance, I was researching my grandma's grandfather, whose name was Frank Ryan. I had always been told he was Irish. His father was in fact a half Irish, half English Canadian, but his mother was French Canadian, descended from a family who were among the first settlers of Detroit. I guess the point is that the further you go back, the murkier things become. I started out my research thinking I was Austrian, Slovak, Polish, French Canadian, and Irish. I'm actually Austrian, Hungarian, Slovak, Ruthenian, Polish, French Canadian, Belgian, Swiss, Irish, German, and English.

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Christmas was really nice this year. We had a lot of snow (about 14 inches) on the ground, and there were flurries throughout the day. We went to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral, which was beautiful as always. The chanting of Tollite Hostias and O Magnum Mysterium left a deep impression this year. This was the first time I have seen our new bishop of Grand Rapids. Not that it matters, but I like him. 

I got a hiking backpack, a winter coat, a little DVD player, and a nice messenger bag from my parents. It seemed a lot to me, but I won't complain about it. They will all be put to good use. I'm looking forward to doing more serious hiking in the future. Friends have a February camping trip in Virginia planned, so it will probably come in handy then. 

Friday we head up to the cottage for our extended New Years gathering. Many of the cousins will be up this year. Grandpa reported that the ice on the lake is about ten inches thick - unusually thick for this time of year. It will be good for hockey.

Champion Grandparents

The eighteen children of Francis Xavier and Delphine Pilon as photographed at their home in Bay City, Michigan in 1905. Mr. and Mrs. F.X. Pilon are my great-great-great-grandparents on my mother's side. Mr. Pilon's forbears hailed from Bayeux, Normandy, via a two-century stay in the Province of Quebec. Mrs. Pilon (nee Waters) was of mixed Belgian, French, Irish, and English ancestry, though she was born in Montreal. The couple moved to Michigan around the turn-of-the-century and lived in Bay City before eventually settling in River Rouge, a downriver suburb of Detroit.

An article in a Detroit paper in August 1936 lauded the pair as "Champion Grandparents". At press time, Mr. and Mrs. Pilon had 17 living children, 71 living grandchildren, and 54 living great-grandchildren. A mass in honor of their 60th wedding anniversary was attended by over 100 of their living descendants at the now-demolished but formerly grand church of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Delphine Pilon the younger, the third child of Francis Xavier and the elder Delphine, is my great-great-grandmother (pictured second row, second from left). She met and fell in love with Henry Hebert, scion of one of French Canada's most ancient families, whose roots go to the very foundations of the colony. She was widowed at a fairly young age, and she lived with her parents for the remainder of their lives.

Of Slovakia

I wrote a lengthy post the other day about some of my French Canadian and English Puritan ancestors and some of the intriguing portions of their lives. In fairness to my father's side of the family, I thought I'd post a little bit about my grandmother's Slovak roots. My grandmother's parents immigrated to these United States from the small village of Jakubany in eastern Slovakia (at that time a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The village itself is nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in a region historically contested among the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian forces.

Seems like a rather idyllic place to me. We have records of my grandmother's family living in this same village since the late 1600s. An interesting note is that they were all Greek Catholics - Christians whose liturgy reflects Eastern Orthodox traditions but who are in communion with the Pope. The only church in town (pictured above) is Sts. Peter and Paul Slovak Greek Catholic Church.

This is the interior of the church. Note the Eastern influences including the iconostasis (icon screen), and the rich iconography. My grandma's parents left Jakubany in 1913 and moved to Windber, Pennsylvania. My great-grandfather mined coal and my great-grandmother raised twelve children. When my great-grandfather died of the black lung, the family moved to Detroit, where some of the elder sons had already found jobs at Ford. When my grandma married my grandpa, she stopped attending Greek Catholic services in favor of his Roman Rite tradition.

Treasures from the past

Last Saturday was my sister's graduation party, which had the rather obvious effect of bringing together both family and friends from the far corners of the earth. My aunt and uncle, who are currently in the midst of a move from Indiana to Florida, discovered an old trunk of my grandpa's that they had forgotten about in their spare room. Since their new space in Florida will be rather more constrained, they were kind enough to leave it in our possession.

And what a treasure it is! It is chock full of memories from a time that my grandma never talks about and that my dad knows very little about. It's all quite fascinating. There are two albums full of old photos of my grandpa in his youth. One of them is an entire scrapbook of his tour of duty during the Korean War. The photo below shows my great-grandmother and her seven children. My grandpa is the one seated on the car.

Most intriguing to me were the objects of religious significance. There was a stack of funeral prayer cards about four inches thick. They were interesting because of the genealogical information many of them provided, and because of the religious artwork portrayed (since my grandma's family were Greek Catholic). There was even a prayer card for John F. Kennedy included in the collection.

I also discovered three prayer books. One was my grandpa's Sunday Missal from his youth (presumably from his First Communion). Another was a similar Missal from when my grandparents got married. The third, and most interesting find, was a prayer book from my grandma's First Communion, which was written in both English and Old Church Slavonic. It was enlightening to read through some of the liturgy and prayers of the Eastern Churches.

This trunk of things will be a treasure for the family for many years.

New Years

Euchre is my family's other religion. The card game, which seems peculiar to us Northerners, functions as an effective means for conversation and competition, while at the same time working as a stop-gap so that those two things don't spiral out of control too much. Too much competition coupled with too much conversation seems to be the subtext of each and every lukewarm reality-tv show spewed out of the mouth of Hollywood anyways. Clearly I digress.

Suffice to say that we take euchre seriously, especially when money is involved. What better way to kick off the new year than with a sixteen-person tournament of the game? Surely I can think of nothing better. The game (or games, rather) began round about six thirty on New Years Day, after the dishes had been finished and digestion inaugurated. All sixteen of us processed rather solemnly to grandma's kitchen table where we chose our scorecard, and by extension, the location and partnerships of all of our games. Card tables where swiftly set up in the front and back rooms so that four games could be accommodated all at once. Initial drinks were served - whiskey slush and variations of Kahlua-mixes (might as well be the national drink, as far as we're concerned). Sometime amidst the preliminary ballyhoo, the five-dollar entrance fee was assessed and the winner's pot decided (fifty dollars for the grand champion, twenty for runner-up, and ten for third place, twenty-five cent penalty per euchre).

Then the games began - trump was called, tricks were won, euchres (and partners) were endured. We shuffled about the house kaleidoscopically, shifting alliances and chairs. Conversation ebbed and flowed, depending on the amount of concentration and importance attached to each point. Shouts and laughter erupt from the back room! Grandma is accusing Sean of cheating. Threats (which we must assume are not serious) are made. Giggles from the front room as word of the incident filters through the house. Grandma must not be getting good cards we all agree. The back window is cracked to let in some crisp night air.

A general decree goes out declaring a halftime after the fifth game is finished. Not wishing to let the activity retreat to mere eating and drinking, several of us cousins begin a quick game of Black Jack to pass the time. Twenty-one is just as rare as the loners were in the first five games of the tournament. Back to the game! Find your partners! Find your table! Are you my partner? Sit here. No, let's sit there, those seats are hot. What's trump?

And so the evening went.

By the end of the night several incidents had transpired. Who of us will ever forget the time that me and Aunt Jane got seventeen points in one game because of her three loners? Who can possibly lose track of Margaux's record-breaking number of euchres (twelve in ten games, for those of you playing at home)? Grandma's half-joking cries of foul play will surely ring clear throughout the new year.

We reconvened to hear the end results. Mark won! Second place, Matt! Third place, a tie! The tie was duly settled by left-handed arm-wrestling on the circle table. Debate concerning the validity of such a tie-breaker continued for some time. At that point the whiskey slush, the fire, and the conversation were dying. We collected our winnings, bundled up, bid goodnight, and trod off into the cold, clear night assured of a warm new year ahead.

Thanksgiving Diary

Of all of our peculiarities as Americans, the celebration of Thanksgiving is by far my favorite. Though we must forgive its Puritanical origins, the holiday always forms such a nice kickoff to the commercial pre-Christmas mania, and is perhaps the only thing that keeps us from being inundated with Christmas ads immediately after Halloween (though, of course, Hobby Lobby always seems to be about three holidays ahead in what they display on their floor). The irony, I suppose, is that the Puritans wouldn't have celebrated Christmas, and would, I gather, cast a characteristically dour gaze toward our overblown Black Friday hullaballoo - or any hullaballoo, for that matter.

In any event, your humble and obedient scribe was home for the holiday in Grand Rapids. Time was well spent with family, friends, and food, though not necessarily in that order of importance. A grave number of calories was ingested on several different occasions over the Thanksgiving reprieve. And, a similarly obscene number of hours were spent lying in bed - a delightful occupation for those of us who are so often deprived of our sleep due to the demands of architectural instruction. So, what have we got - gluttony and sloth? Our cardinal sinning was decidedly confined to these two vices, which seems permissible, since Dante's punishments for the gluttonous and slothful are not terribly vile.

Also accomplished was the annual Schmalzelian dispersal of Christmas knick-knacks throughout the house. I say dispersal because once the giant rubbermaid tubs are hauled up out of the crawlspace, the various Christmas accouterments seem to automatically find their respective ways to their traditional posts throughout our home - much as we wish that the confounded garland that goes over the mantle would somehow disappear quietly in the night. In due course, the house was Christmasified, which was followed  with a celebratory ingestion of even more turkey, reinvigorated in the form of turkey Manhattans - the most agreeable way to deal with Thanksgiving leftovers.

The chief event of Saturday was the implementation of the new translation of the mass, which I have detailed extensively in the previous post. After our sacred language adjustment, dinner at Salvatore's commenced. Salvatore's is one of those staple West Side eateries that always sounds good, no matter what one's disposition happens to be at the time. Though, we must report regret in not making a pilgrimage to the laudable Red Jet Cafe on the Northeast end of town.

Sunday was chiefly a day of trial, in the form of driving back to Muncie. It rained abominably the whole drive, which apparently aggravated certain drivers from Illinois enough to encourage them into the ditches off the interstate - which caused quite a spectacle (read: traffic jam). We seldom mention persons from Illinois, for our mother taught us that if one does not have anything good to say, one should not say it. This also goes for Ohio, though mention must be made of the University of Michigan finally triumphing over the barbaric oafs of Ohio State. Deo Gratias! All's well that ends well, as they say, and we finally returned to Muncie in good health, well-rested, and prepared to handle the final three weeks of this semester.

In Memoriam

My grandfather was a veteran of this nation's Armed Forces. He served in Korea during the conflict there. As far as I know - and I don't know much - he was involved in the maintenance of the aircraft. I don't believe he was ever in a combat situation, but then again, I don't know. Sometimes I'm saddened by the fact that my grandpa died when I was only in eighth grade. In eighth grade, I wasn't concerned with understanding the lives of my relatives - our sense of history is so numb at that age.

Please join me this Veteran's Day in praying for the deceased souls of all of our service men and women. May God grant them a place of refreshment, light, and peace.

The photo at left is my grandfather during his tour of Korea. Once, at my aunt's house, we found a photo album that my grandpa had put together of all of his time in the war. This was one of the pictures inside. I love this picture - the mustache is definitely what seals the deal!

These Will Make Fine Ancestors

I am rather interested in the history of my own family. I am what you could call a mutt of Catholic Europe with parts French, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Austrian. The Austrian branch is the most intriguing part of things for me, since it is the source of my surname. However, sadly, I know least about them, aside from some generalities and locations. This picture shows some of my Austrian ancestors - regrettably, I don't know their names or relation to me. I do know that this picture was taken in Sankt Michael im Burgenland, a small village in eastern present-day Austria that was under the dominion of the Kingdom of Hungary during the time of the photo. I am unsure if these persons emigrated, but their sons and daughters may have. The cause was likely Hungary's intense program of Magyarization around the turn of the century, which sought to stamp out German culture in Hungary. Interestingly, this social movement caused the bizarre inclusion of another consonant in our last name, rendering it the even-more-unpronounceable Schmalczel.

The Camp

Over the long holiday weekend my extended family gathered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula at a cabin that has been in the family for 38 years. It is a simple cabin with three rooms and a front and back porch. There is no electricity or indoor plumbing; water is gotten by means of an old red, iron hand pump that channels the water into the sink. The experience is rustic and uncluttered.

The cabin is situated in the midst of a vast forested swath of the central UP. The nearest town of any decent population is more than an hour's drive from our eighty acres. When you're at the Camp (as we call it), you're at home in the wild. Four wooden walls separate you from the raw power of nature. It is one of my favorite places in the world. It is to me what Walden Pond was to Thoreau. I am extremely blessed to have access to such a beautiful and restorative place.

Out in front of the cabin is a small lake of perhaps fifteen acres. It is ringed by marshy lowlands that vary in width from a few yards to several hundred yards. Beyond the marshes, birch-forested hills strewn with boulders arise and give shape to the lake's natural basin. Our cabin is the only cabin on the lake. At night, stars like you've never seen fill the sky over the water. Sometimes the northern lights dance on the horizon. Wolves howl often.

I love the cabin itself. It suits its surroundings perfectly - it looks like it's always been there. The kitchen is clustered around the old wood-burning stove in one of the back corners. A big iron grate in the middle of the floor lets up heat from the furnace in the basement. Propane lamps hang from the ceiling and cast their soft light over the room at night. Wide picture windows face southeast, making for a dramatic sunlit awakening for whoever sleeps on the pull-out couch. The interior decor is an eclectic affair: numerous deer antlers and old forest-y prints mixed with 1950s paint-by-numbers and an imitation Salvador Dali painting I did my senior year of high school. Bumper stickers are affixed to the fridge (which we use as a cabinet, since there is no electricity to have it function as a fridge).

The fire pit out in front of the cabin is the true center of life at the Camp. One rock for every year of our ownership of the Camp encircles the fire. Two boulders that my dad excavated from the driveway sit there - one is usually a convenient place for sitting my grandpa's trusty old radio. I like that the radio is our only media up there. It makes things less complicated. You get news and entertainment without all of the sensory overload of TV or internet.

Up at the Camp I feel much more energized than I do in Muncie or Grand Rapids. I think it's because we spend most of our time outside. For a good two hours on Saturday I chopped down small trees in front of the cabin that had become overgrown. It's nice to do some physical work without the pressure of necessity or time constraint. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn. I went to bed exhausted every night.

When Germans Come to Town

Well, distinguished readers, it has been awhile since I've written anything, so I want to update everyone as to the recent goings-on this side of the computer. I haven't blogged in a great long time because of a very happy set of circumstances caused chiefly by the visit to the US of my good friend Florian - of Weil am Rhein, Germany. You may recall some of my posts dealing with my grand tour of the Continent that transpired last May. Those wonderful travels grew out of my visit to him, for which I will ever be thankful. So, long story short, he has been staying in Grand Rapids with me and my family since June 10th and will depart for his home on July 5th.

In the time that he has been here, we have attempted to survey as much of the Midwest as possible, for he did not get much opportunity for travel while he was here on exchange (the genesis of our friendship was caused by him attending my high school my senior year). Chief among the places we sampled was the great city of Chicago. It is one of those cities that never really gets old - this, I believe, was my sixth (give or take) visit. Skyscrapers were gazed at, deep-dish pizza was ingested, and a grand time was had by all.

We shifted gears from the epitome of urban to the epitome of rural as we journeyed from Chicago to the humble town of Nappanee, Indiana (probably my sixth or seventh visit there as well). Several readers of this blog are residents of Nappanee and they were gracious hosts to the two of us. Seeing the Amish was a highlight for Florian and provided a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of the big city. On our return from Nappanee, we stopped off at the University of Notre Dame to enjoy the sights and atmosphere of that august institution.

Since then, we have stayed closer to home, with a weekend visit to the cottage (involving an entire cohort of the Schmalzel-Mitera clan, in addition to my lovely girlfriend), and a trip to Lake Michigan to enjoy the sun and sand. This past Tuesday, a party was held in Florian's honor which brought together many old friends from high school that I have not seen in some time. The jovial company lasted into the wee hours.

The greatest adventure, however, surely lies ahead. Tomorrow, at the shocking hour of 5am, we (my family, plus Florian, plus my sister's boyfriend) depart for a ten day escapade featuring such locations as Niagara Falls, Upstate New York, Boston, Acadia National Park, and the Province of Quebec. Several of the places on the itinerary will be new to all of us (Quebec City, Acadia, and Boston), while Upstate New York is an old family favorite and Montreal featured on my architecture field trip last October.

Keep us in your prayers for safe travels and the maintenance of everyone's sanity as we embark on what will surely be a memorable week. When I return, expect blogs on a number of things that have occurred recently (Pentecost, Corpus Christi) as well as my thoughts on issues as diverse as the Republican Presidential candidates to the necessity of streetcars in urban Grand Rapids. Until then, Arrivederci!

The Schmalzel Story

Many times I am asked what I am. By that, usually the person asking is trying to understand what kind of people my ancestors were and where they came from. I never have a clear-cut answer, meaning I'm not one of those people who can rattle off that they are German, Irish, and Italian and be done with it. As far as I'm aware (and I'm very aware of my family history), I'm mostly ethnic German by way of the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, with touches of Slovak, Czech, Polish, Irish, and French by way of Quebec tossed in the mix. I find genealogy a very engaging thing to study, because I'm a nerd like that. I simply appreciate who "my people" were and how they or their descendants ever ended up in the US.

Generally speaking, my ancestors on all sides have been fairly recent immigrants to this country. The vast majority of my forefathers were of various ethnicities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and came to the New World during that empire's demise around the turn of the century. The major exception to this rule are those who were French Canadians. That end of the family has been present in North America since the early 1600s, but in Quebec, not the United States. That branch worked its way up the St. Lawrence from Quebec City to Ontario, finally jumping from Ontario to Michigan in the mid-1800s.

There are plentiful records of this French-Canadian branch due to the copious records kept by the churches of New France and compiled by a priest by the name of Fr. Cyprien Tanguay in the 1870s. These records stretch back to the original immigrations from France in the 1620s and 30s and from there a few generations back to the time when the families were still inhabiting Normandy. This is an interesting study because some of the family lines stretch back to the 14th and 15th centuries and are intermingled with some of the minor nobility of feudal France.

France and New France were under the control of strong, centralized monarchs for most of their history. This means that records of birth (or more usually, baptism), marriage, and death are widely preserved and easy to locate. However, the majority of my ancestors are from volatile Eastern Europe, where many cultures have existed in competition alongside one another for centuries. Political power was divided among the Holy Roman Emperor and local lords in a complex system of feudal allegiance. Records were not well kept, save by the local parishes who were commanded to keep records of the sacraments administered in their churches by order of the Council of Trent (1545-1563).

That being said, the search for the Schmalzels has proven difficult. I can only directly trace persons back to the mid-1800s in the person of my great-great-grandfather Johann Schmalzel, whose son, Stephen, immigrated from Austria in 1907. From there, I can speak only in generalities, taking into account wider historical movements and other clues. Here follows a narrative of what I've discovered so far about my patronymic ancestors.

The name Schmalzel is most likely related to the German word schmalz which has been variously translated as over-sentimentality, kiss, lard, and goose fat. Not a particularly flattering start. One interpretation I have seen is that the name schmalzel refers to someone who handled wax, candles, or soap in Medieval households - termed chandler in English. Lard and goose fat are not a far cry from wax and candles, especially in Medieval times. We shall then claim that the original Schmalzels were in charge of illumination in some corner of the Medieval world.

But, which corner? In all likelihood, the Schmalzel family did not originate in the part of Austria-Hungary that they immigrated from. Why? Because for much of its history, that borderland area was fought over between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. The emperors of Austria were begging people to settle that desolate land in the 1700s after they had finally vanquished the Ottoman threat. The most compelling argument is that the Schmalzels, like many other families who would eventually inhabit the Burgenland, originated in southwestern Germany in a region called Swabia. A big clue here is that many names and words in the Swabian dialect end in either -le or -el whereas this is less common in the rest of Germany. This could explain the uncharacteristic el at the end of Schmalzel.

When the Burgenland needed resettlement as a buffer between the Austrian heartland and Ottoman-controlled Hungary in the mid-1700s, the Emperors appealed to Germans living in other parts of the Empire - most notably Swabia. Like the American Pioneers, people in Swabia were in need of money and land for farming, and the Austrians had both. The people that would eventually leave Swabia for Austria were termed Donauschwaben or Danube Swabians because they settled along the Danube River which flows from Ulm, Germany (in the heart of Swabia) to the Black Sea, right through what would become Austria-Hungary.

Those that arrived first in Austria settled in the closer locales, such as the Burgenland first, before eventually filling into much of Hungary and the Transylvania region of Romania. The Schmalzels were likely among the first waves of settlers, since they remained in a region close to the Austrian Crown lands. The exact town of their settlement is unknown, but they were definitely in the region near Güssing and Sankt Michael im Burgenland, as evidenced by stamped family photos from a later time. My family was probably occupied by farming at this time. The villages in that part of the Austrian Burgenland were arranged in strips, so that a house fronted the street, and a long narrow field extended from the house into the woods, which was used for cultivation.

Trouble came with the Ausgleich of 1867, which set up the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Since the Burgenland was just outside traditional Austrian lands, it was considered part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, Hungary and Austria were effectively two separately administered kingdoms, united under a single emperor, a Habsburg of Austria. With the rise of nationalism in Europe around this time, the German minority of Hungary, including those along the border with Austria, found themselves in a predicament. The Hungarians, eager to regain a sense of their culture that had been overrun by both Austrian and Ottoman imperialism, set out on a social campaign of Magyarization (Magyar being the ethnic term for Hungarians, as well as the language spoken in Hungary).

Magyarization involved teaching Hungarian in schools instead of German (or any other minority language), and the squelching of German culture in Hungarian lands. Names, even, were Magyarized, with Schmalzel becoming the even-more-unpronounceable Schmalczel during this time. The local church was one of the only ways that the minority Germans in Hungarian lands were able to keep their local sense of community, as both Austria and Hungary promoted the influence of the Catholic Church. It was a less ethnically charged environment as well, since Latin dominated Church records and affairs.

Cause of Stephen Schmalzel's immigration is unknown, but probably fits in with the mindset massive wave of immigrants that fled Eastern Europe in the early 20th Century. He was likely searching for a more promising future in America. He immigrated around 1909 and settled in New York City. He was married in 1910 to Anna Jani (prounounced Yah-nee), who was from another town in Burgenland: the mouthful, Deutsch Tschantschendorf. It is unclear if they immigrated together, or met in New York. The marriage record is from the Church of the Assumption, which to the best of my research, is located in Brooklyn.

From there, Stephen and Anna moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Stephen worked in some sort of industry there, perhaps coal mining or steel manufacturing. Around 1920, the couple was in Lincoln Park, a suburb of Detroit, with Stephen working in the booming manufacturing business there. It was in Lincoln Park that my grandpa and his seven siblings grew up. The rest, as they say, is history.

I hope you've enjoyed this whirlwind journey from a quiet corner of Germany, to an empty corner of Austria-Hungary, to an industrial corner of Michigan. So, if you ask, the Schmalzels were Germans, who came from what is now modern Austria, but what was then in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary. Sometimes I wish I could just say Germany, but that is not nearly as much fun.

Pictured are my great-grandparents, Stephen and Anna Schmalzel.