Nehrling Gardens
The Henry Nehrling Society
Traces of German InfluenceNehrling's papers, which reside in the archives at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, give evidence of the importance German had for Nehrling despite his having been born here in the United States. Issues from three German American newspapers can be found -- from Germania published in Milwaukee, from Der Westen published in Chicago, and from Die NY Staats-Zeitung published in New York. In these newspapers Nehrling published his own articles on subjects such as the history of citrus in the state of Florida and travels in the state of Florida around 1900. Also among his papers are examples of composition books from his children, essays in which the children write in German and have their work corrected. We see here an example of a report on the hedgehog, der Igel. Indeed, the editor of Die Gartenwelt, a gardening periodical in Berlin to which Nehrling continued to contribute articles in German regularly, praised Nehrling in the January 1909 issue of the magazine:"In the Nehrling family the German language has been maintained for three generations already. This is unusual because most German-American families lose the language in the second generation." Another indication of the importance of German to the community is the list of Missouri Synod pastors that the community recruited for the Zion Lutheran Church. In 1891 the community engaged a Lutheran pastor, Carl F. Brommer for the church they had built in 1887. In 1894 Edward Fischer, a young seminarian who had just finished his studies in a Missouri seminary, took up duties in Gotha. The next change occurred in 1903 when Hugo Hennig became pastor until 1905, at which point there was no pastor until 1907. Arno Nehrling, a 16-year-old teenager at the time and one of Nehrling's sons, remembered this time: "In this move and pioneer venture my father's income was much reduced and to provide for the daily needs often became a problem. In the beginning Pastor Hugo Hennig of the Lutheran church took up room and board with us. Later when there was no preacher and schoolteacher available my father helped out. He played the organ in the little church, he taught the Gotha youth in the one room Red School House and enjoyed being a Lutheran school teacher though it always remained a sideline with him." These changes in personnel coincide with difficulties that the German-American settlement of Gotha was facing between 1894 and 1905 and are reflected
in the population statistics for Orange County as a whole. In 1890 the population of Orange County had reached 12,584 according to census data from that
year. In 1900 the population decreased to 11,374 after the disastrous freezes of 1894-5. The founder of Gotha, George Hempel, lost his groves, sold his
saw mill, and gave up his home in Gotha to return to Buffalo, NY in 1903. Many others who had made lives for themselves in Florida gave up "paradise"
after orange groves were ruined and many banks failed. Indications remain that Pastor Hennig lived with Henry Nehrling between 1903 and 1905, clearly
an indication that the community was struggling to be able to provide for a religious leader. Even more telling is the gap in the history of the pastors of the
Zion Lutheran Church between 1905 and 1907 when Gotha evidently could not find the financial support for a minister. Nonetheless, the list of pastors of
German extraction continued up through 1980.[1] |
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Perhaps the most telling sign of the German influence in Gotha is the old cemetery. Among the names on the headstones -- Bekemeyer, De Vedig, Haltenhoff, Hartmann, Runge -- are three Nehrling graves. Nehrling's daughters Hildegard died in Gotha in 1904 and his daughter Hedwig died in 1906. His first wife Sophie, also died in Gotha in 1911. On her headstone, in addition to the birth and death dates in English, is a special inscription in German. Closer inspection allows us to discover that the inscription is poem by Ernst von Feuchtersleben [1806-1849] entitled "Auf Wiedersehen" ["Good-bye"] put to music by the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy [1809-1847]: |
 Sophie Nehrling's headstone |
Es ist bestimmt von Gottes Rath Dass man vom Liebsten, was man hat, Muss scheiden, ja scheiden [It is surely part of God's advice That one has to part with the dearest thing one has.] |
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| It is likely that the First World War made it increasingly difficult for the community of Gotha to maintain the use of German. German associations in Florida found it increasingly necessary to prove their allegiance to the United States by disbanding or offering their premises for war uses.[2] German publications like the Florida Staats-Zeitung found their editor arrested and had to discontinue publication.[3] Henry Nehrling's decision to move most of his plants to a new garden in Naples in 1917 certainly was precipitated in large part by freezes that had caused widespread damage in early 1917. However, the role that public attitude toward things German after the entry of the United States into the war on April 6, 1917, should not be discounted. | |||
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[1] Carl Patterson, local historian, has compiled a list that includes: John Oetjen 1907-09 Louis Wampsgaus 1912-1915 [not German-speaking] W.G. Reuhle 1912 George F. Trapp 1915-1925 Edward Fischer 1925-1955 [see earlier mention 1894] James Kunze during Fischer?s tenure Walter Chelmo 1955-1962 C.R. Zehnder 1962-1963 John Kutz 1963-1980 [2] The Germania Club of Miami disbanded April 11, 1917, according to the Miami Herald [April 13, 1917]. The Germania Club of Jacksonville passed a resolution on April 5, 1917, tendered its clubhouse to the American Red Cross for use as a hospital according to the Jacksonville Times-Union [reported in the Miami Herald on April 9, 1917]. [3] The Tampa Morning Tribune, September 14, 1917. |
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