Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter
Keywords
Washington Smithsonian, autobiography, Swiss immigrant, Swiss American Historical Society
Abstract
Both my parents were city dwellers displaced from rural Switzerland. In fact, all my grandparents came from agricultural villages. Yet, they all were "armigerous," that is, entitled to use armorial bearings, which is not unusual back home. My father, also called Walter, grew up in Btilach, at that time a small town in the Canton of ZUrich. He was a stone mason like his father, who ran a grave-stone business. I hardly knew my grandfather, who fell to his death from the steeple of one of the two churches while working on a Gothic window. What I do remember and what impressed me as a child was that as a youngster my father was required to work in the family's huge garden, the size of a small city block, now taken up by a large apartment building.
Recommended Citation
Angst, Walter
(1988)
"FROM ZURICH'S "THERMA" TO WASHINGTON'S SMITHSONIAN: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF A MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY SWISS IMMIGRANT,"
Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 24:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol24/iss2/4