Swiss Center of North America Library and Special Collections
Finding Aid of the
HELVETIA SINGERS / SWISS SINGERS, TOLEDO, OHIO Protokoll-Buch and Programs, 1923-1937
Mss 4
Helvetia Singers / Swiss Singers, Mss 4 - 1
Mss 4
Helvetia Singers / Swiss Singers, Toledo, Ohio. Protokoll-Buch and Programs, 1923-1937. 2 folders, including one volume.
Restrictions
There are no restrictions on this collection.
Description
Handwritten in German (1923-1932) and English (1923-1937), the Protokoll-Buch records the activities, January 16, 1923-September 30, 1937, of the Helvetia Singers or as later named, the Swiss Singers, Toledo, Ohio. References to performances by separate men’s (Helvetia Männerchor or Maennerchor), women’s (Helvetia Damenchor), and mixed choirs (Helvetia Gemischterchor, formed about 1924) also appear in the Protokoll-Buch.
The full title of the volume as inscribed on the title page is: “Protokoll-Buch vom Helvetia Manner und Frauen Gesang-Verein, Toledo, Ohio,” or (approximately) “Record Book of the Swiss Men’s and Women’s Singing Club, Toledo, Ohio.” The singing club began its activities as part of the Grϋtli-Verein of Toledo (or Toledo Swiss Society), formed by Swiss immigrants on May 9, 1869 as a fraternal benefit, educational, and cultural organization, later separating into the three separate choirs listed above. As indicated on the club’s website as of 2015, “its aim is to retain and preserve the culture and songs of Switzerland, to live up to the singers’ ancestors’ tenets of faith and behavior, help others, and to be good citizens.” The club has been in existence continuously since its founding and continues to perform. It is now part of the German American Society in Toledo. (See also http://toledoswiss.blogspot.com/)
The Protokoll-Buch contains the club’s minutes of quarterly and annual (January) meetings, brief financial summaries of receipts and expenses, names of officers elected, descriptions of concerts performed and activities undertaken, reports, and transcriptions of correspondence. As written on the first page of this volume, this is not the first of the club’s record books: “Helvetia Sänger and Sängerrinnen – Helvetia Männerchors ubertragung vom alten ins neue Buch.”
The group was quite active during the time period recorded in the book, hosting not only periodic concerts (including a concert with the Toledo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1933), but also such other social events for members as annual New Year’s Eve parties or “Silvester-Feiern,” masquerade balls in February, and summer picnics, as well as rehearsals, minstrel shows, feather parties1, muskrat parties2, birthday parties and wedding showers, card parties and dances, and spaghetti suppers.
1 Feather parties were raffles or giveaways of fowl (and/or other meats) to members, such as around Thanksgiving and Christmas, as also occurred in the Detroit Polish and Polish-American parishes, and in Iowa.
Helvetia Singers / Swiss Singers, Mss 4 - 2
Also included in this small collection is a folder containing several single page and booklet style programs, 1929-1937, from concerts, minstrel shows, and picnics, newspaper articles, and other miscellaneous materials about the group. Among them are a program dated July 2, 1933 of the Saengerfest held in Toledo, including performances of other Swiss singing groups such as:
Cleveland, Ohio Schweizer Maennerchor, Damenchor, and Gemischter Chor Toledo, Ohio Helvetia Damenchor, Maennerchor, and Gemischter Chor Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Maennerchor Helvetia Columbus, Ohio Gemischten and Helvetia Chors and Schweizer Damenchor Louisville, Kentucky Swiss Singing Society Alpenroesli Akron, Ohio Liedertafel Quartett Dover, Ohio Schweizer Maennerchor St. Louis, Missouri Schweizer Damenchor, Maennerchor, and Gemischter Chor
The minutes of the June 29, 1933 meeting of the Toledo club also describes its preparations for and description of the 1933 Saengerfest (see pp. 161-167 of the Protokoll-Buch).
Also of note are the 1936 printed by-laws of the Swiss Singers Helvetia (1936) and the Toledo Swiss Choir (1933-1934).
Presented by Prof. Donald G. Tritt, Granville, OH, April 16, 2012.
Processed by Menzi L. Behrnd-Klodt, February 2015.
2 As the name suggests, these were wild game dinners where muskrat was served. According to the online Catholic News Service, early French- Canadian residents and later other Catholics in Detroit and southeast Michigan were granted dispensations by local Catholic clergy to eat muskrats on the typically meatless pre-Easter days of Ash Wednesday and Fridays to avoid going hungry. See http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0701338.htm (accessed February 2015).