Salt Mining in Bavaria

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The 26 eclectic-genre short stories for my #AtoZChallenge are excerpts from travelogue notes by

novel character Gahlen, who first appeared in SHARDS OF MEMORY – Oral History in a Heartbeat.

Each A-to-Z daily post is a complete, stand-alone tale.

By Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9600537

Salt Mining in Bavaria

Genre: Fiction – Brotherly Love

(389 words)

Herman started at the mine in early spring. He had taken the old buckboard to check out job openings and got hired on the spot. I didn’t follow until after harvest season on the farm.

“With me starting earlier, Baldwin,” he told me, “you have to work hard to catch up.”

The mine that hired us wasn’t as large as Salzbergwerk Dürrnberg. But the job still took some getting used to. Before heading underground, we pulled on coveralls and adjusted helmets on our heads for safety. Someone made roll call before each shift.

The most fun was getting to the work area. We sailed on a saddlecloth cushion down a track, like a backyard slide. Once underground, we placed magnetic markers by our names to show accounting. We removed the markers at end of shift. Miners who forgot were docked pay.

Our shifts went Monday morning to noon Saturday. The job didn’t take much thought, just lots of muscle chiseling away at salt walls. The chiseled salt was hauled to the solution chamber where it got turned into brine. Finally, it was processed at the Sudhäuser, a salt house in town.

Forklifts and other machinery did much of the heavy work. Neither of us knew how to operate them, having used only work horses on the farm. Herman complained about not being allowed to run the machines but I was content chipping salt.

After three years, Herman grew bored and requested a change. Soon we were both promoted to the Sudhäuser. The job was still exhausting, but we received more pay. With most expenses covered, we sent half our money back to the farm.

A riveted-metal salt pan shaped like a horseshoe hung from the ceiling of the salt house, supported by brick columns. We heated brine in that pan until the water evaporated and the white salt turned to crystals. Every couple of hours, we emptied the salt into huge cone-shaped holders and packed it down to form plugs. Someone else dragged the plugs to baking ovens for drying.

We spent six years in the Sudhäuser before Herman declared Bavaria’s economy would never improve. He wanted to experience more from life. He always knew when to move on. Soon we were sailing the Atlantic toward the new world.

I sure was grateful Herman always let me tag along.

*****

Great Honors Bestowed by Ludwig

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The 26 eclectic-genre short stories for my #AtoZChallenge are excerpts from travelogue notes by

fictional character Gahlen, who first appears in SHARDS OF MEMORY – Oral History in a Heartbeat.

Each A-to-Z daily post is a stand-alone tale - partly true, partly fiction.

By Bernhard Grueber (1807-1882) - Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22559640

Great Honors Bestowed by Ludwig

Genre: European History

(356 words)

“Ludwig I of Bavaria was the Crown Prince when he came up with the idea for the Walhalla plan,” Georg said without preamble, an auspicious trait in a guide although he had grown to be more of a friend to us. “The buildings he commissioned were by far his shining moments, especially the Walhalla museum. Ludwig wanted to recognize the wave of patriotism that was growing among the Germanic states in Eastern Europe. Napoleon had taken control, something that could not stand. Ludwig wanted to honor great people and events in his history.

“His plans would cover history all the way back to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 A.D. He wanted to commemorate scientists along with clerics and writers, women especially. Not to minimize his honorable intentions, but maybe his guilt was in play, also.”

Obviously, Georg enjoyed referencing the king’s extramarital affairs, likely focusing heavily on the scandal with Lola that lost him the throne.

“Construction took some time to commence. Artists had completed busts of sixty famous people before construction began. He was coronated King Ludwig before he actually commissioned the temple. The location he chose for construction was overlooking the Danube. As a model for the building, he had in mind the Parthenon in Athens. The architect used those exact dimensions, which seems more like copying than designing, but who am I to judge?

“The main criterion for people selected to have a place in the museum was that they speak German. Or, being ‘of the German tongue’ to be more specific. Ludwig had another requirement to receive the honor. His interest was not so much in bestowing upon people of achievement some sort of special honor; his interest was more in honoring great people in the fields of arts and sciences.

“One final eligibility requirement was that the person must be dead for at least twenty years.” Georg gave each of us a quick glance, an obvious twinkle in his eye. “Fair warning, just in case you were thinking of nominating me for a position.”

Once again, this elderly gentleman had managed to elicit our spontaneously laughter.

*****

E is for EASTERN EUROPEAN ANCESTORS #IWSG #AtoZChallenge

For this year's challenge, my theme is The Fun in Writing. Each of my 26 posts for April is aimed at illustrating fun parts of an author's day. A writer doesn't only write.
Creating a story or an essay requires research, revision, editing, and lots of coffee and chocolate.

This is also Insecure Writer's Support Group Day. #IWSG

What I have learned over the years from the A to Z Challenge is that composing 26 blog posts with a theme each April has done wonders for reducing my insecurity about having the ability to produce coherent sentences. (Apparently, it has done nothing to help me reduce my rambling sentences!)

E is for Eastern European Ancestors

This is the first of four Wednesday A-to-Z posts related to my research for a novel based on my ancestors: sixteen great-great grandparents who shared the experience of emigrating from (out of) Eastern Europe (and ultimately immigrating (in)to the United States.)

Those of you who have researched any of your family history know the exciting experience of discovering a new relative or a "lost" ancestor. Since the advent of internet ancestry sites, such as Ancestry.com, finding elusive elements of your family tree is exceptionally easier than when I first began my research.

The detective work involved, though, was possibly more fun back when the search involved greater effort than typing in a name and clicking on a "search" key.

Some of branches of my family tree originated in the Eastern European countries of Bohemia, Prussia, and Bavaria. Accomplishing my research in those areas required heavy dependence on library books and the internet. Closer to home, my sister and I took a "cemetery" tour I had mapped out, traveling around the Wisconsin countryside to all of the known locations where relatives were reportedly interred.

Every encounter of successfully discovering another ancestor's cemetery tombstone is an energizing event.

But writing stories about life in Eastern Europe during the early 1800s,

based on my earlier research, is equally exhilarating!

 

Here is a page from my cemetery research files:

Maternal Great-Great Grandparents, Caroline Heider & Gustave Maigatter
In 1866, Gustave immigrated with his parents from Magdeburg, an important Prussian fortress until 1912:
most of the city was destroyed in World War II (1939-1945).