Stammtisch Tales

The immigrant communities in New York, for example, Little Italy, Frankfurt on the Hudson (Inwood) in Manhattan, Arthur Avenue (Bronx), Ridgewood (Queens), Bedford Avenue (Brooklyn), produced many heroes in America over the past three centuries. There are family tales and folklore about ancestors, good and bad, who traversed the oceans to get a fresh start in America. They include "jumping ship," names changed on Ellis Island upon arrival, and apocryphal tales of nobility, military, and scandal in the old country. Germans told them around the family Stammtisch with Oma, Italians and Irish told them at Sunday dinners with Nonno and Sammathi, the Jewish population told them at Shabbat dinners with Bubbe, African and Native American families inherited rich oral traditions telling tales originated in foreign and native lands passed down to each generation. All the stories often repeated are a familial oral history, which is passed on to each following younger generation. The family table is, and was, a safe oasis for family members who were and still are bullied by other ethnicities. During the nineteenth century, all immigrants were hated by the Know-Nothing party, which repeatedly was reborn through the avenues of hatred and ostracism This book is based on stories told at the table connected to people who were famous and not so famous in family lore.