Leo Schelbert - Westward

SUSANN BOSSHARD-KÄLIN

WESTWARD

Encounters with Swiss American Women

POSTSCRIPT

Leo Schelbert

They Went Before: Four Historical Portraits

Essay: Women in 20 thCentury America

This book is Swiss American Historical Society Publication No. 29.

Fotos: Annina Bosshard (except of L. Geiser by Christoph Müller)

Selection of Historical Pictures: Leo Schelbert

Translations:

Marianne Burkhard (E. Bollier, M. Burkhard, E. Carney, L. Geiser, L. Lee, M.-S. Pavlovich, M. Schlapfer, N. Schleicher, R. Schupbach) Leo Schelbert (all other texts, except own translations provided by M. Ammann Durrer and M. Bernet)

Copy Editors:

Rita Emch, New York and Wendy Everham, Wilmette, Illinois

All Rights Reserved

©2010 Susann Bosshard-Kälin, Egg, Switzerland

©2014 Limmat Verlag, Zürich

eISBN: 978-3-857-91992-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928492

To My Parents with Deepest Gratitude

Foreword

The cultural chain is a chain of women that connects the past with the future (Mohawk)

People – Women, Men, and Children – Migrate.

They have always gone out into the world – from Switzerland as well. And almost as many from abroad have settled in Switzerland, be it for a short or a long period of time. It has always been a country of emigration as well as immigration. Reasons for migrating are manifold; they may be personal or may be rooted in economic, social, political, or ideological circumstances.

In the 20 thcentury when Switzerland itself became increasingly a country of immigration, Swiss women and men went abroad nevertheless and, following a long tradition, also to the United States of America.

A few women representing many have been given a voice in this book: Did they leave forever? Alone? Was it for their one true love? In search of adventure or seeking an escape? Some felt they were foreigners throughout their lives in the New World, others felt at home. Many were successful, others submitted to an unexpected fate; some found their happiness while others are still looking. They stayed in old age in the new homeland or returned to the Swiss one.

It was the historian Leo Schelbert who gave me the idea for this book. He has been living in metropolitan Chicago for nearly forty years and, after studying at Columbia University in New York, taught American history for 32 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, especially the history of American immigration. He has also featured the global history of Swiss emigration in books and articles. In his view, the Swiss abroad – in 2009 some 676,000 people – represent Switzerland’s 27 thcanton. “As written history in general, also the history of migrations has remained largely men’s history,” he asserts. “Documentary sources of women emigrants are little known, although women achieved just as much as men either by themselves or as mothers and partners.” Precisely for that reason Swiss American women were to be given a voice.

Leo Schelbert was taken by the book spruchreif – Zeitzeuginnen aus dem Kanton Schwyz erzählen (ready to be told – Witnesses of Their Times from Canton Schwyz Tell Their Story) that I had initiated and attended to in 2004. He inspired me four years ago to undertake a similar project of encounters with women who had moved to the United States in the 20 thcentury.

Each of my fifteen encounters from east to west was unique. In the selection of the time-witnesses I consciously eschewed typologies and was guided by neither geographical nor sociological concerns. During the three years of work, the contacts with these women intensified and wonderful friendships evolved. The time-witnesses portrayed here come from different Swiss cantons, have different familial and occupational backgrounds, and live in different regions. They tell of their diverse experience in Switzerland as well as in the United States.

What emerged is a series of impressions, of fascinating individual experiences as portrayed from a woman’s perspective. The life stories feature memories, experiences, and desires, shaped by every day life, homesickness, joy, and crisis. As told and written, they will be shielded from becoming forgotten. In encounters lasting several hours women told me of their experience with great candor in most diverse Swiss German dialects or in English. The fifteen stories show women standing between two worlds, two cultures, and two languages, – but above all people who have shaped their lives and world with a zest for life, with humor, courage, equanimity, and wisdom. I am deeply touched by them and their stories. I thank them for their trust, openness, and kindness.

In the second part of the book four portraits feature the unique world of women from the 18 thand 19 thcenturies. Surviving letters and pictures that Leo Schelbert and others had gathered made these encounters possible. His concluding essay sketches the status of American women in the 20 thcentury and the world in which the women portrayed have shaped their lives.

From the start my project met with genuine interest and much support. My acknowledgements list all the wonderful people and generous institutions without whose help this book could never have been done.

I want to thank cordially above all Leo Schelbert, my wonderful and kind friend and mentor. During the whole project he has laid out the red carpet. During all of its phases he accompanied me on the journey despite the spatial distance. He or his wife Virginia accompanied me on the interview trips across America, and in their house in Evanston they extended their generous hospitality.

Heartfelt thanks also to my husband Jürg who stood by me throughout all the storms of this ambitious project and remained tolerant and truly patient, wise, and supportive. I thank my daughters Annina and Catherina for their joyful accompaniment on my trips, and to Annina especially, for the pictures she took of the women portrayed in the book. As my first reader, Mirjam Weiss always encouraged me and critically reviewed my texts. In the midst of the project Walti Graf Chiriboga passed away whose friendly suggestions were most useful to me. A special thank you also goes to the American-Swiss graphic artist Anna Taylor, who created the book’s masterful design, to Rita Emch and Wendy Everham who served as copy editors of the English edition, and to the dedicated translators Sr. Marianne Burkhard OSB and Leo Schelbert who, as the book editor of the Swiss American Historical Society, also monitored the preparation of the English edition.

Thanks also to Doris Stump of the eFeF-Verlag, the publisher of the German edition, to the Swiss American Historical Society, especially its president Dr. Heinz B. Bachmann and to Gerhard Kälin and Katja Schönbächler of Franz Kälin Druckerei AG of Einsiedeln. They were all most helpful in guiding the project to what it is now.