What began as one poet-professor's attempt to trace
his family's history has culminated in a book that documents the origins
of his German-American community in southern Indiana.
"Finding the Grain: Pioneer German Journals and Letters from Dubois
County, Indiana" is a collection of letters, journals, memoirs, passport
papers, and "farewell" poems documenting the immigrant origins
of Norbert Krapf's native German-Catholic community in the hills of southern
Indiana. The book took 25 years to research and write.
Dr. Krapf, a professor of American literature at the C.W. Post Campus of
Long Island University in Brookville, New York, began to trace his family
history in 1971 after his first visit to Germany. During a subsequent visit
to southern Indiana, he came upon the untranslated father-and-son journals
of his maternal ancestors, which included a description of an 1833 voyage
to America. He soon thereafter discovered similar unpublished documents
in the possession of other families.
A much shorter bicentennial edition of "Finding the Grain" was
published in 1977. That edition, which included Dr. Krapf's translations
of German folktales and a selection of his ancestral poems, generated interest
in the German heritage of the area and led to the discovery of additional
materials. These include 66 letters of the dynamic Croatian missionary Rev.
Joseph Kundek, detailing his vision and development of a "German-Catholic
colony" in the wilderness. Letters and journals by Kundek's working-class
followers tell their story of becoming a part of his religious, social,
and economic community.
Krapf writes, "I hope that these immigrant writings, together with
my introductions and annotations, will provide not just some of the facts
behind the immigration story, but some of the feelings behind those facts
as well."
Donations from 21 foundations, corporations, and individuals in Dubois County,
Indiana, and a series of grants from Long Island University's C.W. Post
Research Committee, helped underwrite the project, which required 25 years
of research, including three sabbatical leaves of absence. Ten individuals
or teams of individuals translated the documents during the course of the
project.
The 300-page volume, published by the Max Kade German-American Center of
Indiana University, Indianapolis, with the Indiana German Heritage Society
and the Dubois County Historical Society, will appeal to the general reader
interested in family history, genealogy, and the story of the Germans in
America, as well as specialists in the fields of German-American Studies,
immigration history, and the history of the Midwest and the Catholic Church
in the United States.
In March, 1997, Time Being Books of St. Louis published a related book Dr.
Krapf worked on during the same period of time, Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of
Germany.
Finding the Grain is available for $18 (plus $3 shipping and handling) from
the publisher, NCSA Literature, 430 Kelp Grove Road, Nashville, IN 47448.
For more information call the C.W. Post Public
Relations Office at (516) 299-2333 or e-mail cwpostpr@aurora.liunet.edu
January 1997 |
