Where Did My Valentine Go?

Typical village construction in the Palatinate

In September 1717, along with 362 others from the Palatinate in Germany, Valentine Clemmer arrived in Philadelphia. They came in three ships. Valentine brought his son Henrich with him along with a grandson Valentine Hunsicker. I am a descendant of Valentine and his son Henrich. There is a Clemmer book about Henrich and his increase, so we know lots about what happened after they arrived in the USA, but where did they come from in Europe? We only know part of the story.

This part we know. Valentine was born in Affoltern am Albis in Switzerland on May 12, 1655. He married Barbara Bär from nearby Ottenbach, both in the Swiss Canton of Zürich.  Barbara was born on September 11, 1659, and they were married on February 26, 1677.  

From 1678 to 1717, when he emigrated to the USA, there are no more records of Valentine in Switzerland. It is presumed that he, like many other Anabaptists, moved to the Palatinate in Germany, but we can find no trace of his presence there. Where did my Valentine go?

Valentine’s brother, Hans Jakob Klemmer, moved to Friedelsheim just west of Mannheim across the Rhine River in the German Palatinate. We have a reference to his daughter, Catherine Klemmer Hunsiker, being born on October 8, 1678 in the same Palatinate town of Friedelsheim. She and her husband, Samuel Hunsiker, are reported to have died sometime before 1717 in Friedelsheim.

With this evidence, it would seem that Valentine would have gone to Friedelsheim where he already had a brother and a daughter living. However, in searching available documents and speaking with historians from both secular and Mennonite archives, no trace of him can be found in Germany, let alone in Friedelsheim. Where did my Valentine go?

We know that he lived in Germany, and that he was even a minister there. We know many of his friends who sailed with him to the USA. We even know where most of them lived in Germany. But we can’t find a trace of Valentine. How do we know that Valentine lived in Germany? In a letter to the Dutch Mennonites responding to their inquiry about the health of the Mennonite immigrant community in Pennsylvania, a group of Mennonite leaders state that their spirits were bolstered by the recent arrival of several ministers from Germany. Among those mentioned was Valentine Klemmer. So, he must have settled somewhere in Germany. But where did my Valentine go?

Wherever he moved to in Germany, he must have buried his wife Barbara, because he came to Pennsylvania as a widower. We assume that he didn’t leave any discernable records in Germany because he was an Anabaptist; they didn’t baptize their infants, and records of births and deaths were kept by the state churches, in the case of Friedelsheim, the Reformed Church. Yet we have lots of references to other Mennonite/Anabaptists from that time and that region. Where did my Valentine go?

Vineyard from the Palatinate

The Henrich Klemmer whom the genealogy book is about, would have been born in Germany. He was born in 1700, well after 1678, the date of Valentine’s supposed emigration from Switzerland. But there is no record of his birth there either. Where did my Valentine go?

With the sketchy information I had, I traveled to the Palatinate in September 2018. I visited Friedelsheim for the third time. The first time I visited, I had two siblings with me, and we mistakenly thought that our Henrich ancestor was Johann Heinrich, whose birth was registered with the Reformed Church, because he and his father, Hans Jakob, were reformed. As it turns out, this Heinrich, who emigrated to the USA in 1730 on the ship Alexander and Ann, is my Henrich’s first cousin. At least I know that I had relatives in Friedelsheim, if not my Valentine or Henrich. Where did my Valentine go?

My historian friend from Friedelsheim

During my second visit to Friedelsheim, we met with an historian who produced numerous Klemmer names from the village around the time of my ancestors. We also met with the pastor of the Mennonite Church in Friedelsheim which has records of Mennonite members from there and all the surrounding villages since 1665. I saw so many typical Euro-Mennonite names on the list that it made my head spin. Still no Valentine or Henrich. Where did my Valentine go?

On my recent trip, I stayed with a friend from Erpolzheim, a few miles from Friedelsheim, whose family had been Mennonite in the region since 1759. He introduced me to another historian from Friedelsheim who wrote a booklet on the emigres from Friedelsheim during the great wave of German emigres in the 18^th Century. On the list was my ancestor’s nephew, Johan Heinrich, but no Valentine or his son Henrich. I left him with a list of questions about my ancestors, with dates and other information that I knew. Where did my Valentine go?

I also discovered a Mennonite Research Institute (Mennonitische Forschungsstelle) in Weierhof and gave them similar questions. Their first response was, even though Valentine was a pastor, that they had no information on a Mennonite Klemmer. I gave them further data and am awaiting their answer. Where did my Valentine go?

My quest for finding my ancestors has developed into somewhat of an obsession. I have become an expert on the Palatinate, both through reading about it and traveling through it. It is a beautiful area, with vineyards and vegetable farming everywhere. My host on this last trip is a retired vintner and apple farmer. I attended a “Wurstfest” in Bad Dürkheim near Friedelsheim which featured German sausages and wine. The villages are quaint, and homes are packed together on narrow streets, but the fields are flat and wide.

Reformed Church in Friedelsheim

I spoke with the Sexton at the Reformed church in Friedelsheim, telling him about my relationship to his town. He said, “we have the best land, the best wine, and the most beautiful women. Why would anyone want to leave?” Then he lowered his head pensively and said, “Times were tough after numerous wars, our land passed between the French and the Germans, each new ruler either for or against religious reforms. There was lots of persecution.”

I suppose Valentine experienced similar oppression in both Switzerland and Germany. There must have been some pretty dire circumstances to make such an incredible journey with his children and a grandson when he was already 62 years old.

We know that he left Switzerland and eventually landed in Pennsylvania. But between the years 1678 and 1717, where did my Valentine go?

I hope to find out.

Misadventures in the Land of My Ancestors

The Village of Sankt Martin, Germany

 “Where are you going?” snarled the woman at me in German. I jumped like being pursued by an angry dog. “This is private property,” she said. “You have no right to be here.”

“We are tourists from the USA,” I tried to explain to her after recovering from the initial shock. “We wanted to see how your wine operation works.”

My new friend

I was visiting my friend from Virginia at his yearly retreat in the quaint town of Sankt Martin, Germany, nestled against the rising hills of Haardt mountain range and the Palatinate forest. It is on the “Weinstraße,” or Wine Route that stretches more than 50 miles through the wine country of the Rhineland-Palatinate. It features vineyards with a great variety of grapes, wine festivals and picturesque villages like Sankt Martin. It is in the middle of the region where many of my ancestors came from some 300 years ago.

Almost immediately the woman calmed down. She proceeded to give us a royal tour of their wine-

making facility, from the hose leading from the trailer full of grapes, to the press where the juice was made to the leftover hulls from the processed grapes. When she found out that I was seeking information on my ancestors who had emigrated from the Palatinate to Pennsylvania, she told me how she understood Pennsylvania Dutch. She also knew about the Mennonites a few miles up the Wine Route in Neustadt, the church my hosts attended.

The original confrontation turned into a lovely conversation, a new friendship and an international connection of understanding formed.

This was not the only confrontation I had with an upset German. I had been told that Germans tend to be very open and frank with their thoughts and feelings. This contrasts with the Swiss who tend to be more reserved and passively aggressive—not unlike my own sub-culture in the USA.

The entrance to the Hof where my Horst ancestor farmed

I found the property (Hof) where my Horst ancestor had been a tenant farmer in Mauer, in the Kraichgau region east of Heidelberg. It had been renovated into a nursing home and apartments for the elderly, named after the Baron who had owned the property, and now run by the government. I was beside myself with excitement. Through old pictures from friends who knew where the property was, I located it on Google Earth.

Accompanied by a different friend, this time a German, I strode confidently into the entrance of the facility, hoping to find a receptionist or someone who would be interested in my story of ancestral relationship to the Hof. I started taking pictures when a huge man whose build reminded me of a professional wrestler, shouted at me in German, “What are you doing here?” I tried to explain to him that my ancestor was a tenant farmer on this Hof, but he was not in the least bit impressed. “It is strictly forbidden to take pictures in this facility,” he stated emphatically. I’m sure my countenance fell as I realized I wouldn’t be able to make a pleasant connection with my past. He made me erase the pictures I had taken.

My German friend explained to me that German privacy laws are very strict, and that the employee was only doing his duty to protect the identity of the residents of the home. I still nursed a desire to return to try to talk to a receptionist. But my German friend ushered me out of the building as quickly as he could.

I moved on to the west side of the Rhine to the Palatinate. I wanted to contact a Klemmer

The Klemmer house

(Clemmer/Clymer) in the region, hoping to make an ancestor connection, maybe even do a DNA swap to see if we were a match. There was only one Klemmer listed in the phone book. My friends in the region told me that most of the Klemmers had died out, the last one they knew died 25 years ago. But I was determined to make contact.

The number listed was a business. I decided to approach the business, again hoping to speak with a receptionist, and maybe even the owner, Mr. Klemmer. When I arrived at the address, it was a private home. I knew I had the right address, because there was a plaque on the door with “Klemmer” on it. I gingerly rang the doorbell and waited. And waited. There was no answer. Disappointed, I left, deciding that I would try to call him later in the day.

I thought that I would get my host, who was from the region and well known in all the surrounding communities, to make the call and introduce me to Mr. Klemmer. And so he did. I waited nervously while the phone rang, conjuring up in my mind what I would say to him when my host handed over the phone. I heard my host explaining to Mr. Klemmer, that I my ancestors were Klemmers from the area who had emigrated to the USA, and that I wanted to find or meet a Klemmer who still lived in the region. I could hear enough of the conversation to ascertain that the party on the other end of the phone was not very enthused about my presence in his world.

My host, realizing that the phone call was not going to be fruitful, was about to hang up. I desperately asked for it. He gave it to me. More than anything else, I wanted to hear the voice of a Klemmer from the old country. I gave him my name, told him where I was from and why I wanted to talk to him. He was very blunt. “I’m not interested in meeting you, or Klemmer family history.” With as polite a “thank you” as I could muster, I wished him well and hung up. I was disappointed, but at least I had heard the voice of a Klemmer.

Lest you be misguided, I had lots of wonderful experiences during my week in Germany. I will have to save those adventures for another blog post.