Fried tomatoes

It's fun to write about family history and days gone by, but even better to connect with real live family.
We've just spent a couple of days with Betty and Shirley, two of our Niewand cousins who travelled over from Minyip to visit.
My sister and I played tourist guide - our landscape is very different from the flat Wimmera country - and showed off the Art Gallery, Buda Historic Home & Garden, and the Aladdin's cave that is the Restorer's Barn. Three of my daughters lunched with us at Skydancers Cafe & Nursery, also making connections with rellies we don't see so often. A lovely couple of days!

Now it's Friday, so time to interrupt the family saga with a recipe -

In one of the Little House on the Prairie books (can't remember which one) Laura Ingalls Wilder described the early settlers serving tomatoes for dessert, with cream and sugar. I've never tried it myself, and it sounds a bit odd, but I have had tomato salad with a creamy dressing, and that definitely works.

This serves to remind us that tomatoes, like many of our 'vegies' are indeed fruit - think capsicum, zucchini, or pumpkin - and sometimes they are improved by adding a little sugar to the seasonings. Tomato sandwiches are definitely more 'tomatoey' with a sprinkle of sugar, ditto grilled tomatoes.

This is worth remembering now that the weather is warming up,and the tomatoes are ripening - lots of tomatoes!

Maybe you plan to make sauce, and tomato salad is nice these warm nights, but here's another idea - you could make Fried Tomatoes.

This couldn't be simpler, and makes a good Sunday night supper dish.

You'll need a large, high-sided frying pan (or a big pot). Slice a large brown onion, and soften it in a little oil. Then add chopped tomatoes, lots and lots of them - they will cook down considerably. Season with salt and pepper, a pinch of mixed dried herbs and a spoonful of sugar.
Simmer until reduced by at least half, and beginning to caramelise. This takes a while, and requires regular stirring so they don't burn. When you reckon they're done, taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve on toast.

You could fry some bacon with the onion, and add some crushed garlic, and basil or other fresh herbs, and maybe some chopped capsicum if you have some, but it's delicious with just the tomatoes and onion.

Exodus

For the next few posts, I'm going to indulge myself by including some speculative scenes - recreations of events as they may have been experienced at the time..

Always in italics, these 'cameos' are intended, like any other illustration, to add life and colour to the story. Please bear in mind, that although based on known facts, these scenes are FICTION. Personalities are merely supposed, and appearances guessed at. At times I have used astrological profiles based on date and place of birth. 'Dolly' Niewand, for example, is almost pure fiction. We don't know what she really looked like, or what the children called her - but I had a lot of fun inventing her!

Now bear with me while I set the scene...

In 1848, the Ministry of Finance in Hanover and the local authorities in the Harz decided to provide financial assistance to emigrants in the form of an interest-free loan, to be repaid within three or four years. South Australia seemed a suitable place, as the new copper mine at Burra would provide employment for experienced miners, and letters from earlier German emigrants were favourable.
The consul of the Kingdom of Hanover to South Australia, Mr C.L. Meyer, was in Bremen at the time and added his recommendation of the new colony. Mr Meyer also offered to help the emigrants to establish themselves. (And to collect the loan repayments, for a small consideration.)

On 8th August 1848, public notices went up, detailing the government’s offer of financial aid for emigration. Information on the climate of South Australia, average wages and the cost of living was also given.  Within a few weeks, over 700 people applied. They gave many reasons for wishing to leave, mainly poverty, and a desire for a better future for their children. Some also hoped for less exhausting work, or wanted to escape their in-laws. Those with large debts or large families were weeded out, as were the sick. Dependants could not be left behind as a continuing drain on the government, either.

You'll recall that at this point the family consisted of Dorothea Niewandt (Dolly) and her stepchildren Henriette (Nettie), Friedrich (Fred) and his wife Henriette, Frederika (Freda), and Heinrich (Heinie). It's August, 1848, and Fred and Heinie have finished work for the day...

 “Hurry up Heinie, your supper will be cold!”  The speaker stood in the road, the late summer sun casting long shadows behind him.
“Hang on Fred, I’m just reading this notice – didn’t you see it?”
“Another notice, who cares? They put up so many – don’t do this, remember that, mind the rules….” The speaker was clearly more interested in his evening meal.
“No, this isn’t about the mine, look!”
Humouring his younger brother, Fred walked over to the notice-board outside the mine office. “Opportunities in Australia” he read and shrugged. “and how are we supposed to get there?”
“It says here the Government will pay our fares, or at least give us loans” retorted Heinie, and grinned. “They obviously want to get rid of some of us.”
Fred smiled too “I can just see myself going home and telling Henriette that we’re off to Australia – like fun!” Heinie laughed aloud; everyone knew his sister-in-law wasn’t one to mince her words.
The brothers stepped out along the path, and nothing more was said on the subject.
 
But oddly, when Fred mentioned the notice that evening as they ate their supper, Henriette seemed quite interested. She knew that easygoing Fred would stay where he was, doing the same old work, until the day he died. Which was just as likely to be sooner than later, Henriette reflected sadly.
She had already lost her first husband in a mining accident, and she knew miners didn’t make old bones anyway, especially drillers like Fred – the dust got into their lungs, and they coughed their way to the grave.
Despite her sharp tongue, Henriette loved her husband, who worked so hard to keep her and the girls, when there was work to be had. She knew how disappointed he’d been at missing out on the overseer’s job, and it would have meant guaranteed work hours, too. She wouldn’t mind taking a look at that notice herself……

Fourteen groups left the Harz between 1848 and 1854. Once an application had been accepted, often only 4-6 weeks before the sailing date, the family had to sell all those possessions that couldn’t be taken along, and equip themselves as best they could for their new lives. New clothes would be made or bought, and all the necessary paperwork, birth certificates and passports obtained. Goodbyes must have been very hard; for the emigrants leaving parents, brothers and sisters, and the graves of lost children; and for those who stayed behind, farewelling their sons and daughters, knowing they would never see them again in this life, or the grandchildren yet unborn.

The Niewandt family must have been among the early applicants, as they left on the third ship bound for Australia, the Ceres, in December 1849. The passenger list shows Dorothea Niewandt, widow, accompanied by her children Henriette, Friederike, and Heinrich; and Friedrich and his wife Henriette accompanied by the two Dahle girls. The timing could not have been worse for Christian and Henriette, because she was about to have another child, and the baby would be born on the ship.

Other family and friends were part of the group that left Lautenthal for Australia. Andreas Conrad Martin Niewandt was a second cousin to our family. His wife, a relative of Henriette, had recently died, and perhaps he thought a fresh start would be best. Henriette’s sister-in-law, her husband and their small children were also going.

The family in Lautenthal

Time to do a little genealogy, and look at the composition of the Niewandt family in Lautenthal. Unfortunately it's not possible to post clear diagrams here, so we'll have to make do with a narrative.

Village life centred on the Lutheran church, a beautiful Baroque building built in the mid 1600s. The singing of hymns was an important part of worship, aided by an impressive organ, and membership of the choir was a privilege to be proud of.

The church registers trace the family from 1785, when Heinrich Christian Niewandt married Dorothea Elizabeth Buckbach. Heinrich gave his father's name as Christoph Niewandt, of Bad Grund, thus confirming his descent from the family there.

In 1818, his son, Johann Heinrich Christian Niewandt, married Johanne Friederike Elizabeth Richter, and they had at least four children -

Henriette, b. 1818
Christian Friedrich, b. 1820
Frederika, b. 1824
Heinrich Christian Andreas, b. 1830 (my great-grandfather)

the church organ

Johann's wife died in 1834, and he remarried in the same year to Dorothea Sauerbrei, who had a son, August Lauchs, from a previous marriage.
Johann died in 1846, leaving Dorothea  as head of the family.

In the same year, Friedrich married Henriette Dahle (nee Schubert) who had two daughters, Julie and Minna, from her first marriage.

Also living in Lautenthal were Johann's cousin Julius Niewandt, his  wife Johanne, and their son Andreas Conrad Martin Niewandt. (possibly there were other Niewandts too, but these are the immediate family)

In the 1840s, life in Lautenthal was becoming increasingly uncertain. Everywhere in the Harz, the mining industry was in decline. Some of the mines had been worked for over 700 years, and their great depth made ore extraction expensive. Imports of cheaper lead from South America caused prices to fall, putting many miners out of work. Everyone expected the mines to close in the next few years.

The mines were owned and operated by the government, and were fast becoming more of a liability than an asset. The miners were well looked after by the standards of the day - they had free medical attention, and pensions were paid to retired miners or their widows and orphans. Even if there was less work for them, miners were not usually discharged, but would receive an unemployment benefit. The amounts paid were very small, but the population was growing, and poor relief was an increasing drain on the government.
Clearly this situation could not continue, and the Hanoverian government began to consider assisted emigration as a solution.

(They did not move fast enough for some people, apparently; they burned their houses down so that they would have nowhere to live, and force the government to act. Not my family, as far as I know)

As the Niewandt family faced an uncertain future, the world outside the Harz was changing profoundly. The population of Europe was growing rapidly, and in Germany food production was not keeping pace with population growth. There was widespread unemployment, and mechanisation was making entire trades obsolete.

Across the seas, America had become an independent country, hungry for settlers, and many German people were already established there. Australia too was beginning to look past its beginnings as a convict dumping-ground, and realise the need for free settlers to develop the country’s potential.
The Niewandts would have been well aware of the opportunities in the New World – there is a record of a Heinrich Niewand living in Montgomery, New York State in 1793. All they needed was the means to get there.

photos from the website Paul-Gerhard-kirchengemeinde Lautenthal

Where witches fly

Over the years I've collected quite a bit of of more-or-less interesting trivia about the Harz mountains of Germany, where my ancestors lived. Today I've been poking around in some of my old family history docs,  and gathered these for your edification -

Where witches fly
The highest peak in the Harz is the Brocken (1142m) known far and wide as the home of the Harzhexen (Harz witches). The witches, mounted on their wooden brooms, sweep across the sky above the Harz to their landing ground on the Brocken.

Long after the introduction of Christianity, the Brocken was the scene of pagan festivities on the Witches Sabbath, on April 30th each year. The witches were said to dance with the Devil until midnight, when the May King would arrive to clean them out. This was also an ancient Norse festival, for the god Odin married Freya on the last night of April.
Pagan beliefs survived in the Harz, perhaps due to isolation, longer than in any other part of Germany. The early Catholic priests tried to fit the festivities into the Christian calendar by renaming the feast ‘Walpurgisnacht’ after St. Walpurga, who was born on the 1st of May.

 The legends of the Brocken have inspired several musicians and writers, most notably Goethe’s ‘Faust’.  Walpurgis Night festivities continue to the present day, with parties and fireworks, not unlike the American tradition of Halloween, and many of the witches have landed in local tourist shops, hoping to emigrate to warmer climes.

Neanderthal Man was named for remains found in the Neander River valley at Dusseldorf, about 100 miles from Bad Grund.

Harz Roller is the name of a breed of domestic canary bred in the Upper Harz mountains of Germany. The birds were bred in the Upper Harz between Lautenthal and Sankt Andreasberg in the middle of the 19th century and achieved European-wide fame. Since 2001 there has been a Harz Roller Museum in Sankt Andreasberg.

By patient breeding a breed of canary was able to be produced that had a very pleasant, melodious song, full of variety and delivered with an apparently closed beak.

The breeding and sale of this popular breed of canary was an important secondary occupation for the mining folk as was the making of cages for the birds. Especially in the second half of the 19th century the business for these canaries boomed. In contrast to widespread legend, the birds were not used in the mines to indicate the presence of oxygen, they were too valuable for that. The Harz miners used captured wild birds for that purpose.


Miners in the Harz wore a kind of leather apron across their backs. Called an arse leather, the apron was thought to protect the kidneys, and kept their trousers dry, and cleaner.

Kate Greenaway illustration

Hameln (of Pied Piper fame).....is about 50 miles west of Lautenthal.  The Pied Piper of Hamelin (German: Rattenfänger von Hameln) is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages.
The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied (multicolored) clothing, leading the children away from the town never to return.
In the 16th century the story was expanded into a full narrative, in which the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizenry refuses to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his magic on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. This version of the story spread as a fairy tale. This version has also appeared in the writings of, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.

early Bobbin lace

Lacemaking "Here lies Barbara Uttmann, died, 14 Jan. 1575, whose invention of lace in 1561 made her the benefactress of the Harz Mountains."  In fact, Frau Uttmann, wife of a rich mining overseer, didn't actually invent lace, but learnt the skill from a Flemish exile.
 According to legend, bobbin lacemaking came to the German Erzgebirge in around 1560 because a refugee from Brabant found a room in the house of the family Uttmann in Annaberg. She is said to have had her lace pillow with her and to have taught Frau Uttmann how to make bobbin lace. Barbara Uttmann is then said to have introduced bobbin lacemaking into the Erzgebirge and invented the bolster-shaped lace pillow which is typically used there. Until the advent of machine-made lace, bobbin lacemaking a source of income for many women in the Harz villages.

 The Lichtenstein Cave  is an archaeological site about 10 miles to the south of Bad Grund. The cave is 115 metres long and was discovered in 1972. Finds include the skeletal remains of 21 females and 19 males from the Bronze Age, about 3000 years old. In addition, about 100 bronze objects (ear, arm and finger rings, bracelets) and ceramic parts from the Urnfield Culture were found.
 DNA tests on 300 local inhabitants showed that 40 of them were descendants of these Bronze Age people.
The Lichtenstein site is closed to the public, but the Museum am Berg at Bad Grund has an exhibition about 'the oldest family in the world'.  In addition the museum looks at life in the Bronze Age and displays a number of artefacts from the period.

Katie's broccoli salad

For a variety of reasons, I haven't had time to blog lately, so I'm playing catchup today.  Here's your Friday recipe -

photo from Wikipedia

We are constantly told that broccoli is Good For Us, and we should eat it often. I do my best - we probably have it once a week or so - but it can be teeny bit boring.
My daughter Katie has a solution; she makes this broccoli salad, and it's always popular at family gatherings.

You will need:

2 big heads of broccoli, cut into very small florets and the stem cut up into tiny pieces
¼ purple onion, chopped fine
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup sultanas
3 rashers of bacon, cut finely and fried until crunchy

Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise (real egg mayonnaise, not sweetened)
Apple cider vinegar to taste (start with 1 tab)
Sugar to taste (start with 1 tspn)
Mix well until sugar is dissolved

Mix all together and add dressing.

Thanks for sharing, Katie!

Update: Katie says - "I must give credit where it's due, to Hugh's sister-in-law Melissa, who made it for us when they visited a few years ago. It's travelled far and wide, this recipe (because it's so yummy)."

A Sunday reflection

No, not a sermon - perish the thought! Just some stuff I've been thinking about as I explore my family history.

When you fill out a Census form - or join Facebook - you are invited to specify your religious beliefs. For many of us, that's the only time we give any thought to religion. But for our ancestors, religion was the stuff of daily life, a vital part of a person's identity. So today I thought I'd look into the belief systems of our German and Irish forbears, and how they came about.

A very short history of Christianity.
The need for some kind of spiritual or religious belief system seems to be an integral part of human nature. Since the first men and women gathered around a fire, every society on the planet has had its rituals and its gods. Even today most individuals acknowledge some Deity or Higher Power as part of their personal ethos. The belief system of our immediate ancestors was Christianity. Whether they were German Lutherans or Irish Catholics, religious beliefs shaped their lives and the societies in which they lived.

In the year 2000, many of us are not regular churchgoers, and are more likely to be passionate about social issues than religious ones. But until recently, religious belief and worship were part of everyday life, and influenced many life-changing decisions.

Sermon on the Mount - Fra Angelico

Christianity began with Jesus Christ, an orthodox Jew born at Bethlehem in around 4 BC. Jesus lived for most of his life at Nazareth in Galilee, where he worked as a carpenter like his father Joseph. At the age of 26, Jesus was baptised by his cousin John the Baptist. Following a period of spiritual retreat in the desert, he began to teach the word of God and to heal the sick. His essential message is contained in the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospels.

To the Roman rulers of Galilee, Jesus and his followers were a potential source of civil discontent. He had a large following, and was openly critical of the Jewish leaders of the day. On a visit to Jerusalem in AD 30, Jesus was arrested and accused of blasphemy by the Jewish establishment. He was handed over to the local Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, who ordered his execution. He was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem.

Convinced of his resurrection and ascent to Heaven as the Son of God, his followers, notably St. Paul, spread his teachings around the Mediterranean. The Romans, normally tolerant of religious diversity, were irked by Christian refusals to acknowledge the Emperor as a deity, and fed quite a few of them to the lions. Martyrdom added lustre to the new religion, and it continued to spread throughout the Roman Empire, until in 312 the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome.

After Constantine’s death the Roman Empire was divided in two. The eastern Empire, based in Constantinople, remained Christian, but western Europe fell to the invading barbarians. Christianity lost ground, and large areas of Europe had to be re-converted in the 6th century. By 1054 the eastern Christians could no longer accept the authority of Rome, and the Christian church split in two - the Eastern Orthodox church, ruled by a Patriarch, and the Roman Catholic church, led by the Pope. The mediaeval Papacy became increasingly powerful with the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, and the wealth and influence of the church led to increasing laxity and abuses.

Martin Luther

In 1517 a Prussian monk and theologian, Martin Luther, was increasingly dismayed by the corruption and decadence of the Church hierarchy. He felt that they had strayed a long way from the original ideals taught by Jesus Christ. When Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of a Catholic church in Wittenberg, Saxony, he was initiating a religious debate in the accepted way. But his protest was the beginning of a new religious era, and heralded the end of the absolute dominance of the Catholic Church in Europe.

His objections, publicised throughout Germany by the emerging printing industry, played right into the hands of the local heads of State, long frustrated by the absolute power of the Holy Roman Empire – really an arm of the Church – and when Luther began urging local rulers to rebel against the iron-handed authority of Rome, they were much inclined to listen. In 1529, many German principalities and towns signed a document of ‘Protestation’ against the Emperor. Thus the members of the new, reformist Lutheran Church came to be known as Protestants.

Irish church ruins

Lutheran dissidence was soon followed by Calvinism in Switzerland, and the English reformation which had began with Henry VII’s rebellion (for his own reasons) against the Pope. Protestantism was popular with the common people, who had resented the huge wealth of the Roman establishment. Europe was quickly divided into the Protestant northern countries and the Catholic south, and religious and civil wars followed.

The Reformers purged their churches of Popish practices and returned to the Bible and the teachings of Christ as the word of God. In the atmosphere of religious fervour which followed, excessive zeal and bigotry were almost inevitable, with long-reaching results for many of our ancestors. Fighting for one’s religion, or enduring persecution for it, tends to confirm a belief in the ‘Rightness’ and ‘One Trueness’ of a personal creed. So Catholics and Protestants became implacable foes, each equally hating and fearing the other, a situation which has endured almost to the present day, and has influenced the decisions and shaped the ways of life of both our Catholic and Protestant forbears.

Even today, many of my relatives actively practice their Catholic or Lutheran faith, and strive to live as good Christians, and for many their faith is a source of comfort and sustenance.

There seems to be far more tolerance between Protestants and Catholics now, unlike the bigotry my parents experienced before their marriage. Today our distrust seem more directed towards members of the Muslim faith, due to the activites of a misguided few.

Interior of Lutheran church, Bethany, SA

For my German forbears, their religion had many positive aspects, not the least of which was literacy - since Martin Luther decreed that all children should attend school, so they could read their Bibles and their hymnbooks. Many parties of Germans emigrating to Australia were actually church congregations, including their Pastor, and a church and school were the first buildings they erected on arrival. Family historians have cause to be grateful to the Lutheran pastors, in Germany and Australia, for the meticulous records they kept.

My great-aunt was  a  nun

By contrast, my Irish convict forbears, Thomas and Bridget, were both illiterate, having been born in an Ireland occupied by the British, where the education of poor Catholic children was discouraged. But theirs  had been a Catholic country for centuries, and succeeding generations were quick to take advantage of any schooling available, and become devout members of their Church once more.

I was raised in the Catholic faith, but as a teenager I became disenchanted with many aspects of the Church. Like many since, I was confused and uncertain of the value of religion in my life. For most of us, that's the end of the matter- we continue to observe the values we have learned, while rejecting faith in a Supreme being.

And yet, all the major religions - Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, Muslim, Buddhist and others - have rules that show us how to live in the world, observing the rights of others, striving for goodness within ourselves. Without this foundation, how do we manage to be good citizens and good people? Have we, in rejecting religion, thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Paradise slice

Gillies Pie and cake shop in Bendigo used to make Paradise slice, but they stopped :-(
I was sad about this, and decided to make my own version, based on a cake my mother used to make.
This is a slice with a pastry base, topped with a light fruit cake, and it's yummy.

 Preheat oven to 180C, grease and paper a 19 x 29 cm slice tin.

 For the base - 125g butter, 2 cups SR flour, 1 cup light brown sugar
Mix flour and sugar, rub in butter to make a fine crumbly mixture.
Press 1/2 the mixture into base of tin. (if you have scales, use them to evenly divide the mixture by weight - otherwise, it's easiest to make two batches of the mixture, using half the ingredients)

The cake - to remaining half of mixture, add
1 well-beaten egg, 2/3 cup milk,
1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice,
and 1 cup mixed dried fruit.
The mixture will be a bit sloppy, that's OK.
Spoon it onto the base, and bake for 45- 60 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Allow to cool in the tin, then ice with pale pink icing, and sprinkle with 100s and 1000s.

This is Mum's original recipe - she called it Armenian Spice Cake.

Preheat oven to 180C, grease and line an 8" square tin (20cm or therabouts)

For the base - mix 2 cups plain flour, 2 tsps baking powder 2 cups light brown sugar.
Rub in 1/2 cup butter (125 g) until you have fine crumbs.
Place half the mixture in the bottom of the prepared tin, and press down well.

Cake mixture - 1 tsp carb soda, 1 cup milk, 1 beaten egg, 1 tsp ground nutmeg.
Dissolve soda in the milk, add the beaten egg and nutmeg, and stir into the remaining crumb mixture.
Pour onto the base, and bake approx 1 hour, until firm when tested.

When cool, ice with white buttercream icing, and sprinkle with nutmeg. (or may be decorated with chopped walnuts if desired.)

BTW, Gillies still sell the best meat pies from their shop on the corner of Williamson St. and Hargreaves Mall, and just a block away, also on Williamson St., the Eaglehawk Bakery sells a wonderful version of Beesting Cake. Just in case you're peckish...

Life in Lautenthal

The record of St Andreas Kirche in Lautenthal show the Niewand family living there from 1785 until they emigrated in 1849. Lautenthal takes its name from the Laute river which flows through the town, and is an ancient village, dating back to at least the 1530s, though the area was inhabited for thousands of years before that.

(Click to enlarge pictures)

Illustration from a book published in 1658. Plumes of smoke at left from the smelters.

The old mine buildings at Lautenthal house a Museum of Mining. It is even possible to be married in the old mine chapel. For the traditionally minded, St. Andreas Kirche still faces the Markplatz as it has done since Martin Luther’s day, though he might be surprised to discover that the church is now shared with the Catholic congregation!

Many residents today run guest houses for visitors, or work in the tourist industry. A modern tourist brochure lists the attractions: in the winter there are snow sports, in the summer sailing on the lakes and hiking through the forests. You can also take a health cure at one of the sanitariums, which features a pump house for the mineral water, a heated pool and mud wraps. The fresh, clean mountain air is an added attraction.

Mining in the Harz
Archeological studies have shown that there were mines in the Harz since the 3rd century. This early mining was done with the simplest technologies. The mines were just holes in the ground down to a depth of about 40 metres, and the ore was brought up with hand winches. Between 1348 and 1379 the Black Death (bubonic plague) raged across Europe; nearly all the people in the Harz died and mining ceased.
In 1532, a prospector found a large silver deposit in the valley of the Laute river, and mining began again with the support of the regional lords. As so many years had passed, nobody knew how to mine any more, and workers had to be recruited from other mining regions.
Most of them came from the Erzgebirge region, near the Czechoslovakian border, and they settled in the Harz with their families. To encourage the new workers, the lords granted special privileges, called "Bergfreiheit" (literally ‘freedom of the mountain).    These privileges included

Lautenthal coat of arms

• exemption from taxation
• the right to hunt
• the right to brew
• the right to fish
• the right to cut wood
• the right to vote

(The history as written implies that the local lords granted these privileges from the goodness of their hearts, but it doesn’t seem likely. The diminished population after the plague had meant labour shortages, and consequently improved bargaining power and general conditions for the peasants of Europe. Those imported miners seem to have been pretty good  industrial negotiators.)

Lautenthal, like most of the towns in the western Harz, dates from this time, and the area soon became prosperous. Originally silver was mined, and later lead, zinc, tin, and some copper. Mining continued there until the 1930’s, when cheaper foreign ore caused most of the mines to close.
Only two mines continued: the Rammelsberg at Goslar, closed in 1988, and the Hilfe Gottes at Bad Grund, which closed in 1992.

Mining has always been difficult, dirty and dangerous work, and the Harz mines were no different. Despite their privileges, the miners of Lautenthal and Bad Grund worked long and hard for their wages.
Originally the only light the miners had was a candle – just one candle each, there was no other lighting in the shafts or in the tunnels. Later carbide lamps were used, and eventually electric lighting.

As the mineral veins were followed into the rock, the mines became ever deeper – some of them as much as 400 metres below ground. So every morning the miners climbed down on ladders. It took about an hour to get down to the working face, and after they had worked their 8 or 12 hour shift, another 2 hours to climb back up again. This 3 hours of climbing wasn’t paid time, either.

In the 1830’s someone finally invented a kind of Bosun’s Ladder, powered by the mine waterwheel, which shortened the up and down time to about 20 minutes each way. Even better, hardly any physical energy was needed. It wasn’t terribly safe, of course, but one can’t have everything.

In the 16th century the only power source for the mines was the huge wooden waterwheels. which enabled the ore to be winched up to the surface. To power these wheels, reservoirs were dug, over 70 of them through the area, connected by ditches.

The only way to keep the mines dry enough for working, was by means of drainage tunnels cut through the rock. For a long time there was no powder or dynamite for blasting, so the tunnels were hewn out by hand with a hammer and miner’s bar. A miner could cut out about 3 metres of rock in a year.

Every mine had a chapel near the entrance, where the miners would assemble before going underground. Here prayers would be said at the start of each shift, followed by a roll call. This not only recorded each man’s working hours, but enabled the management to know how many men were underground in case of an accident.

The miners were well trained – a young miner or Berggesell, (literally ‘miner’s mate’) served an apprenticeship before he could call himself a Bergmann (miner). But miners didn’t often make old bones; if you managed not to fall down a shaft, and avoided anything heavy falling on you, there was still the prospect of ‘miner’s disease’ or silicosis. This was a lung disease caused by breathing the dust in the mines.

If mining was hard on the men, it was also hard on the local countryside. Rivers were dammed and the original forests were cut down for timbering the mine tunnels, and later to make charcoal for smelting the ore. The native bears and wolves are now extinct, but  lynxes, which were also extinct, have recently been re-introduced to the Harz.  Deer, foxes, and badgers still remain.

Extensive reforestation has also taken place - the Harz is now a National Park - and there is a beautiful Arboretum at Bad Grund.

If you want to know more about the region, there are websites for the Harz, Bad Grund, and Lautenthal.

Images in this post from Wikimedia & Wikicommons

Fatherland

My father's family, the Niewands, came to Australia from Germany in 1850. (When we speak today of our German ancestors, we are actually referring to our German-speaking ancestors, as the modern nation of Germany was not established until 1871).  Before that were a number of small states and principalities.

They lived in the Harz mountains region of Lower Saxony, and the menfolk worked in the mines there.

Most of what I know about the family comes from Lutheran church records in two villages, Bad Grund and Lauthenthal. If you look in an atlas, you will find the Harz mountains just south of Hannover, but Lautenthal is too small to show up on most maps.

I have traced the family back to the early 18th century, which is probably the most we’ll ever know. Earlier church records do exist, but they are written in Old German script, and can only be read by experts.
[It is possible that the family may have originally moved to the Harz in the 16th century, from the Erzgebirge region of Eastern Germany, over near the Czechoslovakian border. A very similar family name, Niesewand, is found in that region.]

The original family name was NIEWANDT, according to the old church registers I have seen. This has undergone several changes in Australia, the main branches of the family now using the forms NIEWAND, NEIWAND, and NEIVANDT.
The family members still living in Lautenthal now use the form NIEWAND. The original pronunciation of  Niewandt was neevahnt. Niewands today say neewond.

The multiple and often confusing baptismal names also deserve a mention here. A child might begin life with 3 or 4 given names, usually taken from their baptismal sponsors. Often the last given name would be the one used in everyday life, perhaps in abbreviated form. Thus Dorothea Ernestine Mathilde  may have been Dorchen or Tillie to her family; likewise Carl Gustav Ferdinand might be Gus or Fred, or even Fritz if there were too many Freds around already.

Because several family members had the same names, I have taken the liberty of assigning more familiar ‘pet’ names at times in this account, for the sake of clarity; these will be indicated as the story unfolds.

Our German ancestors were Lutherans, and some of their descendants remain so today. It was customary to choose a partner within their own or neighbouring congregations, a practice which continued for several generations in Australia. The Lutheran pastors kept careful records as successive generations were baptised, confirmed and married according to the familiar rituals. Much of our knowledge of earlier generations has come from Lutheran church registers.

Some branches of the family gradually fell away from the Lutheran church as they became assimilated into the mainstream of Australian society, and lost touch with their German language and traditions. Most remained Protestants, though, in thought if not in practice.

The Germans were a small but significant group among the early settlers of Australia. Some left their homelands for religious reasons, but for most, the motives were economic and socal. Either way, it was a momentous decision. To better understand why the Niewand family left, and the traditions and skills they brought to their new country, we must look back in time to their European origins.

In 1850 the Harz Mountains were part of the Kingdom of Hanover. In modern Germany, this region is called Niedersachsen. These are the most northerly mountains in Germany, between the Weser and Elbe rivers. The range is about 100km long and 32km at the widest point.

The area where the Niewand family lived is the Oberharz, the northwest part of the mountains. Nestled in the valleys are found the villages of Bad Grund and Lautenthal. For hundreds of years the main occupation was mining, as the area is rich in minerals. Today the mines are all closed, and the main industry is tourism.

When Germany was divided after World War II, the Iron Curtain ran right through the middle of the Harz and much of it was off limits to the public. For 45 years the area escaped ‘development’, and has since become a Nature Park. Now that the soldiers and their guard dogs have left, tourists come to these misty mountains to enjoy their gifts.

view of Lautenthal

Today the forests have regenerated or been replanted, and the deciduous beeches, oaks and elms make a fine contrast in autumn against the dark green of the spruce trees. The first snows of winter bring a different beauty, and always there is the sound and sparkle of water. Chattering streams tumble down rocky hillsides, and dozens of lakes reflect the mountains in all their moods.

The earliest record found show the family living at Bad Grund in the early 18th Century. The books of St. Antonius Kirche record the births of the children of  Hennig Heinrich Niewandt and his wife, Gesa Maria (no surname entered). A little mystery surrounds Gesa Maria – her name was entered in the register at the baptism of her daughter Dorothea, but is deliberately omitted from the baptismal records of succeeding children. She was obviously out of favour with the pastors of the time, and may well have been excommunicated, but we can only guess at the reason. The name Gesa is unique in the parish records, which suggests that she was in some way foreign to the village. Orphan, religious dissident, runaway servant, gypsy ? – we will never know.

Hennig and Gesa Maria had four children –

Dorothea Maria b. 1719
Johann Christoph b. 18-7-1723
Johann Jurgen b. 1726
Georg Christian b. 1730

Johann Christoph Niewandt married Dorothea Echert on 5-1-1745.  I wrote about their wedding in an earlier post.
There’s an interesting little story here. Johann was only 21, and still a Bergersell - apprentice miner. Under the strict rules of the Mining Guild, he wasn’t supposed to get married until he finished his training. He would have have been fined, and possibly had his apprenticeship extended. The date, January 5th, was midwinter, not the usual time for a wedding.  All is explained when we look at the next entry.
Johann and Dorothea’s first child, Maria Sophia, was born on February 10th, just a month after the wedding. They had seven children in all-

Maria Sophia b. 1745
Johanne Friederike Marguerite b. 1748
Zacharias Heinrich b. 15-8-1751
Johanna Christina b. 1753
Maria Sophia b. 1755
Johann Friedrich b. 1758
Heinrich Adam b. 1760
There are no more entries in the church at Bad Grund.

At some point after 1760, at least some of the family moved to Lautenthal, about 10 km from Bad Grund.

Fried rice

This recipe would probably horrify a Chinese cook, but it works for me. I don't have a wok, and it's really not necessary to use one. I prepare all the ingredients, and then combine them in a large pot.

This amount will serve 3 people.

Ingredients
1 cup Jasmine rice
1 medium onion (or use spring onions)
3 rashers bacon
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups frozen vegies - peas/peas and corn/frozen mixed vegies.
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
any other vegies you like - broccoli florets, sliced mushrooms.

Method
Cook the rice according to directions on the packet (I prefer the absorption method)
When it's done, fluff it up with a fork, and put aside.

Heat a frypan and add a little oil. Beat the eggs lightly and pour into the frypan, cook gently until set. Remove the resulting omelette to a plate and chop roughly. Set aside.

Fry the onion, mushrooms (if using) and bacon in the same pan. When cooked to your liking, transfer to a large saucepan or a deep frypan. Add the rice and egg, stir gently to combine.
Mix in a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce - you can add more at the table, if needed.

Lightly steam the frozen vegies, celery and broccoli, (I do them in the microwave) and add to the pot.

You're done! Either reheat gently on the stove top, or by the bowl in the microwave.


40 Bags update - I'm plodding along with this, still de-cluttering the kitchen, haven't removed a lot of stuff in the last couple of days, unless you count grease and dust - I have too much open shelving!
The Resident Grandson took down the cover of the exhaust fan today, it's currently soaking in a bath of washing soda. And he washed scrubbed the wall above the stove, a huge improvement.

First bag

Well, not a bag, actually, more of a bin.

Tonight is bin night, and my wheelie bin is stuffed with most of the former contents of my pantry.
I stocked up on garbage bags yesterday, and today was the first day of my 40 Bags in 40 Days project.

I knew this would be the hardest clean-up job of all, and I've done it! Throwing out food, even if it's way out of date, is sooo hard. I felt really guilty.

Never mind that there were packets and jars that were YEARS out of date, it still felt wrong. Tinned food doesn't seem to have use-by dates, but if I couldn't remember buying it, I chucked it.

There were some interesting finds - several packets of tea bags (I never drink tea) bought for visitors, or more likely, to dye fabric. Two bottles of apple cider vinegar - I hate the stuff! Four jars of honey in various stages of sugariness. Yes, I know it keeps forever, but still...

And literally dozens of packets and jars of spice and herbs, some of which I know for certain were ten years old! Still have to wash all the empty jars and refill them.

Not one, but two defunct food processors were lurking in the bottom of the cupboard, along with some empty coffee tins that I couldn't bear to throw out. All gone now.

Here's my eerily bare pantry. At least I know what's in it now!

I'm not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow account of each day's decluttering, but maybe a weekly update, to keep myself on track. I think it's going to take more that 40 days....

A new year

A bright new year begins, I hope it's a happy and peaceful one for all!

New Year's Day is a time to think about the year ahead, make a few plans, set a few goals. It's usually the day when I go through the new calendar and fill in all the birthdays and special anniversaries. But I haven't bought a calendar yet, so that will have to wait.

I don't really do New year resolutions, believing they are doomed to failure, but I found this idea on Clover Lane and it's pretty tempting. It's called 40 Bags in 40 Days.

 The idea is that, one day at a time, you rid your house of 40 bags of stuff...things you don't love, don't use, junk, accumulated stuff, clutter, garbage.

Originating on one of the many Catholic Mommy blogs, it began as  Lenten challenge (40 days in Lent) but you can do it any time of the year - and take as many days as you need to declutter your home.

The important things is to keep the momentum going - clean out one area/room/cupboard EVERY DAY until you're done.

I'm reminded of the quote from William Morris: "Have nothing is your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

You need a plan - make a list of all the places you want to clean out, and then each day you fill one bag or box with stuff you don't need or want - toys, clothes, papers – anything, a box of books, an old TV. Anything that you can count as clutter is fair game.

If you Google "40 bags in 40 days", you'll find lots of bloggers who took up the challenge, and posted pictures of terrifyingly neat wardrobes, cupboards, drawers and bookshelves. If you're interested in pursuing the idea, Sarah on Clover Lane has some helpful suggestions.

Now those of you who know me may be aware that my house would benefit from some decluttering. I'm the original packrat, and can't bear to throw out anything that might possible be useful - one day.
I won't embarrass myself by showing pictures of my sewing room, but even apart from the explosion of fabric and "stuff" in there, there's plenty of scope for decluttering in the rest of the house - I could spend a week on the kitchen alone!

But the idea of taking it one bag/day at a time appeals to me. Maybe I could do that.

And if, like so many resolutions Good Ideas, I run out of steam, at least a few areas of the house would be tidier - I can't lose, can I?
Better make a list. Now let me see -

• pantry
• sink cupboard
• saucepan cupboard
• baking cupboard
• overhead cabinets
• kitchen drawers

I may possibly need a skip....