By Bertha Ferguson

Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord: The German Singing Club

(reprinted from the Corning-Monroe Reader, vol 5)

Even today, if you could parachute into some last unknown spot on Earth, once the natives had cozied up to you as some strange freak, you probably would not be surprised to hear the children making a joyful noise unto the Lord, even though they had never yet heard of such an entity. In their own way, these children are making music rattling shells and pounding whatever is handy. Music is universal. It is inborn and fighting to get out of anyone who can make a pleasant noise. Why else would the Welsh be known as great singers? Why do the Slavic people continue to beat holes in carpets wherever they go doing their happy polkas?Next to bread, music must be the most cheerful, hopeful, life-sustaining thing known to man. No wonder the musical heirs of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms: the German immigrants to this country carried their love of making a joyful noise into creating a German Singing Club into this new land.

Both my family and my husband’s family were involved in this endeavor. Both families were recruited to be strike breakers, brought here in the eighteen eighties. After my grandfather and the men in his group learned they had been brought here to be strike breakers, they sat down and joined the strike without ever working a day. My grandfather later went to work in the mines and my husband’s grandfather lost no time opening a saloon. When settling in this new country, the newcomers tended to stay together if possible.Thus, the western part of Perry County drew more British Islanders, English, Welsh, and Scottish peoples. The Eastern side got more Continentals, Germans, Slovakians, and Italians.

August Schlingerman opened a saloon on the west side of South Valley Street, in one of the old buildings between the corner where the back street cuts off of South Valley Street to the hill behind. In the pre-push-button world, if you wanted music, you had to make your own.

With practically no on-demand music available, if a family owned any instrument at all, sometimes curiosity wasenough to tempt one to learn to play it. Mrs. Schlingerman played the piano. She also saw to it that some of her children learned. What is more natural than music and beer? Could anyone have prevented a German Singing Club? Not likely. An entire social life developed around the singing club. In the winter, the men gathered on Saturday nights for practice and a social evening. The wives came with the children. The older children could play outside under the streetlights. The mothers and smaller children gathered upstairs in the family living quarters. The men probably stopped down in the saloon to lubricate their vocal cords before coming up to practice. After practicing, the men and their wives danced. By now, my mother related, the smaller children were mostly asleep and lay across the family bed like firewood. She often remarked it was a wonder no one ever took a wrong child home.

Though he had only one son, Fred. August Schlingerman, Jr. married one of the twelve girls. Another one of the twelve girls had put too much faith in one of the railroaders who often laid over in Corning before going South or North from which he had come. Sometimes these men left more than they planned behind.

Ben Mathis had come to this country many years before, leaving a wife and daughter behind with plans to send them money for passage as soon as possible. The wife changed her mind. You get the picture of a lonely, good man, and a pretty young woman with a baby daughter. Technicalities!! Did he divorce his wife? Did she divorce him? With an ocean between them, who knows or cares. I have never known nicer people. They were neighbors to my family and though I have no definite memories of her, they were always tolerant of the mob of swimmers who took the path through their front yard as a regular part of our routine to Fisher Creek. This path also went through his orchard where we didn’t even pick up a fallen apple off the ground because our parents had taught us not to take things that did not belong to us. On our return trip from swimming we still did not take an apple until Ben, sitting under a shade tree in his yard, told us we could go back and get all we wanted.

In the summer, the club had picnic grounds on land belonging to Ben Mathis. At this point, I have to tell this story. Families in those days were more apt to large than small. Among these families was a family named Brinkman. When asked how many children he had, the Father Brinkman would answer that he had twelve girls and they each had a brother. A little quick count would leave the question-asker in a state of shock until Mr. Brinkman explained that his statement was true even

This was the couple who owned the land on which the picnic ground was part. Sunday was the big day at the picnic grounds. Families brought basket dinners. The singing club practiced. There was always a keg of beer, probably more. They evidently have some tables and a riser for the keg. Grandfather Schlingerman was on one side and Grandpa Eickel on the other, both carefully tending to the keg. The children naturally played games chasing each other, the men threw horseshoes and often they had a greased shoat that would be turned loose for boys between certain ages to catch. A really wise boy carefully let the others wear themselves out chasing the pig until they figured the pig had been degreased enough to catch. They also would take a dollar bill to the top of a post set in the ground and then grease the post for the boys to try to get.

My most vivid memory of this is the ice cream cone I always got and could not resist biting the bottom off the cone. Then I had to suffer the loss of the ice cream that dripped out the bottom because I could not lick as fast as the cream could melt. It didn’t help anything either having to listen to Mom give me heck for making such a mess of myself.

Most things in life come to an end. The local jobs in the mines, oil fields, and on the railroad were not enough. There were better jobs to be had in Columbus, Detroit, Akron, etc. So then as now, people sought greener pastures. Enough people landed in South Columbus to have their own little Germany, even down to a singing club. The still celebrate Octoberfest. But World War One tested the people. Love of homeland and some contact with their overseas kin spelled great heartache and pain. In time this country could no longer stay out of the war, and our finest were shipped off to the fray. A local German mother sending her American sons off to battle admonished them that when they got on the other side they should shoot up in the air.

Time heals most things. Today, every fall you can go to south Columbus and enjoy Octoberfest in German Village.