Baptized on Merovingian Ground

My Oma, were she alive today, would be 93. She was born nine months and some odd days after Armistice Day or what we know as Veterans Day. When Mom told me that she had been Baptized in the historical Frankfurt Cathedral; I just had to know more.

Helen Mayenfels (1919-1999)

Oakland Tribune, September 7, 1919, Page 1

NewspaperARCHIVE

Frankfurt Dom Abend

"Treaty To Be Ratified By Wilson" shouted the Oakland Tribune headline on September 7, 1919. Approximately six weeks after her birth, Oma did some shouting of her own.

Oma was Baptized in the Frankfurter Dom. The official name is Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus; Emperor Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew.  "St. Bartholomew's is the main church of Frankfurt and was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the foundation of an earlier church from the Merovingian time."

Much ado is recently made by conspiracy theorists about Satanic and political bloodlines and popular focus is also garnered by Dan Brown's books.

The Main Divisions of the Frankish Kingdoms under the Merovingian Kings.
But "Merovingian society...was clearly a Christian society..., and one cannot ignore the vital and central part that was played by Christianity in its cultural life (Hen). Dark Age Christianity echoes still barbaric bloodshed in stories of quests for World Domination.

Frankfurt Dom Querschiff

Oma, as Family Lore goes, "...hat die ganzen Kirche ausgebrult." In English, and not a literal translation, screamed her head off [at her Baptism.] Did Oma, as a new Soul, know what type of ground she was being Baptized upon? Or was it more the 'in the air buzz' of  The Red Scare and Hitler's eminent rise to power?

The Germany my Family was raised in, is one I can scarcely imagine. Harder still is extracting bits and pieces of Oral Family History. Scars of suppression, depression, bombings and annihilation show not only in the German landscape. These scars, they show in my Family's soul.


Sources

The Merovingians by Professor Robert Sewell

Culture & Tradition in Merovingian Gaul AD 481-751 by Yitzhak Hen

Modern History Germany Timeline 1918-1945

Frankfurt Cathedral and Photos Wikipedia and Wikimedia

Historical Frankfurt

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