New Hamburg residents celebrate town with annual picnic

NEW HAMBURG, Mo. -- Just as German immigrants settled at New Hamburg in the 1800s, people come back for the annual picnic.

The two-day celebration that ended Saturday night was staked out across from St. Lawrence Parish, founded in 1847. A smorgasbord dinner at the church was a big part of the celebration, but there also were turtle races, tractor races, a talent show, a petting zoo and bingo.

Roots go deep for the 150 people who live here.

"You don't come into the town unless you marry someone," said Bernice Kern, who had family visiting from Florida to attend the picnic. "This is the type of town where everybody knows more about you than you know about yourself."

Kern said everybody waves, even to people they don't know. And rental properties are available to outsiders more than ever.

"You never meet a stranger here," she said, "and if you do they'll ask you where you're from."

No one really knows when the first picnic was held, but Margaret Heuring, who has lived in New Hamburg for 47 years, said it has not been held every year. The picnic was suspended in 1941 because of World War II, she said. It resumed in September 1948.

The Mid-South Fair talent contest got its start about six years ago when Marlene Creech launched the contest as a means of bringing a crowd to the New Hamburg picnic. The contest got rained out last year and changed its venue to the Kelso school cafeteria, where it was held this year. The audience of more than 100 was made up of the fan clubs of 34 performers from Scott and Cape Girardeau counties.

"They're all my students except one," Creech said.

The winner goes on to compete in Memphis, Tenn.

German settlers from the vicinity of Schirrhein, Germany, came to Ohio in 1838, moved on to Cairo, Ill., and then Benton, Mo., before choosing the site of modern New Hamburg. By the 1860s, half the town became known as Lawrence, after St. Lawrence Church, and the other half, Hamburg, after a city in Germany. The name of Lawrence gradually faded away; when postal service was sought, New Hamburg became the official name because another Missouri town was already called Hamburg.

cpagano@semissourian.com

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