Bedford County's Dutch

Many books have been written about the Pennsylvania Dutch. Their manners, customs and manner of speech has been the subject of countless puns or jokes.

It is not our purpose to write about the settlers and inhabitants of our eastern counties, but rather comment about those who settled in this area. We cannot over-look our neighboring county to the west, Somerset, because it too, was settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch before Somerset County was formed.

Pennsylvania Dutch or German was spoken by most of our earliest families. Even when I was a child, I would hear some of my ancestors talk Dutch. One old neighbor lady always spoke to me in Dutch and she tried to teach me, but I was not interested. I'm sorry now.

There are very few native county families today, who cannot trace their family tree back to where they can discover their ancestors moved here from York, Lancaster or Berks Counties. Many can also trace them back to certain sections of Germany.

From colonial times on down the decendents of the Pennsylvania Dutch fanned out in all directions, especially west and to the south as far as the Carolinas. The western migrations reached the midwest. However, many saw and liked the land of Bedford County, thus decided to settle down and farm the fields and raise their families.

Many early Church services were conducted in German, and occasionally a family will be found who has a Bible that was written in German and English. The writer has a Reformed Catachism, printed at Philadelphia in 1795. Its 286 pages are mellowed with age. It is all in old German style lettering.

Today, it is hard to find even in the older generation one person who can still speak Dutch. To the present generation, it is a forgotten language in Bedford County.

Once in a while one can still hear many expressions and words that came down from our forefathers. How many times have you heard the expression about a person's hair being 'strubbly'? (this means that your hair is disleveled or uncombed), or about the child who cannot sit quietly and was warned not to 'rutch' around in its chair? Then there are the words 'klook and peeps'. (an old hen and her chicks). How about the person putting a 'hex on you"? What it meant was he was putting a spell or bewitching you.

You hear the expression of an old house looking 'spooky', or the surprised remark 'Ei-yiyi'. Some believe the expression 'powow' is a Dutch word used to cure an illness. Actually it was borrowed from the native Indians.

If your door bell is out of order, and you were to place a small Dutch notice asking the visitor to knock at your door, you might write it 'bell don't make; Bump.'

If you read the daily newspaper and the weather report calls for rain, our Dutch ancestors would say 'the paper wants rain'. When the Dutch lady had to bake her bread, she would explain that her 'bread was all', thus her reason for baking a new supply.

'Apple schnitzing' was a favorite way of drying apples for winter use. One would always hear the wife refer to her spouse as 'The Mister', never her husband. Each farmer's son was taught by his father a trade or skill. They were excellent carpenters and blacksmiths. The girls, too, were taught the secrets of the kitchen and how to be a good wife. They worked hard willingly. They viewed marriage as a relationship of working together.

Barrenness is still seldom heard of among the Pennsylvania Dutch. Marriage before twenty has been an old tradition. It is an old saying about the young Dutch woman that she either 'has a child in her belly or one on her lap'.

There are a few scattered tomb-stones in our old cemeteries that have German inscriptions on them. Perhaps the heaviest concentration of Pennsylvania Dutch families in the county was in Friends Cove area. Other sections of the county, too, had their Dutch, especially in Juniata, Napier, Harrison and part of Bedford Township.

The old Dutch farm wife used her 'Farmer's or Hagerstown Almanac' as a guide in planting her garden under the 'up-sign, or down sign' or perhaps the 'posey woman'. Our local Dutch families inherited their love of the land from their ancestors.

Most of these old residents were Democrats. If one were to ask a Dutchman what his politics were, he would proudly reply "Luderisich un Demogroundish verdoll sei". (Lutheran and Democrat, I'll be damned).

One Dutch poet once wrote the following:

Ich bin e Pennsylvanier

Duff ich stolz un froh

Das land is scho, die leut sin neft

Bei tschinks ich mach schier enge weft

's biefs ke land in der welt.

Translated-

I am a Pennsylvanian

of that I am proud and glad

The country is beautiful, the people are nice

By Jinks, I'll make almost any bet

There's no better country in the world.

We all will agree to that.