Leo Bromenschenkel hasn’t been one to sit back and take it easy during retirement. As a long-time teacher of the German language and culture, Leo stays busy traveling and translating old German writings. Most recently, Leo has been uncovering the prayer life of a German Catholic who lived during the early 1800s.
Entitled “A Christian Catholic Prayer Book,” this handwritten journal of prayers was given to Leo’s mother-in-law many years ago. She passed it on to Leo, who put it on his bookshelf and forgot about it for quite awhile.
Then, while organizing his books one day, Leo’s interest was piqued to explore the book some more. With a date of 1814 on the cover page, the journal begins with suggestions of prayers to recite during Holy Week. Some other topics include morning prayers, mass, confession and communion.
Each page of the book includes the author’s handwritten prayers along with various elements of decorative script. Titles along the top of each page describe the content of that page, such as “Morning Prayers” or “Prayers after Holy Communion.”
Leo explained that the prayers themselves tend to be more sentimental than those he is used to. They contain deep personal feelings about various aspects of the Christian faith, such as the life and death of Christ.
Though different than the prayers he has heard in the U.S., Leo said he has experienced this higher level of sentimentalism during his trips to Germany. For example, German crucifixes tend to be more graphic than those in America.
“They are more visual to make you aware of all that happened in the crucifixion,” Leo explained.
Along these same lines, a portion of the prayer book was dedicated to thanking Christ for His suffering. Entitled “Prayers Through the Suffering of Jesus,” the author actually listed the various parts of Christ’s body that were bruised in the Crucifixion, specifically His hands, feet and heart.
Leo decided that the contents of this prayer book should be shared with others, so he began the translation process about six weeks ago. Thus far, he has been inching his way through the text, copying each line into a notebook.
Leo has been leaving an empty page in his notebook between each page of copied text. That way, he can later go through and work on actually translating the words from German to English.
The process of transcribing the German from the prayer Book to his notebook is much more than mere copying, however. Since Leo is transcribing someone’s personal handwriting, it is difficult at times to even read what is on the page. He often needs to make sense of individual letters by looking at the context of words in both their sentences and paragraphs.
And since this was a personal, unpublished work, Leo also needs to deal with things like misspelled words and grammatical errors. Also, Leo’s knowledge of German culture and customs aids his translation work, giving him the context to understand otherwise unfamiliar elements.
This insight came in particularly handy with a book Leo was helping to translate last fall. His friends were unsure what the context was for a series of poems and melodies in this journal of their great-grandmother.
Upon reading the passage, Leo recognized what was going on: a celebration for a new couple similar to an American wedding shower. Guests at the event wrote messages in the journal to the new couple to help celebrate their marriage.
When asked why he enjoys the painstaking work of translation, Leo’s answer was quite simple. “It just intrigues me,” he said.
