The Frau Erica Texts
An index of biographies, memoirs, histories, recipes, and oddments The Frau Erica Project has lots of text files — long and short, English and German — all of them linked from the appropriate family pages. That means, however, that some readers might not discover things of interest that are available elsewhere on the site. This index gathers most of those text files, sorts them by genre, and provides links (usually a name). Style point: The Frau Erica archive tries to use birth names for everyone. Authors are listed here by birth name, sometimes with married name appended after a slash. Adelheid Nickel, for example, is alphabetized under ”Mueller/Nickel, Adelheid.” Frau Erica herself, mother of many Muellers, appears under the Rickmeyer name. There are 93 of these text files in the archives. To narrow your search, select: Biography | Memoir | History | Literary Work | Letters | Recipes | Oddments || All Files
Poetry, Prose, Literary Work
Chan, Kam Kwai Five Poems
Some of Kam Kwai’s writings appeared in Chinese-language newspapers in Chicago. Her poetry incorporates more personal reflections on a long and eventful life. These poems, presented in the original Chinese with English translation, were written in 2016. Grams, Paul From Seventy-Eight Sonnets (1978)
Poet Paul Grams turned 30 in 1978. His self-published <em>Seventy-Eight Sonnets</em> gathered more than two years of his work. Mueller, Ernie Ernie’s Foot, Foot Foot, and Foot Foot Foot story
Ernie Mueller was, among other things, a born storyteller. No one knows whether “Foot, Foot Foot, and Foot Foot Foot” was his original composition, but his telling was highly original and memorable for a generation of nephews and nieces. Rickmeyer/Mueller, Adelheid (Frau Erica) Frau Erica: Recipes, household advice, devotional verse
When Frau Erica arrived in the 1860s, there were already about 2.45 million Germans in a country of about 35 million people. This is the preface to her German-American cookbook. Rickmeyer/Mueller, Adelheid (Frau Erica) A sample of Frau Erica’s devotional verse
On January 16, 1921, four days before her death, Frau Erica composed this devotional poem for the <em>Stadtmissionar.</em> The editors described it as <em>“fragmentärisch.</em>” Sängerbote A German-American literary outlet
The Sängerbote, a hardbound five-year compilation (1913-1917) of a German Lutheran choral and literary quarterly published in St. Louis, included more than 50 contributions from four Mueller family authors. It was a prized possession of the Muellers in Freedom Township, Minnesota. Opa [Rev. Ernst H. C.] Mueller, one of the four, promised it to his daughter Adelheid, who had become a teacher, organist, and choir director. Struwwelpeter Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Funny Pictures?
Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, a German psychiatrist, wrote this children’s book as a Christmas for his son in 1844. Friends urged him to publish it, and he did so – reluctantly – in 1846. It was an instant bestseller and became a Mueller household staple, running through hundreds of editions and translated into many languages. Struwwelpeter auf Deutsch Der Struwwelpeter: The original Gerrman text
Mueller children likely encountered the book in Bosenbüttel before immigration. Four generations of Mueller children discovered it in German and/or English. Struwwelpeter Struwwelpeter: The author’s view
Struwwelpeter had and still has many detractors: too cruel, too harsh. In 1867, when the book had reached its 100th edition, author Heinrich Hoffmann wrote the story of its creation and responded to criticisms. Prior to Struwwelpeter, German children’s literature was built on insipid moral maxims, admonitions and silly pictures. | 
