PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Physiology and Hex Signs
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:30:37 EST

Speaking of Elizabethtown, PA . . .

A few years ago I injured my foot when I caught my high heel in the space
between the elevator floor and the building floor. In the course of
treatment, one day my regular orthopedist got delayed in surgery and one of
his associates saw me. He said to me "My Lord, I haven't seen feet like this
since I did my residency in Elizabethtown, PA. There were a lot of German
people out there who had the same type foot you have."

Well, I knew it was a family trait, but until then, I hadn't realized that it
was an ethnic trait!

I have a very high arch and instep, so high that my footprints around the
swimming pool don't show any connection fotween my heel and the front of the
foot. I was always very unsurefooted since a relatively small portion of my
foot made contact with the ground. As I grow older, the condition gets worse
and the tendons are so strained to make it across the high instep that it
causes my toes to curl.

I saw it throughout my family and was just wondering if any of you have a
similar condition.

I also have very thin arms. I hated that as a child, but as I grow older I
find it more of a blessing. My mother and daughter had/have the same. I was
in Nuremburg a few summers ago, strolling through the pedestrian area in the
old town, and I spied a gal with arms exactly like mine and I had to repress
the urge to ask her if she might be a cousin.

I also saw why my 6' 2" daughter, who got to Germany before me, felt so
comfortable there. There are a lot of tall women --- and just tall people in
general. (My Irish side are wee folk; a great deal of fuss was made over the
fact that my dad was 6'. In my mother's family, that was short for a man.)

While in Germany I toured a ritter cassel (knight's castle) overlooking the
Prunn River, a trubutary to the Danube in Bavaria. It was built about 1000
A.D. In one room I glanced upward and saw burnt into the rafters PA Dutch hex
signs! I got so excited that I took tons of pictures.

When I got home, I compared them with a post card full of hex signs, and they
were defintely the same patterns.

It reminded me of my childhood. I had a wood burning kit but never used it
for PA Dutch art. My PA Dutch art was limited to paper plates, a compass, and
colored pencils or crayons, or maybe water colors. I created colorful hex
signs on the plates. As you can tell, I grew up in the hex sign region and
not in Lancaster County.

--- Sue

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