✍🏼The Saga of the Merkle Cradle
In Their Words: The Saga of the Merkle Cradle
As told by Caroline (Maier) Merkle to her granddaughter Genevieve in 1930, and recorded by Genevieve in a 1979 letter.
Family heirlooms tell stories, but only when someone takes the time to write them down. In October 1979, my great-aunt Genevieve Merkle sent this letter to my parents, Linda and Joe, describing the 110-year-old cradle that had rocked five generations of Merkle babies — including my sister and me.
In her letter, Genevieve recounts a story first told to her nearly fifty years earlier by her grandmother, Caroline (Maier) Merkle, who emigrated from Württemberg, Germany, to Marion, Ohio, in 1869. Through Genevieve’s words, Caroline’s practical humor, her love for her children, and her everyday life come alive once again.
The Saga of the Merkle Cradle
As told to Genevieve by Caroline Merkle, my grandmother, in 1930
Grandma Merkle was 26 years of age in 1869. Caroline and John were expecting their first child. John worked in a downtown Marion, Ohio butcher shop, one of his customers being a cabinet maker, with his own shop on S. Main St. John ordered a cradle to be made as a surprise for Caroline. In due time it was finished and John carried it through town to their home on N. Main St. Caroline was not only surprised, but also angry.
“I was not even showing yet and he let everyone in town know that I was expecting. I didn’t speak to him for a week.”
Their first child, Wilhelmina (Aunt Min), was born Jan. 22, 1870. Below is a list of the family children that have had use of it. It will have been in Marion, Springfield, Sandusky, Toledo and Cincinnati, in Ohio, Michigan, Washington, and New York States. When it came to me in 1930, it had been stored for many years. I attempted to remove the many coats of paint. I encountered white, pink, blue, and even jade green. I finally gave up on the project — the paint was off the smooth rails and rockers, but the spindles were beyond me, so I painted them antique white.
“Joe, I will be eternally grateful for all your work on it and both of us will haunt anyone who dares to put any paint on it.”
Bob glued the weak joints and put a new slat in with wood screws, and I waxed it. It is in excellent condition, considering its 110-year age. We can thank the Army for that — they packed up Joan’s things when they were transferred to Washington.
One other incident Grandma told me about:
“I never had time to hold my children much, but they were always near me. I knit all of our socks and gloves and would talk to the baby and rock the cradle with my foot.” (The worn place can be seen.) “It used to be in the kitchen with me when I cooked, but one day I dropped a hot potato on Albert. I was so scared — I thought I had disfigured him. I was never in the kitchen after that.”
One other thing I remember from home: George was an unhappy baby, could find no food that agreed with him. The cradle was alongside Mom and Dad’s bed with a rope on it. When George would whimper, Mom would rock the cradle with the rope. When she would grow tired of pulling, she would hand the rope to Dad and he would pull it, sewing back and forth across Mom! I was ten years old then and distinctly remember taking my turn rocking your dad, to lull him to sleep.
Reflections
How grateful am I to have Genevieve’s letter today, nearly half a century after she wrote it, I can hear her voice, matter-of-fact, funny, and deeply loving. Through her words, Caroline becomes more than a name in a family tree; she’s a young woman in 1869, blushing in surprise when her husband paraded a cradle through town, and later a grandmother recalling the rhythm of a foot rocking her babies to sleep.
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