The Dream Genealogy Trip

 This article was published in the Fall-Summer 2018 issue of the Germanic Genealogy Journal.

In Search of Max Langer

Elise Ann Wormuth

My great-grandfather, Maximilian Langer, was a chimney sweep in Bremerhaven, Germany, in the late 1800s. As a child I found that delightful, as I imagined him dancing and singing on rooftops like in the original Mary Poppins movie. When I began pursuing genealogy, Max was one of the first ancestors I wanted to investigate, and doing so led me on a journey that I never would have imagined. It turned out to be far from delightful.

My initial research revealed that Maximilian Joseph Langer was born in Oberglogau, Silesia, on 21 July 1840. At some point, he made his way from Oberglogau to Bremerhaven, where he married my great-grandmother, Wilhelmine Schulze — he was 44; she 25. Together, they had three daughters: Sophie, Hannah, and Lina.

Then I came across a bit of information that puzzled me greatly: Maximilian Langer died not in Bremerhaven, where he lived, but in Göttingen, almost 200 miles away. Why was he in Göttingen? Was he caring for his aged mother? Had he and Wilhelmine separated? The Langer family was poor; surely, he wasn’t on holiday when he suddenly passed. I needed to investigate further.

The Revelation of a Marginal Note

I contacted the Standesamt in Göttingen to ask if I could get a death record for Max Langer. I received an odd reply from the official — yes, they had a death record, but it wasn’t a typical one; it was a “marginal note.” As we emailed back and forth, I began to feel that there was something strange about the record. Before I ordered it, I wondered what kind of information was actually in that marginal record. In the end, the official said she would send a scan, and I could decide whether I wanted to order the record. It was quite a “marginal note.” I could make out his name, Bremerhaven, his birthplace, and other details, but I couldn’t read the entire record, so I turned to my excellent resource, the German Genealogy group on Facebook. I posted the record with a request for help in reading it, and within a very short time, I had a translation:


"Göttingen, January 31 1896. To the Registrar signed below was sent by the Board of the District Lunatic Asylum in Göttingen the following written report:

Maximilian Joseph Langer, laborer, 55 years 6 months 8 days old; Catholic religion; residing in Geestemünde, Lehrer Chaussee Nr. 42; born in Oberglogau in the province of Silesia on the 21st July 1840; married to Wilhelmine, nee Schulze, of Geestemünde, son of the Oberglogau couple (deceased), master weaver Anton Langer and Barbara, nee Kura; died in the District-Lunatic Asylum in Göttingen at the twenty-ninth January of the year 1896 at two o´clock past midday. The Registrar Borhut"

Figure 1. The “Marginal Note” Recording Max Langer’s Death

My heart sank. A lunatic asylum! Rather than providing answers, this information raised more questions: What was he doing there? Why was he, a far from wealthy man, hospitalized at a university-affiliated hospital, almost 200 miles from his home? What was his illness? What were the conditions in the asylum? I imagined something like Bedlam with people chained to the wall, moaning . . . and then I decided that the answers would only be found with more in-depth research.

Figure 2. The Asylum at Goettingen

(from Wikimedia Commons)

I emailed the current institution to ask whether they had historical records that might tell me why my great-grandfather was there and what had caused his death. The recipient told me she had passed my email on to a colleague who could better answer my questions.

In the meantime, I found a history of the asylum published in 1891 by its director, Dr. Ludwig Meyer, and began laboriously translating its academic German. I learned that, for his day, Dr. Meyer was an extremely progressive psychologist, who believed in "no restrictions" hospitalization, in making the hospital as much like home as possible, and in treating patients with respect. I was relieved.

After I waited almost five months, a friend who teaches German at the college level helped me craft an incredibly polite second email that respectfully asked whether a response from the colleague was still possible. It was.

The director of the hospital museum told me that my great-grandfather was admitted 5 December 1895 and died 29 January 1896 of “spätsyphilitische chronic inflammation of the nerve tissues with its progressive destruction (dementia),” that is, dementia from end-stage syphilis.

My impulse is always to do more research. I learned that syphilis in the 1800s was very common because there was no effective treatment. It was shameful because it was often seen as God’s revenge for engaging in inappropriate sex, so sufferers would often take pains to hide the lesions that would come and go.

My first thought was for my great-grandmother Wilhelmine and her three daughters — how was it possible that they had not contracted the disease? Clearly, they did not contract it; they all lived to ripe old ages, 96 for my grandmother Sophie. Then I researched the progression of the disease.

There are four stages to syphilis: the primary stage involves a genital chancre; the secondary stage involves a kind of generalized rash; in the third stage, the disease is latent or hidden for up to 20 years, during which the sufferer is not contagious; and the last, late stage is a catastrophic illness that results in serious physical effects, including paralytic dementia, brought on by nerve damage.

 
Since the age difference between Maximilian and Wilhelmine was almost 20 years, it is easy to imagine that he contracted the disease before (maybe well before) their marriage. He went through the first two stages and was in the latent period for at least the 11 years during which he and Wilhelmine were married and had three daughters. Lina was born in 1893. After that, he passed into the late stage and declined fairly rapidly.

Maximilian was admitted to the hospital in Göttingen in December 1895, so in those few years, he must have declined. Why was he not put into a hospital in Bremerhaven where he lived? I learned that Dr. Ludwig Meyer, head of the asylum, had a special interest in the psychological effects of late-stage syphilis, and so Max was undoubtedly sent there, not so much as a patient but rather as a research subject. Perhaps there was something about his case that particularly interested Dr. Meyer.

Figure 3. Dr. Ludwig Meyer
(from Wikimedia Commons)

Max entered the asylum early in December and by the end of January, he had died. I wonder what his family knew, especially the girls who were all still age 10 and under. At the time, the medical profession was debating an ethical dilemma regarding syphilis: Should families and even the patient himself be told about the disease? Was it cruel to add the burden of the stigma for what was essentially an incurable illness to an already suffering patient and his family? Sometimes the doctors even disguised the treatments, so the patient would not know what his actual illness was. I suspect that if Max’s children learned anything of his disease, it was much, much later.


Why I Love Genealogy

Genealogy is so much more than names and dates. I relish the opportunities it offers the researcher to learn about so many things: for example, what life was like in Jamaica, New York, in the 1800s; the Silesian weavers’ revolt, one of the first labor uprisings in history; the shipping-line industry in Bremerhaven, on and on. I never dreamed, though, that I would be looking up syphilis and learning about its nightmarish end-stage.

Family histories are full of surprises. Maximilian Langer turned out to be not the charming chimney sweep of my imagination but a very human soul who must have suffered a great deal during his lifetime. My genealogical friend says that when you tell the story of an ancestor, you are both honoring them and helping them to rest more easily. I hope that through telling my great-grandfather’s story, his eternal rest is a little easier.

 
Reference

Meyer, Ludwig. Die Provinzial-Irrenanstalt zu Göttingen. Zur Erinnerung an ihre Eröffnung vor 25 Jahren. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1891. ■