It’s nearly
the season for the Osage Valley/Gasconade Valley annual parish picnics and
floods. As the spring rains and snowmelt
fill the Missouri, the tributaries flow is somewhat impeded.
In concert,
the little churches formed to serve the German and French Catholic/Lutheran
towns founded in the middle 19th century begin to hold their annual
celebrations. About 7 years out of 10,
the Gasconade and the Osage will overflow their banks to dampen at least one
picnic. In a truly great picnic/flood
season, fully 100% of the picnics will be flooded.
These towns
demonstrate the ferocity of the religious wars fought in Europe as the Germanic
states began to consolidate and the immigration patterns changed. Many French named towns were founded in the
Louisiana Purchase area before and after 1803.
The incoming Germans did not wish to live with the earlier established
French communities and formed their own towns further up river or along new
tributaries. There also existed
animosity between German Catholic and German Lutherans causing those
populations to build and to live in separate towns. This separation existed to some degree into
the middle 20th century.
No film at 1100, the water’s too high to film and tit’s to
wet to plow.
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