As a child I grew up listening to my mother read us nursery rhymes, poems, fairy tales, and fables from the six volume My Book House collection, with its marvelous illustrations. A favorite was this version of the first of a trilogy of tales about elves by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm with the common title "Die Wichtelmänner."
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| My Book House: In the Nursery, pg. 362 |
The fairy tale begins:
Once upon a time there was a shoemaker who worked hard and was very honest; but still he could not earn enough to keep himself and his wife.
At the beginning of the tale, the shoemaker and his wife are destitute, and have only enough leather for a single pair of shoes. But with the help of some anonymous elves who appear at night while the shoemaker is sleeping, and who make shoes that delight buyers, the couple work their way out of poverty. Around Christmas they stay awake at night to discover that their helpers are some naked elves.
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| The shoemaker and his wife discover their anonymous helpers... |
The word "shoemaker" is "Schuhmacher" in German, and I was happy to discover that word in the 1837 marriage record of my G3 (great-great-great) grandparents Carl Friedrich Becker and Justina Wilhelmine Czechanowska, showing the shoemaker marrying a shoemaker's daughter:
Der Junggefell Mgstr: Carl Friedrich Becker, 24y 7m, Schumacher in Lobsens; mit Jgfr: Justine Wilhelmine Czechanowska, 23y 3m, Schumacher Tochter in Lobsens.
Lobsens is now called Łobżenica; the Google maps app tell us it is now "a town in Piła County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland, with 3,211 inhabitants." Back in 1837 this was part of Prussia, and it had a mix of German-speaking and Polish-speaking inhabitants. The Meyers gazetteer, dating to 1871-1918, documents 2,376 inhabitants, with a Catholic church, a Protestant church, and a Synagogue. My ancestors were the Germans, who had probably come from parts of present-day Germany in the 1700s, and may have even been familiar with the Grimm's fairy tales first published in 1812.
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| Meyers Gazetteer entry for Lobsens |
Tracing this ancestry back, I found Justine Czechanowska was born in 1814 to master shoemaker Johann Czechanowski and his wife Wilhelmine Brokat, and Wilhelmine Brokat was born in 1789 to Johann Michael Brokat, also a shoemaker, and all in Lobsens.
Wilhelmine Brokat was the first of 10 children of Johann Michael Brokat and Dorothea Sophia Schoenfeldt who married 20 Sep 1789, two months before Wilhelmine was born. I lose the trail there, for both the Brokat and Schoenfeldt lines. But it was fun to know that I have G3, G4, and G5 grandfathers who were shoemakers, dating back to before the Grimm Brothers' tales.
In 2015 my wife Patti and I spent a few days in Poland with a local genealogist. We were in Łobżenica one of the days, and stopped in at a museum of local history. A book in a display case had a plate with the words "Księga Cechu Szewców w Łobżenicy. Czas powstania: 1783 r. Przekazal: Antoni Knajdek" – in English, "Book of the shoemakers' guild in Łobżenica; Creation time: 1783 Transmitted by: Antoni Knajdek."
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| Guild book for shoemakers, Łobżenica museum... |
We weren't able to look inside the book – the museum director was not there – but I am very curious whether any of my ancestors are listed in that book. Being a trade that was regulated by a guild kept the population of shoemakers small, making it hard to get into the profession unless you were born into it, or like my ancestors, married into it!
My G2 grandfather, Rudolf Reinhold Becker, son of Carl Friedrich, did not follow in his father's footsteps: he became a stone mason, emigrated to Wisconsin, and left behind his handiwork in more permanent form in various Fond du Lac County buildings.
Returning to the fairy tale: the shoemaker and his wife create some clothing and shoes for the elves, and leave them out for a surprise. The elves are delighted with their new clothing and prance away, gone forever, and everyone lives happily ever after.
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| The elves are delighted with their new clothing... |
In the Grimms' German tale the elves sing:
"Sind wir nicht Knaben glatt und fein? Was sollen wir länger Schuster sein!"
The English translation was not in the My Book House version of the tale; perhaps it didn't rhyme, but I find the rhyme part of the magic of the tale. I spent a bit of time going down a rabbit hole in Google searching for more information on shoemakers and guilds; shoes have been such a big part of our culture, and the profession likewise an important one, it was a fascinating way to spend some time.
Sources
Miller, Olive Beaupré, ed. 1925. My Book House. Vol. In the Nursery. 6 vols. Chicago: The Bookhouse for Children. Note: "The Shoemaker and the Elves" is on pages 362-367, adapted from Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm.
“The Elves and the Shoemaker.” 2023. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Elves_and_the_Shoemaker&oldid=1170900475.
Evangelische Kirche Lobsens (Kr. Wirsitz) (Łobżenica (Wyrzysk), Poland), Kirchenbuch, 1773-1944, Family History Center, 875 Quince Ave Santa Clara, California, Film 245520: Heiraten 1821-1856, 1874-1883 Taufen 1882-1887.
Such interesting family history! Shoemaker marrying a shoemaker's daughter.
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