What if yur ancestors arrived when the war was in progress?

[samgrant]

Anyone's ancestors arrived in the midst of the war?

What was that experience lke for them?

[ole]

Sam:
Paternal ancestors arrived before and shortly after the war (1852 and 1866). The only effect the war had on the one was "prizes" of flour, sugar, salt, farm hands, cloth, etc. He was 50 when the war broke out and, as a veteran of 15 years in a European army, I suspect he'd had enough soldiering to last him.

Why the other came so shortly after the war ended is beyond me, but he did.

Ole

[larry_cockerham]

My daughter-in-law's third great grandfather August Oeser arrrived from Germany to Nashville in 1858 at age 35, again really too old for getting excited about the war and obviously not being a West Point man. He was naturalized in Nashville 13 Sep 1858. Having a large family and being a blacksmith and wagon maker probably kept him quite busy in federally occupied Nashville. He bought a farm south of town in 1872 where he lived out his days until 1884. I suspect language barrier was a major obstacle to many of the folks immigrating 1860-65?

[ole]

Larry:
My ancestors (like most immigrants) moved into areas already heavily populated by countrymen. They needed English only when they had to deal with those outside their group. Church services and local newspapers helped maintain the old language. My father, born 55 years after his grandfather set foot on US soil, grew up bilingual. I never learned a word of it.

Was there a significant German population in Nashville in 1858?

Ole

[larry_cockerham]

Ole, probably significant, but small. Nashville only had about ten thousand population prior to the war. Lots of meat packers in the bunch. There is an area, now greatly overpriced real estate wise, known as Germantown which was a strong, but small community after the war until about 1920 or so when it faded for a while physically. The Werthan Bag company was located in the community which belonged to the central 'character' in the movie Driving Miss Daisy. There is also a small Jewish community in Belle Meade, but small in population. The Werthans, jewish Germans, contributed greatly to Vanderbilt University. Two German restaurants and not one good deli today in a town of 600,000. Guess there are more of us out-of-town Germans than leftovers from the immigration.