Day 18: To Start From Scratch

Reading my great-grandmother's recipes sent me to look again at family history, as an aunt noted the potato doughnut recipe was probably German. One side of our family came from Germany. Germany back in the mid 1800's geographically was not the same as it is today. It encompassed Prussia and Bavaria.  The Stormann's came from Prussia and the Hirsch's came from Bavaria.

Wikipedia states: 

"The largest flow of German immigration to America occurred between 1820 and World War I, during which time nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States. From 1840 to 1880, they were the largest group of immigrants. Following the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, a wave of political refugees fled to America, who became known as Forty-Eighters. They included professionals, journalists, and politicians. Prominent Forty-Eighters included Carl Schurz and Henry Villard.^[46]"

You can read more here. Some who left were poor, because like today, Germany was getting crowded, and poor people were encouraged to leave.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans

While I was looking at these "from scratch recipes" I began looking at what women wore in those times they emigrated from Bavaria and Prussia. It was very interesting. It's easy to look through a nostalgia lens, though. These people were leaving because they wanted to leave those places BEHIND. Who knows if they continued the traditions of their past countries or did they leave it all behind?

Anyway, whatever their reasons, you have to admire them for their pluck to leave behind everything they knew and go to another place based on hopes and dreams.