285 – Valentine Maninger

Mark Jarvis
German villager 1800s

Valentine Maninger is a seminal character in our history. He was born in our ancestral village of Dittwar, Germany.

He was our first ancestor in America, immigrating to Illinois.

He embraced the “Go West” mantra, moving to Kansas.

He was the progenitor of a large family of Maningers, who are still interested in our family history. Not too many years ago, there were family members that we know who personally knew Val.

Birth – Valentine Maninger – Dittwar – 1835

Valentine was baptized less than 24 hours after his birth at three o’clock Sunday afternoon, September 27, at St. Laurentius Church. Because of high mortality rate, newborns were baptized as soon as possible after birth. 

Valentine was named after his mother’s father, Valentine Stephan. 

His father, Amor Maninger, was a farmer and member of the community council.

Valentine grew up in the 1830s and 1840s, decades of economic and political troubles in the state of Baden.

School

Val probably attended the village school.

As in the political and cultural areas, the local priest was also a minor sovereign in the area of ​​his parish in the educational area. Later, a teacher was hired by the mayor; However, he was paid by the citizens at their discretion; This is where the term “the poor little village schoolmaster” comes from. However, it should also be borne in mind that these “teachers” had no formal training and knew practically nothing except reading and writing. So things weren’t exactly good in this respect either. Since 1807, teachers had to be examined for suitability by church authorities before they could take up teaching positions. Once again the church had control over who, how and by whom was taught.

Chronicles of the Community of Dittwar – Manfred Maninger
Scene in a village school. The schoolmaster, 1840 © DHM

From the 18th century there are reports of active use of days off from school; Vacancies were announced for name days, New Year’s Day, St. Martin’s Day, Easter celebrations, Shrovetide and May Day. Hay, wood, hops, harvest, grape harvest and potato holidays are also known from rural areas.  

Chronicles of the Community of Dittwar – Manfred Maninger

Students probably attended school around 25% of the year. If they learned to read and write, that was an accomplishment that would serve them well in their later lives. We know that Val could read and write.

The schoolmaster had to understand music and Latin. Pastor Molitor wrote that Latin was preferable to arithmetic here because there was no business in the town that required arithmetic. Schoolmaster Dürr had claimed to be a Latin scholar, but didn’t teach it because he didn’t
understand it.

300 years of the Kreuzkapelle – Pastor Kleemann et al

Shoemaker

We know from later years that Valentine Maninger knew the shoemaker’s trade. He learned the craft at a young age in Dittwar. He was the fifth of six sons, so he wasn’t going to inherit a sizeable piece of farmable land.

Perhaps Val learned the shoemaker’s trade from his father. Amor Maninger himself was the third of four sons. Previous generations had subdivided their landholdings such that the small parcels wouldn’t support a family.

Everyone needed a pair of shoes or boots, and they were all made by hand before the mid-19th century. Dittwar had several shoemakers, perhaps too many.

We learn that at the end of the last century there were 4 linen weavers in town, but also 4 restaurants. The Kreuzwirt and Engelwirt, which no longer exist, also had bakeries, and there were also 3 grocery stores, 2 coopers, 1 carpenter, 1 wheelwright, 3 tailors, 4 shoemakers and 2 seamstresses.

300 years of the Kreuzkapelle – Pastor Kleemann et al

The small museum in Dittwar even hosts a shoemaker’s workshop display, possibly a testament to the importance and large presence of past shoemakers.

In Dittwar there is a village-museum. It is a former farmhouse. In this farmhouse are housed flat, barn, cellar and stable in one building. In addition to exhibits from the period after 1900, a historic shoemaker’s workshop is exhibited in a room.

Dittwar – Wikipedia

Economy

Economic opportunities in Dittwar were limited. As the population increased, it was increasingly difficult to subdivide tiny farms for the next generation. Bad harvests exacerbated the problem.

Once you got into debt, it was difficult to get out of it. For many there was only one way to escape complete poverty: emigration.

300 years of the Kreuzkapelle – Pastor Kleemann et al

Rebellion

In the revolutions of 1848 in Germany, the working class sought radical improvements to their working and living conditions.

1848-49 – The failure of the revolutions of 1848 to establish democracy caused thousands to leave Germany to settle in America.

1850s – Nearly one million Germans immigrated to America in this decade, one of the peak periods of German immigration; in 1854 alone, 215,000 Germans arrived in this country.

The Germans in America – Library of Congress

Emigration

Valentine Maninger made the decision to emigrate by the time he was age 18. We don’t know his motivations, but there were many candidates:

  • No chance to inherit a parcel of land to farm
  • No economic future to support a family
  • Failure of the revolutions of 1848 for reforms
  • Escape from political prosecutions
  • No market for a shoemaker in a small village
  • Avoidance of military conscription
  • Lure of better life in America

The decision to leave home must have been difficult. And if a person decided to emigrate, it wasn’t easy to do.

Timeline

Sources:

Leave a comment