The everyday routines of 18th century Swiss mountain people – including recipes, report cards and dowry lists – have been brought vividly to life by a Linfield College professor.
Peter Richardson, a member of the Linfield faculty since 1980, is the author of “Unser Wohnort ist ein wilder Berg” (The Place Where We Live is a Wild Mountain), a collection of Swiss transcriptions, the oldest of which dates back to 1560.
During 1969, while Richardson completed his dissertation in Switzerland, he and his wife, Beverly, discovered her family name inscribed on a cabin in a Sapün Valley village. Once a self-sustaining farm community of 250, the village had been slowly vacated and its culture lost as residents moved down to the valley. For the past four decades, the Richardsons have regularly returned to the Swiss Alps and on one visit, discovered thousands of old documents in a wooden cupboard within a local museum.
Richardson had studied old Germanic languages during a Fulbright at the University of Marburg’s German Dialect Institute and was uniquely prepared for this project. He ultimately deciphered and transcribed more than 1,800 documents entrusted to him by local Sapün residents. Most of the local residents are unable to read the old handwriting since some of it is 200 to 400 years old. From these transcriptions, he chose 39 for the book.
“My favorite documents are the ones written and decorated by the kids,” said Richardson, pointing out an essay from a school exercise book. “The script is wonderful and very easy to read.”
The collection is set off by large-format photographs of the high valley, folk material, and architectural details of the abandoned houses and barns of the village. The documents, written by farmers, schoolchildren, teachers, and local officials, deal with subjects as varied as school instruction, love, finances, magic and popular medicine, and death.
Among the documents are a schedule of the Fondei school and the table showing the teacher’s income according to the number of students; sheets of arithmetic problems; and schoolchildren’s essays. There are beautiful facsimiles of love poems and scissor-cut remembrances from teachers and students. A dowry from 1782 lists what one father will give to his daughter: two cows, two calves, three sheep, some comestibles, two sides of bacon, cheese, lamp fat, all weighed with the big weight.
But the transcriptions also carry underlying messages, for example, in one essay of a student writing to a classmate with the title “Grave.”
“This says worlds about the culture,” explained Richardson. “Because these kids are growing up in a culture in which kids didn’t get to be kids. They died. That’s not roses are red and violets are blue.”
Richardson’s work on the book and the numerous other documents housed in the village museum is helping to preserve a historical record of day-to-day life that might otherwise be lost. His knowledge of language and his painstaking work transcribing the letters, poems, business records and other documents offer an intimate glimpse into history and provide a record for future generations.
He wasn’t necessarily looking for a project, but his curiosity about the village and the area led him to a remarkable historical find, one he feels passionate about helping preserve.
Richardson’s next project? A collection of Grabschriften (“grave writings”), which are handwritten memorials placed on the coffin of the deceased. They are typically saved after the funeral in remembrance of the departed, and offer a kind of folk art that has been acknowledged in the folklore books but not studied systematically.
Richardson was named Oregon Professor of the Year in 2009, earned the Edith Green Distinguished Professor Award twice, in 1987-88 and 2008-09, and has been a Colloquium advisor since 1987.
