Anna Elizabeth Wulliman Johnston (1916 – 1986) 52 Ancestors Week #17

I have two new genealogy heroes in my world this week. One passed away in 1986 at the age of 70, and the other is young enough to be my daughter.  Both have added in their own way to my knowledge of my family and have enriched my family history.

My story starts in 1978 when my mother’s aunt by marriage (i.e. her aunt’s sister-in-law) decided, for reasons of her own, to make a homemade cassette recording of stories from her childhood in Berne, Indiana. On the A side, she recorded her stories in English, and on the B side, she recorded them in a language she called Swiss German, or more simply, Swiss.  She gave a copy of this tape to her family, which they presumably put away among their family mementos.

Fast forward thirty years, when a bright, young grad student studying linguistics is looking for a project for her master’s thesis. She reflects on her childhood in Berne, Indiana, and the older members of her community that speak a unique dialect of German. She realizes that this language and its attending culture is dying out due to assimilation into mainstream America.

She decides to interview as many members of this population as she can, and to document their nearly-extinct language. She meets with community members in their homes and in nursing care. She conducts sensitive interviews that enable them to reflect on their pasts and remember things long forgotten. As they struggle to remember vocabulary and expressions, they also come to life with long-forgotten jokes, traditions and treasured memories.  The interest she takes, as a scholar and as a Swiss descendant, invokes a sense of pride in members of an otherwise humble community.

During her interviews, someone mentions the tape made by my mother’s aunt, Anna Elizabeth Wulliman Johnston. This tape with its dual languages becomes, if not a Rosetta stone, at least a cornerstone of the master’s thesis. It contains phrases that are written verbatim into the report, and show the unique vocabulary and phrasing that differentiates this dialect from traditional German as spoken in Germany or in Switzerland.

Gretta, the grad student, goes to great lengths in her thesis, to explain the history of these people (my ancestors as well as hers!) who segregated themselves into a mountain community, even while living in Switzerland, in order to evade religious persecution. Years of isolation caused their language to develop into a dialect, distinct from the mainstream language. Then in the 1800’s, they traveled to the U.S., settling in a few small communities in northern Ohio, and in one community in particular, Berne, Indiana.

As many immigrants do, they kept their customs and their language intact for a generation or two. My own grandmother, Verena Burry, born in 1912, and growing up in Berne, spoke only Swiss German at home. She did not learn English until she went to school. As an adult, my own mother regretted that she had not also been raised to be bilingual. But by then, two wars with Germany had caused most American German speakers to suppress their language, in order to protect themselves and their children.

The result is a language, and a culture, that is all but gone. Gretta’s thesis and her documentation of the language means that it will not be forgotten altogether. And my mother’s aunt, who lacked Gretta’s education and sophistication, still came to the same conclusion: Her culture and her language were important, and they were being forgotten. She and Gretta made the same decision; they would take action to preserve the past. And in so doing, they met across 30 years to collaborate to that end.

I’ve been blessed by both these women. Because of them, I have a better understanding of my family’s culture and past. I also have a better appreciation for my grandmother’s mother tongue. When I was little, she would always tell me that she spoke “Swiss German”. When I got older, I assumed that was a needlessly redundant expression, and that she simply spoke German. Thanks to Gretta’s thesis, I now understand how significantly her dialect was tied to her family, her culture, and her past.

When I told my mother about the thesis, I asked if she had ever heard of Ann Wulliman Johnston, as I recognized Wulliman as my lovely Aunt Selma’s last name. My mother became excited at the mention of “Aunt Annie’s” name and launched into recollections of what a wonderful woman she had been. She had never heard of the tape before but immediately said that it sounded like something Aunt Annie would do, as she was always very clever and had a lot of initiative. My mom then said longingly how much she’d like to hear the tape, and the sound of her Aunt’s voice again.

I then tracked down Gretta via facebook and asked her to please make me a copy that I could give to my mother as a gift. Happily, she agreed and I hope to be able to give her a copy this Mother’s Day.

I know that sometimes when I write these family history stories I feel like I am whispering into the wind. Family members are so busy and so scattered and so focused on their own problems that they don’t have time for, or interest in, the past. I’m sure Aunt Annie felt that way as well when she made her cassette tape. There were probably recipients who thanked her politely, put in on a shelf, and didn’t think of it again – until after she was gone, or until an eager grad student came knocking on their door. So, Aunt Annie is an inspiration to me, to keep researching and to keep writing, because someday, somewhere there may be someone who discovers what I’ve written, and says, “I’m so glad she did”.

Aunt Annie is related to my grandmother through marriage. She was the sister-in-law of my grandmother’s sister. I’ve added three generations of her lineage to my family tree, in case it would be of help to any of her descendants.  You can click the link in her name to be taken to her entry in the family tree.  If you are related to this week’s subject of the 52 Ancestor Challenge,  Anna Wulliman Johnston, her sister-in-law Selma Burry Wulliman, my grandmother Verena Burry, or any members of the extended Burry family, I would love to hear from you.

Source:

Berne, Indiana Swiss Gernam: Lessons learned from a small-scale documentation project by Yoder, Gretta Owen, University of North Dakota, 2010, 165 pages.