Straubing's Geschwister Scheitzach Sanger und Schuhplattler Truppe (of 1915)

Friday, February 12, 2016

 Scheitzach Children's Singing and German Dancing Troupe

One day when I was a teenager I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework when I asked my mom to make some dessert for me to take to German class at school.

“Herr Swoboda likes your strudel so he came up with a reason to have another one of his ‘cultural’ days this Friday.” 

She probably answered me with “I’ll see what I can do.” 

German language class was one thing my mother and I had in common to talk about.  Throughout my childhood, Mom, who was born in and grew up in Straubing, Germany, lightly peppered our talks with names of German food and tales of her childhood.  ‘Lightly pfeffered’ might be an overstatement.  She was fairly close-lipped about what must have been a very challenging time growing up in wartime Germany and rarely said anything about her family.

As the conversation went on, and while she folded yet another load of clothes out of the dryer, she stood at the table with me. 

I asked her what she did for fun and ‘culture’ when she was a kid or something along that line. 

She said she always wanted to play “one of those things, you know…” and she mimicked playing an accordion.

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I replied.  “Did anyone in your family play any musical instruments?”

That’s when she told me that her grandfather Scheitzach was a musician.  And, that the family had a Schuhplattler troupe.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She likely made a few classic Schuhplattler moves and I, being an idiot, probably laughed because then she said, “Oh, you kids!  You think everything is dumb!” 

That shut her up.  I wasn’t going to hear any more about it after that. 

Fast forward to last year. 

While doing genealogy research on my German ancestry, I Googled ‘Straubing, Scheitzach, and Schuhplattler.’  I came across a foreign ebay-like site and a picture of a postcard of Straubing's Geschwister Scheitzach Sanger und Schuhplattler Truppe of 1915. 

What!?

Since then I have put the word out to my international contacts to identify what the post card says.  Hoping to identify the lady and children on the card, I have connected with other Scheitzachs.  I have learned that what is written on the postcard is the name of the person who sent it—Ersatz-Reservist K. Wallmoller or Waltmuller.  He was a corporal replacement reservist in German Infantry Regiment 10 in Straubing.  I also learned that my mother’s grandfather, the Musiker (musician), Great Grandfather Georg Scheitzach, was a WWI German soldier and later a reservist.

So, while I have not yet identified the people, I’m calling them my kin.  They are in the right place at the right time with the right name to be my family's Scheitzach Schuhplattlers.

I absolutely love this picture.