One fine internet day, I wondered where my aunt Gladys was buried. The family always maintained she had been buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery even though the closest she ever got to serving in the military was shopping in the PX at the various bases my uncle Scotty had been stationed at and the various government jobs she had held. She had died earlier than my uncle and her family my cousin Caroline along with my cousin Tommy and their dad Uncle Scotty arranged for her to be buried in Arlington. It seems as though wives of soldiers buried there can be buried there before them. No matter he was still alive and well in St Petersburg, Fl at the time. He eventually died and was also buried in Arlington but not next to her.
Imagine my surprise when I did a Google search for birchmire and the grave for Gladys Birchmire who died in 1908 showed up. Clearly not my aunt Gladys who died much later. There wasn’t much of a mystery though. Gladys Birchmire was my grandfather’s first wife. The real mystery was why his second wife, better known as Grannie to me and my brother, had allowed her daughter to be named after the first wife. Nearby was the grave of Janie E. Potter the Birchmire family’s mother’s helper or hired girl. Family lore indicates she had come to live and work on the family place in the beginning maybe in 1910 when my father was a baby. Not too surprising was seeing my Grandfathers name on the other side of the monument along with Grannies name Margaret D. Ah the non-mystery cleared up. My grandfather’s half-brother partner were glassblowers and the glass industry was expanding into the Alexandria area. It’s unclear exactly when William Birchmire moved to the farm on Telegraph Road in Fairfax County Va, actually not far from Mount Vernon. Farm is a relative term as the property was just a few acres about three miles outside of the old town part of Alexandria, Va. The family appeared to have a happy life but in 1908, Gladys his beloved wife died and he was left with two boys to raise Conrad 16 and Bill now 12. The Alexandria Gazette on Feb 21, 1908 mentions Gladys Birchmire as dying at her home on 222 South Alfred St and leaving several children.
America consumes immigrants, scarcely noticing them unless they are famous by wealth or deed of if they die in some gruesome manner sufficient to be noted in some obscure newspaper column. There is also the proven method of a criminal act beyond petty crime to be noticed. Petty crime might earn a spot on the police blotter or 15 seconds in the evening news. Occasionally, an immigrant is criminal enough to be on the six o’clock news and rises above obscurity. Most immigrants though live quietly, work hard, have successful families, and die unnoticed except by their American children and maybe a few immigrant friends. After the prayers they fade back into the obscurity they never left in life. The family Birchmire is no different. The American children have gone on to achievement and working class obscurity which is all the immigrant asked for, to live the American dream – a chance in life not offered where they came from.
High German means the language spoken in the Southern mountains. Old High German (OHG) was the archaic high German spoken 750 to 1050 BCE while Middle High German (MHG) was the form of German spoken from 1050 to 1500 BCE. This only meaningful because meyer means dairy farmer today while originally it meant a steward of land or leaseholder.
https://www.thoughtco.com/german-last-names-1444607 View some common German names.
Obersiggenthal, Aargau , Switzerland is in the north of Switzerland very close to the German border. Names evolve over the years. In Old High German (OHG) and Middle High German (MHG) Birchmire or birchmeier as it was spelled then meant someone living where there were birch trees and meier, or mayer, or maier, or meyer meaning steward of land; leaseholder, or tenant farmer. If you owned land your name might be Hofmann, Huber or landed farmer. Originally the Birchmires were farmers or land workers living where there were birch trees. The first mention of a Birchmeier in the family tree was one Johannes Birchmeier born in Obersiggenthal, Aargau, Switzerland about 1620. Although the Birchmeires were landless tenant farmers in 1620 living near the birch trees, a lot can occur in 200 years and they may have acquired some land by 1823 when Conrad Birchmeier was the second born male. What is known is the families were large and this consequently made exporting children to the rest of the world a sad growth industry and Conrad came to Salem NJ around 1850.