One hundred years of cellotude continued:
Fifth part of
Chapter 1
A cello called Heinrich
Previous section: Romantic writings
Dieuze, Lorraine. Postcard from 1913.
Source.
Marches and veal dumplings
That has been all we know about our romantic couple at Strasbourg. While we’re lacking evidence on the events of the next 18 months, I am guessing that all this romantic fervour must have take a while to dissipate.
On April 1st, 1906, two years after the engagement, the happy times at Strasbourg came to an abrupt end as Max Heinrich’s regiment was relocated as a collective punishment. I haven’t been able to find out what they were punished for, but I imagine some may have found the entertainment on offer in the city irresistible. So the regiment moved to the small town of Dieuze in Lorraine. In that year, the town had precisely 5893 residents, including around 1000 soldiers. Dieuze, as part of a territory where the majority spoke French, kept its French name until 1915 and only fleetingly became “Duß” until it transferred to France in the Versailles Treaty. The barracks at Dieuze are still there and used by the French army now.
Changing places with Max Heinrich’s regiment, the 4th Lorraine Infantry Regiment No. 136. moved from Dieuze to Strasbourg. Thus the geographic identity was lost, with the Lorraine regiment based in Alsace, and vice versa.
This change of circumstances must have upset Max Heinrich and Maria as it involved times of separation. Being merely engaged they couldn’t just move in together, and it would have been hard to find a job and accommodation for Maria in the tiny town of Dieuze. She must have remained in Strasbourg until they got married more than two years later.
On September 4th, 1908, Max Heinrich was promoted to the rank of Hoboist. As this is formally equivalent to his previous rank of sergeant, I guess this may just have been a lateral move from the normal infantry ranks to the position of musician in the regiment band. So at least now we can be sure that his role in the regiment was that of playing music. Seeing that a tuba mouthpiece is the only evidence we have that links him to a specific instrument, we’ll assume he played the tuba. As the military music in the infantry mainly involves wind and percussion instruments, there wouldn’t have been an opening for a cellist (nor for a violinist, in case this was his first instrument as the musical signature of HG may be suggesting).
Every regiment in the army of the German Empire had its own wind band playing its own specific march for ceremonial marching around. Other occasions calling for music making included festivities as well as funerals. The size of the regimental bands grew in the course of history. Under Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840) it expanded to 26 men, in World War II it reached 37. In 1908 it must have been somewhere in between these two figures.
The newly appointed hoboist swiftly moved on to get married on October 8th, 1908. The church ceremony took place in the gothic St. Stephan’s church in Tangermünde, where Max Heinrich had also received his confirmation. It was held as a double wedding jointly with that of his sister Gertrud.
The other half of the double wedding: Max Heinrich's sister Gertrud and her husband Robert Goetzky.
We have a copy of the nonsense “wedding newspaper” produced on the occasion, but unfortunately it contains very little useful information. Of musical interest, perhaps, the fact that it includes made up parody lyrics to be sung to well-known song tunes. Thus we conclude that the celebration may have involved some raucous singing. Sadly, we have neither a photo nor a list of the guests. As Maria was orphaned by then and her step family would have had a long way to travel from Baden, there may not have been all that many relatives to invite. Conceivably, the double wedding may have served to bring the numbers to a socially acceptable level.
The newspaper called for the rapid production of offspring in no uncertain terms, to which Max Heinrich and Maria obliged. Nine months and six days after the event, their son (later to be my grandfather) was born in Dieuze and named after his grandfather Richard. If tradition had continued in the male line, I would be a Richard and my son another Heinrich, but we gave up on that so we have the cello as the only Heinrich in the family.
The lifetimes of the two Richards only overlapped by a few years, as the grandfather died in July 1913 in Tangermünde. His widow spent some time living with Max Heinrich in Dieuze (as noted in his military records) and some in Magdeburg with her daughter, where she died in April 1916.
Richard’s godparents were Max Heinrich’s half-brother and a woman named Henriette Seidensticker, about whom we know absolutely nothing. I am guessing that she was part of the couple’s social circle rather than a relative.
The first photo of baby Richard shows him naked, lying on his tummy on a fluffy rug, and resolutely lifting up his head. The proud parents sent this as a postcard to a woman called Friederike Heinemann in Magdeburg. Again, I have no idea who she was – and how the postcard found it way back into my family.
A glimpse into the daily life of our nascent family is provided by a hand-written book of recipes, which I found between my grandmother’s gardening books in March 2023. Maria had signed it as:
Marie Pfersching
Strassburg i. Els.
1908.
confirming my suspicion that she was likely forced to remain in Strasbourg until their marriage.
In addition, there is also another inscription, possibly from a previous owner of the book, which is hard to decipher as it has been crossed out with a double line. As far as I can read it, it may have been:
Mieze Reinecke 1905
If this is the correct version it is a curious combination, with Reinecke being the name often used for a fox in fables as well as a common family name, and Mieze being a common nickname for cats as well as a somewhat disrespectful word for women. Conceivably, the nickname Mieze could be hiding another Maria.
The book contains more than 200 recipes on 76 pages, of which the first 190 are listed in an alphabetical index at the back. The first date mentioned is 19.4.08, found under a recipe for veal dumplings. Just before that, the formatting of the headlines changed. At first they were aligned to the left and ended with an exclamation mark, while from this point onwards they are centred and end with a full stop. This change makes me wonder if the first 19 pages were perhaps written by the mysterious Mieze Reinecke. The handwriting also shows some very subtle differences.
Therefore, for clues to the life of our young married couple, I am looking at the 98 recipes of the second phase in the book, covering 26 pages with occasional dates spanning from April 1908 to March 1909. These can give us an impression of what they ate and what household concoctions they may have prepared. After that point, the entries become rarer, with six pages mainly containing tips for household cleaning methods and home remedies, fizzling out at the end of 1909. Although Richard was born in July 1909, there are no recipes for baby food or anything else relating to him. Maybe she had a separate notebook for baby things that I haven’t found yet. After that, there is a gap of five years, and the records resume with “war recipes” in a less diligent handwriting.
In 1908, the year of their marriage, there were plenty of cakes including Linzertorte, Sandtorte (with the remark added: very good!), yeast cakes filled with fruit, and Topfkuchen. Pastry recipes include Schokoladenplätzchen, Madeleines, Mandelhäufchen. The initial pages of the book were already offering quite a lot of pastry such as Muzzemandeln. Sweet casseroles were also popular, including the elaborately named Verschleierte Dame (veiled lady) and Arme Ritter).
The favourite type of meat appears to have been veal, which comes in various shapes and sized. Just occasionally interrupted by mutton, or ox. We find instructions on how to marinate an eel, and recipes for whitefishes (Coregonus), carp and herring. There are dumplings of all sorts, as well as tomato sauce and mustard sauce.
For my taste, there’s not enough about salad, but there is one “Russian salad” and an instruction on how to grow radishes in every season. That’s a start.
For desert, there was jelly, cherry pudding, chocolate pudding, and vanilla ice cream. How she would have prepared the ice cream in 1908 without a freezer – and, in Dieuze, probably without any electricity? – isn’t quite clear to me.
In May 1908, Maria wrote down a lovely recipe for a May punch with woodruff and four bottles of white wine. It doesn’t say how many people she meant to serve, but it sounds like quite a party. Maybe she had to host the whole marching band?
Dieuze in 1912 - Max Heinrich and Maria's house must be in there somewhere, but I don't know where.
In December 1913, Max Heinrich is promoted to the rank of Vizefeldwebel, a non-commissioned officer one rank up from the Sergeant. He remained listed as a Hoboist as well, so I am thinking that the promotion was just for the pay grade, and didn’t affect his musical activities. For instance, on January 12, 1914, he received an award for 12 years service in the army, where his rank is given as Hoboist. In later documents he is sometimes referred to with both titles, as Hoboist/Vizefeldw. It’s all a bit confusing but also reassuring to know that he remained with the marching band. Presumably, the place behind the tuba was safer than one in the trenches.
Read on:
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