Henry Timp Visit, 1898

TIMP, GEHLING

Posted By: David Reineke (email)
Date: 7/4/2005 at 14:37:35

I translated the following article from Der Carroll Demokrat, a German-language newspaper published in Carroll, Iowa, between about 1874 and 1920. It was originally published on 11 February 1898. Any information in brackets or notes at the end are my own explanations. It reads as follows:

Mr. Henry Timp, father-in-law of Mr. Hermann Gehling, has been staying with his daughter and son-in-law for the last week on a visit. Mr. Timp is an old settler who came to America as a youth in the 1840’s and settled in Iowa in 1853. For many years, he has been accustomed to a Westphalian dialect, but we noted a few Lower Rhine expressions, and so we learned that he is a Weselaner. Mr. Timp has experienced a lot, and he appears to be an honest German farmer whose heart is in the right place.

NOTES: I think the term “Weselaner” means he came from Wesel, a town and county on the Lower Rhine, in the western part of Germany east of Essen and close to the Dutch border.