Emerenz Meier

Emerenz Meier ( born October 3, 1874 in Schiefweg, today part of the forest Churches / Lower Bavaria, † February 28, 1928 in Chicago) was a German writer. In addition to Lena Christ she is the most famous Bavarian folk poet.

Life

In the Bavarian Forest

Born in Schiefweg at Forest Churches 1874 Emerenz Meier began writing as a child about their home Lower Bavaria. Emerenz Meier was the daughter of Emerenz Meier, nee Raab, and of the farmer, cattle dealer and innkeeper Josef Meier. She was a very good student and wrote very early short stories and poems. She lived and worked on the family farm and also helped as a waitress in the taproom.

In 1893, her first story was published in The Juhschroa the Danube Passau newspaper that she had secretly sent. In the fall of 1896 their first and only book was published in the East Prussian Königsberg from the Bavarian Forest. The writer Hans Carossa read it and visited in the fall of 1898 walk Emerenz Meier in forest churches. Because of the poor economic situation of the family migrated parts to North America.

The poet had meanwhile become a regional celebrity. Your picture in costume was sold by the inventor of the postcard, Alphons Adolph from Passau, 1898 together with the photo of her birthplace as "Greetings from Forest churches."

In Chicago

In March 1906 Emerenz Meier followed the emigrant father and her sisters after her mother after a stint as a hostess in Passau and writer in Munich. They emigrated to the local German district to Chicago. However, the hoped-for personal economic recovery failed to materialize itself. In 1907 Emerenz Meier married her first husband Josef Schmöller, who was a native of the Bavarian Forest and likewise emigrants. In 1908 a son was born. Her husband died in 1910 of tuberculosis. Initially Emerenz Meier lectured in German clubs and wrote short stories and poems for German -language magazines. Later she held the struggle for existence trapped in a foreign land. In her second marriage, she married John Lindgren Sweden.

The First World War intensified their criticism of the political, economic and social conditions in Europe and America. With the outbreak of war in the former home of the contact broke off temporarily and was then taken up again in 1919. In letters to their forest Kirchner friend Auguste Unertl showed their sympathy for communism and their dislike of capitalism and the church. With money and in-kind donations, she tried to alleviate the suffering in the Bavarian Forest, even though she had only a little. During the period of Prohibition in the U.S., they brewed beer in Chicago for their compatriots and their own needs.

Emerenz Meier died on February 28, 1928 in Chicago at the age of 53 years from the effects of a kidney infection.

Work

Texts of Emerenz Meier appeared in magazines such as Simplicissimus and the flying leaves. They distinguished themselves by their passionate considerations of the environment in the Bavarian Forest from around the turn of the century. The seals came from the public on demand.

At home, they should also have been derided as narrische Verslmacherin ( crazy Versmacherin ).

Also in newspapers and calendars their concise stories and poems were printed. Emerenz Meier was considered a natural talent and used motifs from their large rural home. In Stadttheater Passau two of her stories were listed.

Museum

In the birthplace of Emerenz Meier Museum "Born in Schiefweg " was established on 15 May 2010, the first emigration museum in Bavaria. The time of the emigration wave after 1900 from the Bavarian Forest is it alive again.