Aunt Rita Opened the Closet, and Family Skeletons Came Screaming Out.

My Aunt Rita, on my mother’s side, used to travel all over American, all over the world. She didn’t marry until very late in life, and like her twelve siblings, enjoyed a life of financial comfort, her and my mother’s father, and grandfather having been productive Germans in the farmlands of Indiana. I can’t remember exactly why she traveled so much, something to do with being a school counselor, long before that was a normal job.

The spelling of the family name, Raben, is unique. The story was that any person with the name Raben, spelt with an ‘e’, was related to the original Rabens in Saint Wendel, Indiana. Every other spelling, such as ‘Rabin’, tends to be Jewish, and you just don’t get much more Roman Catholic than the ‘Rabens’ of Indiana. Very Catholic, very white, Dutch thrown into the German mix. Great grandfather Raben was a late-comer to America, arriving some time in 1860. So when my Aunt Rita reached a far-flung city, she’d sit down with the local white pages and look up ‘Raben’. She rarely found one, but if she did, she’d call that number, or drive by that address, and try to contact that household. Being Aunt Rita, she’d worry it to death until she got the result she wanted. Sure enough, every one of those distant Rabens was some long lost relative. She was batting a thousand until she reached Chicago, Illinois.

Lo and Behold, there were several Rabens in the phone book. More than that, there was a business number, a store. Illinois not being that far from Indiana, potential misplaced Rabens seemed a logical possibility. Aunt Rita called the store.

"Raben's," a young woman's voice said.

“Is there a Raben there that I can speak to?”

“I’m a Raben.”

Aunt Rita launched into the story, that she was Rita Raben of Saint Wendel Indiana, and that the way the young woman’s family spelt there name meant that they were somehow related to Rita and her family.

“We know who you are,” the young lady answered when she was given a chance to respond. “We’re not related.”

There might have been a tinge of cold in the young lady’s cultured voice.

Oh, they had to be related. What kind of store did they have?

“A general store.”

That was it! Grandfather Raben and Father had made their fortune in Saint Wendel, owning a general store. General stores just had to be in the blood of the Rabens.

“We’re not related,” the young lady repeated in a monotone.

Were these Rabens of Chicago Roman Catholic? That’s right, my Aunt Rita quizzed the young stranger about her religious affiliation over the phone.

“Yes,” the young lady sighed. “We’re Catholic, but we’re not related.”

Undeterred, Aunt Rita got in her rental car and, following a street map, arrived at the Raben General Store in a fairly rough part of town, pranced in and asked the young black man behind the counter if a Raben was around.

“Which one?” the young man asked.

“Any one,” Aunt Rita bubbled.

“I’m one,” the young black man answered. “I’m a Raben.”

In fact, the young Raben behind the counter, his siblings, uncles, and his entire family, were all very black African-Americans. Ultimately, and I can’t help but think stiffly, Aunt Rita had the story unfold.

Back when my great grandfather Raben arrived in Indiana, the German community was big and powerful. (Take note, Germany as a nation as yet didn’t exist as we know it today, Otto von Bismarck still patching the Hapsberg Empire together from fiefdoms and petty potentates.) The German community was a huge supporter of Abraham Lincoln and his new party. When the Dixie states seceded from the Union, the German militias fell out with Teutonic efficiency and enthusiasm. It was, if not the law, understood, that every German male of Indiana would go defeat these Godless riff-raff rebels from the South.

But not my great grandfather. It wasn't his war, he’d just got here. In fact, years earlier, he had fled Germany to Holland to avoid a draft there, the German states famous for renting their troops out to other nations. When Holland decided it needed a draft to bolster its army, Great-Grandpa grabbed his Dutch wife and emigrated to America. He had brought a great deal of money from the Fatherland, and he couldn’t just dig a hole and bury it. He had to invest it. First investment, buy his way out of the war.

So, for five thousand dollars, no small change in 1861, he hired a black freeman to go in his name in the white German-speaking militias of Indiana, risk his life and serve as a Raben.

At the end of the war, the freeman, whose original name is lost to time, kept the name he had served under during the Civil War, and moved to Chicago. He had noted that his patron had done very well with a general store, and with the five thousand dollars, opened up his own store in the heart of the growing black community. It is not known if he’d been Catholic before being hired to go to war, or if in the course of serving with the staunch German Catholics of Indiana he’d become one, but apparently there is at least a community of black Catholics in Chicago.

Now, my Aunt Rita just bubbled with joy over this story. A piece of our family history that she didn’t even know was missing had been found. The fact that maybe her grandfather might have had a reason not to tell how he avoided serving his new country's service didn't bother her for a moment. Her idea was that the Rabens of Chicago should get in touch with the Rabens of Indiana, become friends, attend each other's family reunions, whatever.

The Rabens of Chicago declined. To this day, they are the only exception to the Raben with an ‘e’ rule, and Aunt Rita disputed even this.