A significant number of Americans have ancestors who come from Bavaria. The relationship between America and Bavaria is a success story, even if it was bought with hardship and privation.
In January 1885, the farmer’s son Joseph Wühr wrote a few lines to his parents in the Bavarian Forest in a hut in the American Rocky Mountains. His words don’t sound really happy. A few years earlier he had left his hometown of Kötzting, even though he would have been the heir to the court. However, he was resented for his love affair with a maid. Disappointed, Josef packed up his suitcase and set off “to America” to seek his fortune there. He never returned, but wrote letters that show how rough and demanding life there was. In many places, living conditions were hardly more bearable than in the then poor Bavarian Forest region.