esrosedotblog

C+

I mentioned Tom Schaller who exec-edits a new link on this blog (see upper right) The Gadflyer: The Aggressive Progressive. He noticed the link and we e-chatted about our shared family name; in this case, my mother's. My Mom's branch of the tree dropped the C and went by Shaller. They also adopted another pronunciation: Sh-ahhh-ller not Sch-ayy-ler. This was done around the time of World War One to hide the germanic part of the name. Coincidentally, my dad's family did the same thing. We used to be Roess (Rooossss); very Hun-like; so they changed it to Rose. You know how that is pronounced; the rose by any other name is the same and so on.

All this running around to Americanize names is not peculiar to my ancestors; a lot of families have done it. Somewhat to their credit, mine did not go too far from the original. The result, though, reveals the rabbit in the hat a bit too soon for the best effect. The thing about hiding the germanic-ness is for real too. In WWII, I remember the local baker who had a German name and an accent. He was shunned and lost his business. It was a singular loss for me; he made great pastry. That is the only thought I gave to it. I do not know where he went.

I am told that there were serious family schisms over these changes. Those who chose to keep their name the same went their way and the revisionists went theirs. In the case of the Schallers, I was informed that the 'originals' maintained a superior attitude about it and looked down at the revisionists. As a kid I found this all rather amusing when I found out about it; but my mother did not. My mom was a climber and was very sensitive to any slight. The idea that she belonged to the revisionist group irked. I think that she would have figured a way to get the 'c' back if she had not married and changed her name to Rose anyway.

I only found out there were SChallers, when I went to high school. My history teacher was (gasp) Mrs. Schaller. She was not a Schaller by blood, she married into it and probably found it all as amusing as I did. She and I did not discuss it however. We pretended that she was not married to my second cousin Charles who my mother's side of the family did not talk to and I had never heard of. To this day I have no idea if there were other second cousins; where Charles came from; or where he went.

There was no such drama with my dad's name. Rose was better; we were right; and it didn't matter anyway goddamit. He was very tight-lipped about family history. I never understood this; but guess there was enough unhappiness going around at the time to keep 'it' buried in the past where it belonged. I first learned about living in the day from my dad. The catch is that, if you are going to live in the day, you have to be able to unload the past and, while I am not sure he did, he lived as if he had and I am grateful for it. He had no self pity. He had a hard life and triumphed. But, that is another story.