"It has been evident for a long time that, of all members of all the Germanic tribes, the Swabian is the most difficult to understand and the most mysterious. In him the most intense contradictions are found. Often, in one individual, meet both extreme boldness and amazing timidity, rebelliousness and philistinism, winning kindness and resentful standoffishness, skillfulness and awkwardness, firmness and instability, mistrust and friendliness, soaring idealism and grounded realisticism."
Fritz Rahn
"Der schwäbische Mensch und seine Mundart"
Translation by Matt Carver
Christian,
the first of the Geradstetten Palmers who emigrated to the US was a soldier
in W.W.I who fought on the losing side. He returned home from the Western
front to find hyperinflation and hopelessness, so he sailed for the US
where the streets were paved with gold. He worked at many jobs but
finally settled on carpentering. On a visit home he found Berta Lederer
at a wedding. Soon she joined him, and they built a life in the New
York area, had two sons, and finally retired to Columbus,
Ohio, where Christian died in 1981 and Berta in 1991. Eldest son Alfred
went to Cooper Union and is now a retired captain of industry, residing
on Signal Mountain, Tennessee.