German Poem - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

German Poem

My wife’s Mother has moved to the Landings Assisted Living facility in Sidney, so while the family was preparing her home for sale, my sister-in-law Joan ran across this framed German poem among her mother’s belongings. Because it was framed so nicely, it was assumed to be an important memento. When her Mother was asked about the framed poem, she didn’t recall it at all, nor could she translate it. So Joan posted it on an ancestral family Facebook page asking for help making the translation with the following post: Our mom, Hilda Poeppelman Francis has had this letter hanging upstairs for years. We believe it is written in Sutterlin German from the 1900’s. Her father was William Poeppelman and mother Emma Winner. They both passed at a young age and our mom has no recollection of where it came from. We feel it must have been important for her to have framed and held for all these years. Can anyone help us to decipher? Thank you all for any help!

The founder and administrator of the site, Diane Poeppelman O’Connor, does a wonderful job keeping the site fresh with both ancestral and current photos and stories about the Poeppelman family. For example, she has an index card for all the various ancestors going all the way back to Germany in the 1830’s. I’ve written about the family in this previous blogpost including their trip to the family homeland in Germany.

Thanks to the group, several German speaking friends of the family Facebook site made piece-meal attempts to translate the poem, which at the time, wasn’t even known to be a poem. But some hints began to emerge:

Then one of the friends forwarded the German poem to someone in Germany and received the following response:

More details followed and finally, the English translation was generated and posted, to help uncover the purpose behind framing and saving the keepsake for all these years.

Joan's post:

Although the following obituary for Emma doesn’t indicate that she was pregnant at the time of her death, family lore says she was.

Emma & William's wedding day Nov 18, 1919

The framed poem with the translation pasted on the back now hangs in Hilda’s room at the Landings in loving memory of her dear Mother.

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