Need help from German speakers

[Peanut Butter]

After she passed, I found some letters in my Grandmother's things that were written in 1918, in German. I gave them to my son's German teacher (a native of Germany) and he couldn't make much sense out of them. Maybe one of you might have better luck. Posted below is one page out of four. Can anyone help translate this for me? Any help is greatly appreciated!

[kaslkaos]

If you have no luck with anyone else, pm me. I have friends who may be older than the German teacher, the lettering style changed drastically in the last century, which may explain why a native of Germany is having trouble with the writing. My friend is translating letters of his fathers; while I can't volunteer his help he may find this interesting for his own reasons.

[cjorgensen]

I am forwarding it to my stepdaughter. She and her husband are taking German lessons, and I think they would enjoy the challenge.

But anyone else can keep trying. I think just deciphering the letters are pretty tricky.

[Diane Cutter]

A couple of suggestions...

Often there are university professors who do historical research and are adept at reading this type of handwriting and are familiar with older phrasing which is not common now. Check university and college department staff with German history programs.

Many times genealogical societies have members who are also handy at deciphering this sort of old document.

Good luck.

Diane

[Peanut Butter]

kaslkaos - Feel free to share the letter with your friend if he would have interest in it. I had no idea the lettering style had changed over the last century! I will certainly pm you if I have no luck finding anyone who can help me. Thanks!

cjorgensen - These letters are definately a challenge that I hope your stepdaughter and her husband will enjoy! Just reading the handwriting is hard and it doesn't help that they were written in pencil and some of the other pages are a bit faded. They are in really good shape though for being almost 100 years old!

Diane - I hadn't thought about contacting a university. I will look into that. Thank you for the suggestion!

If anyone is interested I have three more pages I can post as well, just let me know!

[Aiylah]

Looks like it could be this writing: http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Datei:Script2.svg or "Sütterlin": http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Lese/Sutterlin0.htm

We visited a museum once which showed what schools here used to be like, and we had a look at this old writing and tried writing our names in it. It's quite hard

I've had a quick look at your note; I can make out some words so far. Besides it being a different handwriting; there may also be the problem of words back then being spelt a bit differently.. and also the writing isn't as tidy as the perfect form of the old writing style (no offense, my handwriting is a scrawl anyway ).

[Bringer]

Hi,

I've studied german long time ago and although I cannot understand most part of her caligraphy, it seems to be a quite normal german, with the eventual changes that may occurr in a language during its existance.
But I'm sure that from 1918 up to our days, the changes aren't that much.
I guess that a person who's used to "strange" caligraphies (sp?) and who speaks fluent german won't have much problem on giving you at least a general idea of what's written.
Maybe you need to show this to a german doctor :-)

Good luck,

José

[Lyta]

Needless to say, my German is rather fluent, but I'm having troubles with the calligraphy too. I have a friend though who likes old handwritings and can read quite a lot of it, so if you don't have a translation yet, PM me and I'll ask her. It does indeed look a bit like Sütterlin, but there were numerous similar writings around in the past, and we all know how hard it is to read even some contemporary handwritings.

[cjorgensen]

It seems like the first thing you would need to do would be to print all the alphabet letters new and fresh and legible on a new piece of paper. Sort of like decoding it.

Then translate it into English.

To decipher and translate at the same time is too hard. For example, she uses "r"s that are not like American "r"s. I don't know if they are European, but I know my mom used those "r"s and I recognize them. But MOST people in America don't.

The third line down, the first word, the last letter, is that kind of an "r". It looks like, "Linbr" to me.

The second line, the first word looks like "Columbus", so the last letter LOOKS like an "r", but it must be an "s". And then it is followed by "Nebr", with an American "r", so she seems to use them interchangeably.

The fourth like down, second word, last letter, has a sort of a "hook" on it. She uses this letter a lot, but I don't know what it is.

Nine lines down, first word, second letter looks like a "p" with a tall stem on it. I have seen "p"s written like that before.

Five lines down, first word, fourth letter, is an "s". I have seen that before too. It looks like an "f" but the bottom goes backwards like a figure-8. That word looks like, "ni?sh".

So this is more like a code. First you need to decipher what letter each symbol stands for, then you can translate it.

[cjorgensen]

After that big lecture, I found and old handwriting style here, for Danish, and my idea of an "s" is their idea of an "h".

http://www.sa.dk/media(156,1030)/Gotisk_alfabet,_1800,_skoenskrift.gif

The letter with the hook appears to be a "d", according to this.

[cjorgensen]

Here is another sample of "old German" handwriting, which is similar to the one I just posted.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gregheberle/Htm/help/ABC%20Suetterlin_files/suetter.gif

According to this, the letter with the hook could be an "s". So getting the alphabet deciphered first seems to be the best idea. Maybe there is another grandma who can read the letters.

[Lyta]

I'm a line and a half into it already and think I might actually be able to read it... It's probably easier for me to decipher than for any of you since I can use the context to guess words... I'll have a closer look and post as much of a translation as I can get...

Okay, so the start means: (with my questions/comments in brackets)

"Feb 10(?)/18 (probably 1918)

Columbus, Nebr (I take that to mean "Nebraska", would that make sense?)

Dear (...do you know any names that would be probable? Looks like Katy or something...),

I don't have to ask how you are"

and that's as much as I have so far, although I could make out a number of words later on, just no complete sentences yet. Do you want the German version as well?

I'll probably find someone to read it out to me.

Edit: Got someone, please post the rest of the letter and I'll get back to you when I've got something; would you prefer a post here or a PM? (I don't know how private the contents are going to be...)

[Peanut Butter]

Yippee! People who are making some sense of this! I am just thrilled! Thank you all so much for your input on this!

I have trouble making out almost all of the letters. At first, I did try to just get it written out the way it is, but couldn't make it out well enough to do even that!

Columbus, Nebraska is where my family is from. My great grandmother's name was Kate, so I am assuming the letters were written to her.

Lyta - The German version as well would be great! I am just so thrilled that you can tell what this says! I have no problem posting the rest of the letters here. I can't think of anything in my family history that would be embarassing to have out in the open! But, then again, you never know!

Aiyla and cjorgensen - Thank you so much for the links you posted. This is getting to be much more interesting than I ever thought it could be! I'm impressed that you can pick out letters and words because I couldn't even do that!

Jose - Do you know where I can find a german doctor?

I'll post the other pages in separate posts. Stay tuned!

[Peanut Butter]

Here is page two of the letter posted above:

[Lyta]

It's just those two pages, right? We'll get on it, my handwriting expert and me. From what we have of the first page it appears to be a letter of condolence.