She wasn’t famous. She didn’t do anything that would make historians sit up and take notice. But there is a story attached to Wilhemina Ostermann.
She was born on Dec. 5, 1833, somewhere in Germany. We know who her parents were – Johann Ostermann and Lucie Hoffman Ostermann – but that’s about all we know. We can presume, but it’s only a presumption, that she had siblings. In the 1850s, Wilhelmina (and likely her parents) came to the United States, part of the second great wave of German immigrants to America in the 19th century. German immigrants had come to Louisiana since the 1720s (New Orleans was founded in 1718), many settling in what was called the “German Coast,” a few miles west of the city. Today, the small town of Des Allemands testifies to that early German presence – the name is French for “The Germans.”
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
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