New Year’s blessings, pork and sauerkraut
The traditional New Year’s folklife in the East Penn Valley and Oley Hills as elsewhere among the Pennsylvania Dutch practiced and participated in years ago was as such: On New Year’s Eve, German- Dialect speaking neighbors of Pennsylvania Dutch descent would gather at the home of the New Year’s Wisher. The “Wisher” was someone who had memorized the Pennsylvania German dialect “New Year’s Chant,” such as Peter Fritsch nowadays, and was ready to call on all his farm neighbors as in the past.
The highlight of this traditional blessing given by the Wisher occurred when the chanter reached the final verse and asked the homeowner if there was any reason why they should not “shoot in” the New Year for his house- hold. If the owner gave permission, the group of well-wishers shot off their shotguns in the midnight air, breaking the silence of the countryside at each home. After the initial surprise of disturbing the farm animals, the well-wishers were invited into the home to partake in drinks and light refreshments, continuing the Christmas hospitality that is typical of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Local revelers who trav- eled from farm to farm in rural Berks County, shooting in the New Year during the solitude of night, were less dangerous due to open surroundings. Occasional city dwellers do shooting in the New Year in our populated cities. Nonetheless, obvious dangers of this practice have caused municipalities to outlaw the folk custom decades ago, but New Year’s wishing and shooting shotguns survived into the mid-20th Century among Berks Countians. Pennsylvania Dutch dialect Chanters who recited the New Year’s Wish did so from memory and handed the chant down generation after generation.
As recalled by more than a few surviving Dutchmen, Paul Hoppes of Topton made it his responsibility to recite the “New Year’s Blessing” at the Fredericksville Tavern, District Township on New Year’s Day. He became an annual visitor there, as well as at other taverns in the Oley Hills. When Paul chanted the blessing at the Fredericksville Tavern, the Pennsylvania Dutch speaking natives, as recalled, were just as attentive as they would have been if their local minister had been “chanting” from the church altar. There was no mistaking the sincerity of the moment in such a public place, as this was considered a Community Blessing. The late Dr. Don Yoder relates in his book, Pennsylvania German Broadsides, “If a New Year’s chanter overlooks a farmer, it is a serious misgiving.”
Elwood Hoch Jr., a grandson of Gideon Hoch, whose farm was next to Amandus Moyer, recalled that the New Year party shot their guns four times: two times to shoot out the old year and two times to shoot in the new one, a practice that once in awhile is heard to this day in the Oley Hills, most likely at the urging and not doing of an older, traditional Dutchman. Less dangerous though were the New Year butcherings among Berks Countians of Rhineland descent, who relied on relatives and neighbors to butcher animals on or near New Year’s Day. Keeping with the holiday festivities, these farmers shared not only meat products with their helpers, but also refreshments throughout the whole day, as they arduously followed Pennsylvania Dutch meat recipes.
There was usually a barrel or two of hard cider hidden somewhere and always bottles of spirits, but temperance was the rule of the day among these serious butchers. Pork sausage and pans of scrapple were winter delights most eagerly eaten by the Pennsylvania Dutch. Farmers just could not make much scrapple in the warm summer months years ago. One such PA Dutch farmstead with such an elaborate pig stable was Amandus D. Moyer’s (1892-1963) who was good at raising swine. His wife, Alice (Bieber), always prepared a large meal of pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day knowing that some fermenting sauerkraut would not last in the New Year.
If the owner gave permission, the group of wellwishers shot off their shotguns in the midnight air, breaking the silence of the countryside at each home.