It was a beautiful spring day in May 1895. I had been reading my diaries, which I began writing after arriving in America. It occurred to me that the observations I recorded recount intriguing and engaging experiences. Therefore, I decided to author an autobiography. In it, I would incorporate many events from my life in the hope that it will be a meaningful and compelling volume about my personal history and the state of affairs in 19th century Germany andAmerica.

I was born in Freinsheim, a small town in southwest Germany, west of the beautiful green Rhine River, with a picturesque view of orchards. In my mind, I can still see the village, with its lovely gardens and vineyards blooming with beautiful flowers in spring, vibrant colors in autumn, and bountiful fruit during harvesttime.

Over the years, the townspeople of Freinsheim have overcome many calamities. At the end of the 17th century, they suffered tremendous destruction from the Nine Years’ War waged with France. Not much more than a decade later, in 1709, they faced a horrible freeze that killed many of the village’s inhabitants, caused livestock and poultry, as well as other wildlife, to freeze to death, and destroyed the region’s productivegrapevines.

Freinsheim’s location near the border of France is a major disadvantage. For centuries, Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire, which was often at war with France. When the French were aggressors, the routes to their destinations were through Freinsheim. This was the case when France invaded Germany during the French Revolution from 1789 to 1793 and during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte from 1804-1815.

During his reign, the people of Freinsheim were subject to the Napoleonic Code, a series of liberal policies that influenced Germany and other nations. The laws within the code affirmed equality of men before the law, freedom of religion, and the abolition of feudalism. My parents were in favor of those ideas and spoke specifically about equality of the law, whereby judges were forbidden from applying case law to civil cases, rather than evaluating each case on its own merit. This discouraged judges from favoring the upperclass.

Despite their approval of certain Napoleonic policies, my parents were disturbed by his establishment of the supremacy of men over women (the generally accepted legal position in most of Europe at the time). In essence, women were considered chattels of their fathers and, once married, of their husbands. In fact, Napoleon, when comparing men to women, reportedly stated that nature had made w