I'm going to ask at my class tonight about ways to refer to my subject. Great great grandfather, Maier Zunder. For whom I have great respect. It just doesn't seem right to me to refer to him by his first name.
The newspaper especially in regards to the School Board refer to him as Mr. Zunder. This somehow feels right to me. Channeling my grandmother, who was his granddaughter thought he died when she was about 5 years old, she certainly would have referred to him as Maier. I've thought often how he likely would not have had much to do with me as a girl descendant; he certainly acted as the partiarch, taking care of everybody.
Referring to him as Mr. Zunder somehow feels right to me. I will discuss it soon, very soon.
I'm also reflecting that I do not even have such a complete paper trail on my father or grandfathers, let alone the mothers or gransmothers.
But Mr. Zunder, I got a bunch.
One of my favorite Maier Zunder quotes. He's being interviewed here by one of the dailies asking him about the proposed changes to the devotional exercises for the schools in 1878. He's a member of the Board of Education. He will later engineer the failure of this plan. I told the stories to the Thuleans last night and they reacted just like Dennis "Where is he now? We need him!"
I don't think that either Protestants or Catholics will look upon the proposed plan as being anything except ridiculous, and think there is no more probability of its being adopted than there is of the Hebrew Talmud. Our Jewish children wouldn't be hurt by hearing the proposed exercises but a trial would show the ministers how impractical the plan would be. It is proposed that a certain percentage of children should withdraw from the room for devotional exercises, but we have no rooms in our buildings for the children to withdraw to. Now there is a room in Cedar Street where there are about fifteen jews, fifteen Catholics and the rest Protestants, but how can we provide a room for these sets of children. For the highest room in the school in each school there are recitation rooms and there the children might withdraw, but there are no such accommodations in the other rooms. Even with those accommodations a great deal of time would be consumed in the devotions. To be practicable there must be one service for all. The Jews have no objection to the reading of the Psalms or the Proverbs, and little to the saying of the Lord's Prayer. Neither have they much objections to most of the hymns excepting those of Moody and Sankey. The proposed plan would be very disastrous to this country as a Republic for it will engender a great deal of feeling for when the time for devotions comes there will be lines drawn between Jews, Protestants and Catholics, and children will learn to distinguish each other by their religious faith, and will be influenced by same throughout their lives. This plan proposed reminds me of the features of the middle ages when Jews were obliged in Spain and Portugal to be distinguished by the badge of a yellow ribbon on one arm, and of the time in France when the Huguenots of France were obliged to wear a badge indicative of their faith. There can be no doubt that this plan must create among children a sense of religious distinction. If the children of various faiths are to be separated, some must either go into entries or hallways or we shall have to build a withdrawing room for each school room. All classes in this country have always lived in harmony and peace together, but if these distinctions were made, the result, I think, will be very disastrous.
Picture is an engraving of State Street in 1860, 18 years before the above quote. Mr. Zunder's business was nearby. Picture used without permission from Magrisso Forte.
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