Survivals of Old Marriage-Customs among the Low Germans of West Missouri

Abstract

THE people whose peculiar marriage-customs I shall describe inhabit a portion of western Saline County, northwestern Pettis County, northeastern Johnson County, and a large portion of Lafayette County in west Missouri. The nucleus of this settlement is Concordia in Lafayette County, a small prairie town of about nine hundred inhabitants. An irregular line, varying from eight to twenty-five miles in distance, roughly includes region in question. Barring a few small centres where English have retained their hold, this domain is singularly German. Survivals of European customs are met at every hand. The major portion of these people hail from Hanover or are descendants of Hanoverians. The broad dialect of this province, therefore, naturally prevails. However, more pointed speech of Westphalian and that of inhabitant of Lippe Detmold is also sporadically heard. The High Germans and Swiss who have strayed among these Low Germans are very few in number. So strong is influence of Low German dialect that descendants of High Germans soon acquire prevailing Low German dialect. The first Hanoverian who ventured into wilds of west Missouri was Heinrich Dierking, whom older generations of that region still familiarly call Troester Dierking. He settled either in 1838 or 1839 near present site of Concordia. It is rather singular that a lone German should venture so far inland. Usually first settlers remained close to larger rivers. Investigation reveals fact that Heinrich Dierking had married an American woman soon after his arrival in America. When he arrived in Lafayette County he was accompanied by one Dick Mulkey. He therefore drifted so far west in company with English friends, and most probably with kin of his wife's family. The fertile prairies of Lafayette County and rich, well-wooded creek bottoms pleased this German pioneer exceedingly. His letters to his friends and kin in Hanover soon brought them to his neighborhood. And thus, through the Consciousness of Kind, this region became settled by a people, bound together by like tradition, like speech, and in many instances by blood-relationship. All of them came to seek improvement of economic conditions. They came unprompted and unaided by settlement or immigration societies, not, like settlers of Hermann, Missouri, to found a new German state in this country, nor,