The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1874-04-16

Away from Fatherland.

ign immigration brings to this country
I'M train many a romance of sentiment %
sol ", varying from the pretty pastoral OF a
WIN courtship, interrupted for years by the
yeC7nan-lover's battle for fortune in distant
America, to the stern drama of the fugitive s
reeapture by residences justice, after lifetime s
|-li' Suise and miserable wanderings across the
se.s. In the city of Cincinnati, a few days ago,
a. ,ealthy gentleman, in his SEVENTEEN year, was
married to widow only one year younger ;
and the event invited none quizzical humor
generally occasioned by the matrimonial essays
Of old age, because it was the mellow climax Of
romance begun in the fitness Of youth: Fifty
years before, the bride and groom of that mar
riage were lovers in a German Village near the
Rhine. Poverty pressed hard upon the young
man, and, after many vows Of eternal fidelity
between himself and his sweetheart, he crossed
the ocean to conquer future of higher posi-
bilities in the Great Republic. 1t is not told by
what vicissitudes the hearts Of the twain were
estranged, but, when after several years Of sue
cessful fortune in the West the emigrant took
to himself a wife, it was not the village girl !;
and when the latter subsequently came to this
country herself, and was welded nothing of
the old romance was in the act. Yet, as we
see, that old romance was not yet dead. Wild
over and widow, the two met once more be-
side the American Rhine the former rich
man, though hoary with the SHOWS Of three
score and ten, and the latter old enough to be
the grandmother OF her first loves maiden self.
And, thus meeting, it was to part no more for
the old romance could not be wronged Of its
dues even at the eleventh hour and the dream
of youth became the sacrament Of age.
1t may be said OF our German immigrants,
distinctively, that their romances, even when
involving tragic element, are rarely tainted
by the meritricious properties too often charac-
terzing the foreign sentimentalisms of other
nationalities. What pure and pathetic epic is
this, for instance, of two sample lives: At the
Union Depot, in Milwaukee, Wis, one day last
month, a fine looking young fellow named Fritz
Shonman, four years from Fatherland, wa IS one
Of a throng eagerly awaiting certain Eastern
train. AS many sympathizing friends about
him were aware, he had in6lrstriously and pa
tiently won a rising position in large local
business house, and was now in the depot to
greet the girl he had loved in his German home,
whom he had summoned to come to him and
be his wife, and the new home he had prepared
for their future. And she came. GAS the eXpec-
ted train TO He'd at last into the station, desbes
the Wisconsin, and the impatient passengers
began disembarfzing, the quick eye Of love re-
vealed the yearning hearts to each other, and
with the words. Fritz 7 'Katri ma Y the long
separated lovers clasped each other in a close
embrace. After the first joyous emotion was
over, Fritz triedtp disengage himself, to come
around. But the hands was firmly clasped a.
bout his neck, and would not separate no
words came from the lips which touched his
cheek, and in moment the dread int lligence
flashed through the minds of the beholders.x
The girl was dead, having literally broken her
heart with excessive Joy at being restored to
him she fondly loved, No words can describe
the grief of the man who, but moment before,
had stepped as proudly as king, conscious of
having the love of a true woman. His anguish
overpowered and unnamed him, and a few
deep sobs which conyulsed his frame soon pass
ed, leaving him gazing at the corpse Of Katrina
with a dull, agonizing, wild stare. The many
passengers at the depot became aware of what
had happened, and when all had been told, not
a dry eye was to be seen.''