Friday, August 04, 2006

Hops!

One of the values of researching your family genealogy is the discovery of facts that put the present in perspective. I grew up in a home where alcohol was absolutely forbidden--though Dad did once admit to me that he really liked his Uncle Joe's home-made blackberry wine which was surreptitiously offered to him several times when he was young.

But then I discovered, as I worked backwards into my father's Amish ancestry, that my Sommers and Kropf forebears were in the brewery business, both in the old country and when they moved to Stark County, Ohio. My great uncle John Sommers told me that he remembered riding in the brewery wagon with his father. And my mother's mother mentions beer-making in her teenage diary during the late 1880's.

I figured out that when the temperance movement hit America, my Amish and Mennonite forebears were at first oblivious to what was going on in "the world," and for a time happily went on brewing their beer. But when they finally got caught up in the movement, they adopted its principles with holy passion.

I have no idea what the farming and brewing techniques of my Amish brewmeisters were, but this cross is from one of the many fields of hops around Mt. Angel, Oregon, which annually holds a huge 4-day Octoberfest which includes plenty of music and dancing and drinking.

I still don't drink beer, though I do agree with my father that a little wine can be rather good! And yes, I can find a cross anywhere.
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