For the last several centuries, wealthy European families received official family crests from the authorities for noble deeds, academic achievement, or exceptional service to one’s ruler. Our Schmidt ancestors were humble, hard-working peasants in a tiny village called Machtlos, hidden away in the dense Wildeck Forest. As such, they were never recognized in this way. […]
This is an essay written in 1927 by John Klein, a Humboldt, Iowa high school student. His freshman English class was to interview and write about an older person in the community. The essays are collected at the Humboldt public library. Michael Lindemann is the subject of this essay and it includes an account of […]
Many Schmidts from Machtlos, Germany left behind family, friends, jobs, and everything they knew when they ventured to a foreign land with a different culture and a different language. Driven by a belief in the American Dream, these Schmidts sought and achieved opportunity, freedom, and prosperity. No doubt they would have celebrated the Fourth of […]
The Schmidts of West Bend, Iowa will dominate the record-breaking 2016 Schmidt Reunion in Spencer, Iowa. Yet, of all the places that the Schmidt immigrants from Machtlos, Germany could have settled in, why did they choose West Bend, Iowa? Hessian Troops in British Pay in the US War of Independence, by C. Ziegler, 1799 (Wikimedia commons) The […]
The Schmidt family of Machtlos began with Hans Heinrich Schmidt and Barbara (Rimbach) Schmidt, who lived in the latter 1600s and early 1700s. The branches of the Machtlos Schmidt family who settled in America, however, exist because of Hans Heinrich’s great great grandson: Dietrich Schmidt. Dietrich Schmidt baptism record, 6 April 1803, Machtlos Dietrich Schmidt was […]