Today, I am going to Staunton to the Frontier Culture Museum for a gathering of people who want to remember Klaus Wust. The place and the time are appropriate. Klaus was one of the founding directors of the Museum of America Frontier Culture , as it was originally called. At this time of the year they hold Oktoberfest. Klaus might have liked that.
Klaus came to Bridgewater College on a one-year Fellowship in 1949. At this time, he was in his mid-twenties and a newspaper editor. He obtained a leave from his newspaper in Germany to come, and he expected to be only one year. That was before he met Dr. John Wayland, who was delighted to have a person who could read the old German scripts which were so prevalent in the Shenandoah Valley. Klaus soon found that the translations of some of this old material were very bad.
But more than anything, Klaus was amazed to discover so much German influence in the Valley. He soon saw that their history had been neglected, or, in those cases where it had been told, it was wrong. He obtained permission from his newspaper to stay a while as a foreign reporter. He never saw an end to the reporting and research that he could do here.
John K. Gott reports that he was on the Bridgewater campus as a student when Klaus arrived at the gates. John says he was very disheveled, dressed in old army-fatigues, and carrying a packed duffel bag on his shoulder. Klaus spoke with a heavy accent, and John had difficulty in understanding him, but eventually he heard Klaus say that he wanted to go to the Dean's office. John wasn't sure that he should go just immediately. It appeared that Klaus had heard that one shouldn't touch the water in foreign places.
Klaus and John were across the dormitory hall from each other. Together they were introduced to Dr. Wayland. John did not even know that he had Germanna ancestors at the time but Dr. Wayland and Klaus could tell John that he did. Both men were present at the time the Germanna Foundation was being formed, and they used to attend its meeting, held outdoors then.
When Klaus submitted the text of his book, The Virginia Germans , to the University of Virginia Press, they rejected it. Why? It had too many references in it. John says that there were almost as many pages for the references and notes as for the text. When published, there were about 31 pages of notes to the text.
If any of you are in the area of Staunton today, you may attend the meeting and "fest" with others. The time is 2:00 PM.
(11 Oct 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.