Food and Family History

I am thinking about food in my family history. I have a binge eating disorder and weight related lymphatic disorder. I am also studying Internal Family Services. I am interested if I carry a legacy burden about food. I would mainly wonder if it's through my maternal grandmother, Inez Campbell, who's ancestors are mainly the Heymans from Germany. I'm curious when they immigrated and what was going on about food. 

Also, when during my grandmother's life was the Great Depression occurring (1929-1933).  My gramma, Inez, was born in 1907, so she would have been 22 to 26, during the depression.  My mother was born in 1939, when Inez was 32.  Her father Arnold Heyman was the 8th child of 13. Her mother Henriette, was the oldest of 8 children.

Arnold Cyrus Heyman and Inez Heyman (later Campbell)

"For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet.

When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.

At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.

As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass."

source on facebook

My mother, Andrea, wrote this:

"Because my dad left teaching in such a collapsed mental state, we wound up living on the farm between Albany and Corvallis from the time I was about five years old.  I was there till I left for Reed at 17.

The farm was all about food.  The main crop that provided income for my grandpa, parents, uncle and his wife and two kids was feed and seed corn, corn to be fed to animals and used to grow more corn.  This required work in the fields most of the year and work in the warehouse drying and treating the corn most of the rest of the time.

But besides the income crop, we grew and raised all our own food.  There were vegetable gardens, fruit orchards, cows and steers for meat and milk, pigs for meat, chickens for meat and eggs.  Meat was frozen and stored in a building in town where we rented a space.  My mom spent plenty of hours canning and bottling various fruits and vegetables - often in a community cannery.

So we had big meals for working farm people.  They were always on the clock.  Breakfast early after my dad had been out to milk the cows.  Cooked cereal, various fried dishes that involved meat and eggs and potatoes.  This was a frequent favorite - scrapple (https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cornmeal-scrapple/).  Fruit juice.  Lunch was a bit lighter than dinner but still robust.  Everyone present.  Dinner involved some kind of  meat, vegetables, and salad.  My mother said it was important also how it looked.  Colors had to be attractive.  There were some things I never liked - like fried onions.  Lots of roasts.  I don't remember any talk about nutrition but all the food groups were covered.  Oh yes, and dessert at dinner - major baked goods.

So for all those years food in plenitude was a given.  What balanced it was activity.  Everyone on the farm was up and moving all day long.  This was before TV in the early years.  I had chores but most of the time I wandered the farm, hiking what seemed like miles by myself.  Climbing trees of course.  Swimming in the river where it could be possible.

It was only after I left home that I learned about other kinds of diets - macrobiotic, vegetarian, etc.  The food of other countries -  Asian, Mexican, etc.  Many years ago I abandoned pork almost totally and beef mostly because of what I read about the down side.  Had to carve way back on sugar when I verged on diabetes some years back.  

I do notice when living alone or during this pandemic time especially of isolation, a lot of comfort food choices from the store.  Bits and pieces, snacks, etc."

Inez was born on 2/7/07 in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Her brother, Lud, was born in 1908, when the family lived in Albequerque, NM.

By age 7, in 1914, WWI began.

"Although the United States did not have food rationing in World War I, it relied heavily on propaganda campaigns to persuade people to curb their food consumption.[citation needed] Through slogans such as "Food Will Win the War", "Meatless Meals", and "Wheatless Wednesdays", the United States Food Administration under Herbert Hoover reduced national consumption by 15%.[1]" source

My grandmother was 9 in 1916.  The Spanish Flu started in 1918. The family had moved to Deming, NM.

Spanish Flu

New Mexico was poorly prepared for the Spanish flu. “We were a poor state,” said Melzer, whose article, “A Dark and Terrible Moment: The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918,” appeared in the New Mexico Historical Review in 1982. “We were dealing with the wounded and those with other problems coming back from the war. We had few doctors and nurses and those were depleted by the war.” source

"In a Spring 1963 Oregon Historical Quarterly article, “The 1918 ‘Spanish Influenza’ Pandemic in Oregon,” author Ivan M. Woolley opens with a question: “From whence did it come and to where did it go?” This question about plagues and pandemics, Woolley argues, is one that scientists and historians have pondered for ages. Woolley cites examples of pandemics that are well documented throughout history: an onslaught described by Hippocrates in 412 B.C.E. that destroyed an Athenian army, the Black Death of the fifteenth century, and the 1918 “Spanish” influenza pandemic, which infected twenty to thirty percent of the world’s population and resulted in 50 million deaths worldwide — about 675,000 of them Americans. The Oregon State Board of Health listed 48,146 cases of the virus between October 1, 1918, and September 30, 1920, and 3,675 resulting deaths." source

Currently, in Oregon, we've had 19,979 cases, 342 deaths due to Coronavirus.

The family moved to Albany, OR, when Inez was 14, in 1921.

Inez started college at Albany College and later transferred to Reed in Portland, OR, where she later met my grandfather.  She was unfortunately compelled to quit Reed in 1928, due to poor health, though I don't know specifics. 

Great Depression

My grandparents were married in September of 1929, just as the Great Depression was starting. Black Thursday was Oct 24, 1929.  

"Not only was access to food limited by rationing, many people had to turn to soup kitchens, which are places where people can go and get a free meal, or food stamps, which are booklets of stamps that could be used to buy food, cleaning supplies, and other necessities, to get enough food to feed their families. " source

She later finished her BA at U of O, in Eugene, OR.  The couple moved to Palo, Alto, while Malcolm completed his PhD in psychology at Stanford.

Loss and new life

My great grandmother, Henriette, died due to kidney failure 6/9/39, while Inez was pregnant with my mother. Andrea was born 7/24/39.

WWII

At 33, the young family moved to Albany, OR, in 1940. Partners in Heyman-Campbell Farms and took part in war effort. WII (39-45).  "The war gripped the United States and Oregonians. Dozens of towns erected permanent billboards that carried the names of citizens killed in defense of their country. Oregon had 2,826 wartime deaths and over 5,000 wounded." source

Rationing during WWII "Even though thousands of items became scarce during the war, only those most critical to the war effort were rationed. Key goods such as sugar, tires, gasoline, meat, coffee, butter, canned goods and shoes came under rationing regulations. Some important items escaped rationing, including fresh fruit and vegetables. And, much to the relief of millions, whiskey and cigarettes went unscathed by regulations, although shortages appeared from time to time. "

In 1953, my grandmother was 46 and my mother was 14.

During the Korean War and the Vietnam War (1954-1975),

In 1956, became Children's Librarian in Albany and in 1958 in Corvallis. 

Farms were sold in 1966.

Here my mother was 29 and Inez was 61.

Grandma and Heymans in 1975.

My grandmother had adult onset type II Diabetes. She also had diverticulitis. She loved sweets. She kept chocolate hidden around the house. She and I would go out for pie or ice cream. The next day she would be in the hospital. I think it's possible she had Lipedema also, though not as advanced as mine.

My grandmother died at the age of 82, on 4/7/89, in Corvallis, OR.

Inez Marie Heyman (2/7/07 -4/7/89)
born 2/7/1907 065-09-0998
place Crystal Lake, Illinois
father Arnold Cyrus Heyman (1877-1875)- German/Swiss
mother Henriette Wilhelmina Ludwig (1877-1939) - German***

Henriette died a month before her only granddaughter, Andrea, was born. She died of kidney failure from taking too much aspirin for migraines

(****Ludwig surname descended from:

Matthias Gabbert

born 1728
Schwaigern, Germany
immigrated to America before 1750

"Between 1742 and 1753, roughly 1,000 Germans settled in Broad Bay, Massachusetts (now Waldoboro, Maine). Many of the colonists fled to Boston, Maine, Nova Scotia, and North Carolina after their houses were burned and their neighbors killed or carried into captivity by Native Americans. The Germans who remained found it difficult to survive on farming, and eventually turned to the shipping and fishing industries.^[32]

The tide of German immigration to Pennsylvania swelled between 1725 and 1775, with immigrants arriving as redemptioners or indentured servants." (wikipedia)

William Frederick Heyman

born Kaltenholzhausen, Duchy Nassau, Germany, 2/18/1839
died Lyme Township, Huron County, OH 4/5/1905
parents John George Heyman and Maria Opperman
occupation farmer

Verena Francis Ballmer born Lausen, Switzerland, 5/7/1844
parents Johan Ballmer and Verena Buser, Swiss
died Lyme Township, Huron County, OH 1/10/1901

marriage before 1865

I don't know the circumstances of her immigration

"Before the year 1820 some estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Swiss entered British North America. Most of them settled in regions of today's Pennsylvania as well as North and South Carolina. In the next years until 1860 about as many Swiss arrived, making their homes mainly in the Midwestern states such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Approximately 50,000 came between 1860 and 1880, some 82,000 between 1881 and 1890, and estimated 90,000 more during the next three decades."  Swiss immigration diminished after 1930 because of the depression and World War II, but 23,700 more Swiss had arrived by 1960, followed by 29,100 more between 1961 and 1990, many of whom were professionals or employees in American branches of Swiss companies who later returned to Switzerland.^[6]

wikipedia"

Swiss Anabaptists and Mormons immigrated to leave religious oppression. https://theswisscenter.org/swiss-emigration

My great grandfather was a Forty Eighter

Great3: John George Heymann
born Kaltenholzhausen, Duchy Nassau, Germany 9/1/1795
Emigrated with his wife and children from Kaltenholzhausen, Nassau, Germany in 1848
Their passport was stamped in Le Havre, France, May 1848 departure to New York

"In the decade from 1845 to 1855, more than a million Germans fled to the United States to escape economic hardship. They also sought to escape the political unrest caused by riots, rebellion and eventually a revolution in 1848. " wikipedia

"Most immigrants living in cities became Democrats because the party focused on the needs of commoners."

The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In the German states, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.^[1] Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austrian Empire and sometimes on the government's wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia after the revolutions failed. These emigrants included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected and politically active, wealthy, and well-educated. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries." wikipedia

Bread riots and Hunger revolts

"The harvests of 1845 and 1846 were very poor. In addition a potato blight raged. As a result of grain and potato scarcity the cost of basic commodities dramatically increased, especially in the spring of 1847. Besides village and urban poverty which already had turned to pu blic or private charity, artisans were especially hard hit. Formerly prosperous masters were impoverished; journeymen and the autonomous mass artisans suffered chronic undernourishment and particularly in the spring of 1847 often had to go hungry on a regular basis. In the first half of 1847, inflation and pauperization in numerous Prussian and south German states led in turn to bread riots and hunger revolts, directed against usurers and grain speculators and often could only be brought under control by massive deployment of troops. The bumper harvest of the fall of 1847 ended the last preindustrial variety of economic crisis. Most contemporaries were conscious of the agrarian crisis far more clearly than the consequential business crisis, which began at the end of 1847 in England and spread to the continent, partially occasioned by the reduced demand for textiles against a background of a reduction in real wages. " source

Heinrich Ludwig Jr.
born in Rotweil, Germany 1838
father Heinrich Ludwig Sr., Minister to Kaiser of Germany*
died 1894, Ohio presumed
Maria Krauss
born in Indiana 11/30/1852
parents George Kreys and Zarelda Gabbert
died 9/8/1931

1848
Great3: John George Heymann
born Kaltenholzhausen, Duchy Nassau, Germany 9/1/1795
Emigrated with his wife and children from Kaltenholzhausen, Nassau, Germany in 1848
Their passport was stamped in Le Havre, France, May 1848 departure to New York

Swiss-German
1742
Anna Knoebel or Kanabel immigrated with her husband Christian Zug, to America aboard the "Francis & Elizabeth", landing in Philadelphia on September 21, 1742. denny@mail.inct.net

1742
Jane's Great6: Christian Zoug or Zug Sr.born Dec. 1710 Darmstadt Hesse, Germany

Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany

Zug Immigration:"Christian Zug came to America with wife and his two brothers, Johanes and Moritz, on Sept 21, 1742 on the ship "Francis and Elizabeth", George North, Master from Rotterdam.


1745
Great6: Johann Daniel Stumpf brother Henry George Stumpf crossed the Atlantic, from Germany to PA, in 1745 on the "Edinburgh" at age 20.

1753
Brother's of Great6: Emigration of Johann Wilhelm William (twin) Stumpf 824 on 2 October 1753.

His twin brother Henry emigrated on the Edinburgh at the age of 28. 



1754
Great6: Johann Daniel Stumpf born 1724 in Wurtenburg, Germany, immigrated 1754
His twin brother's Johann Wilhelm and Henry also emigrated (above).
Johann Daniel arrived at the port of Philadelphia on the ship "Richard and Mary" on September 30, 1754 from Wurtenburg, Germany or Prussia. He then went to Berks Co., Pennsylvania.

Wurtenberg, Germany

Great5: John Jacob Stump Sr. born 1745 in Germany, immigrated with his dad?

1848
Great3: John George Heymann
born Kaltenholzhausen, Duchy Nassau, Germany 9/1/1795
Emigrated with his wife and children from Kaltenholzhausen, Nassau, Germany in 1848
Their passport was stamped in Le Havre, France, May 1848 departure to New York

LeHavre France

Maria Margarethe Regina Opperman
born Kaltenholzhausen, Duchy Nassau, Germany 4/14/1796, immigrated ?
died Hunt's Corner, Huron County Ohio, 3/29/1872

Great Great Grandfather: Heinrich Ludwig Jr. 
born in Rotweil, Germany 1838, immigrated ?
father Heinrich Ludwig Sr., Minister to Kaiser of Germany*
died 1894, Ohio presumed

Rotweil Germany

Greek Immigration to America

Crop failures 1890-1917
Balkan War 1912