The Laney Saga

Aboard the William and Sarah

1727

He leaned against the ship's railings and breathed in the cool, northern air. Seagulls squawked overhead, and occasionally he could feel the spray of water as the ship bobbed towards land.

The other passengers, practically all of whom were fellow German Palatines, began to mill around in anticipation of spotting land. They too were anxious at the unknown. For the William and Sarah was bringing another shipload of poor Palatines from Rotterdam to Cork. It was a trip that had already been made by tens of thousands of these immigrants. Some went to England, many went on to America, and others docked at various ports throughout Ireland to make their abode.

And for young Stover'd Dieterich Lenich, the uncertainty was both frightening and exhilarating. He loved seeing the world, and there was so much to see. He loved it all, the cities, the rivers, the mountains, the ocean. On the other hand, there was always the fear of the unknown. For his life had always been an insecure one.

As the ship continued its journey towards Ireland, young Deter began to reflect back on his brief but turbulent life. So far, it had been a troublesome life.

Deter had been born to John and Katherine Lenich in the Rhineland of what would one day be Germany. But John died in 1714 when Deter was only four years old. He barely remembered his father, but he knew that he had been killed in a skirmish between the French Catholics and the Lutherans of the Rhineland. And he remembered how his mother had wept, and how sad she had been. Then a man named Hans Gruner had married his mother and, although he was a good man, he was a poor substitute as a father.

Although he allowed Deter to go undisciplined, which created problems in itself, he did teach the young boy how to farm. For Gruner was adept at working the fields, pruning the vines and tending the crops. And young Deter learned the lay of the land, and he too became knowledgeable at growing crops. However, whenever the urge struck, Deter would slip off and go exploring. He loved to run through the meadows and up the grassy slopes, across the ridges of the small hills, into the forest and around the many lakes. He loved the beauty left behind by a large snowfall, although he hated and despised the cold.

Unfortunately, the freedom Deter felt when he was alone in the fields, forests and hills was about the only joy in his life. For he was always hungry. They often had little food, they lived a meager lifestyle and their very existence seemed to hang on a thread with each approaching winter.

After another particularly cold winter, a plague epidemic in Marseille that left all of Europe on edge, more persecution from the Catholic populace and a poor growing season, Gruber announced to his family that he had had enough. He wanted to follow the other thousands of Palatines and go somewhere, anywhere, but the Rhineland. So Gruber and Katherine announced to sixteen-year old Deter that they were moving to Ireland.

The journey would carry them up the Rhine River to the coastal city of Rotterdam. From there, they could take a number of ways to get to Ireland. There were numerous Irish communities where the Palatines had settled, so any one of them would do. It just so happened that the ship they boarded, the William and Sarah, was owned by a merchant from Cork, Ireland named McCarthy. And Cork was one of the destinations of many Palatines for two reasons. First of all, it was less than a day's journey from a number of Palatine communities, primarily, the area around Limerick. Secondly, and very important to the Palatines, Cork was a Protestant city. At this time, Ireland was predominantly a Catholic country. But Cork was one of those cities that had remained Protestant. Although the suburbs and outskirts were filled with Catholics, the city itself was Protestant.

So, as fate had it, the destiny of the Gruber family would be Cork, Ireland. When they got there, then they would decide their future.

And young, Deter, recently turned seventeen, contemplated his future as he leaned against the railings and strained to catch a glimpse of his new home.

The general attitude of many of the Palatines was that life was hard, you had to be tough and there was no place for feeling sorry for one's self. You had to be strong to survive, and, it was quite evident that only the strong did survive.

So it was with a hardened past that young Stover'd Deterich (Deter) Lenich, entered the coastal waters of Ireland in 1727. And he would never look back.