On Tuesday evening, October 15th, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM, Barbara Ortwein will present on Spillville’s founder Joseph Spielman and his early life in Bavaria.  Barbara’s presentation, including live music and an exhibition, will be held in the German American Museum in St. Lucas.  

Barbara Ortwein, who hails from Germany and now resides in Prague, is going to take you on a trip to the roots of Iowan pioneer Joseph Spielman (1801-1888), the founder of Spillville.  Barbara is a renowned historical novelist and has written about German in Texas, Between Worlds Never to Return: Historical Novel about the Emigration of Germans to Texas. 

When Joseph Spielman was 35 years old, he emigrated from Germany to the USA. For 13 years he settled in the area of Oldenburg, Indiana, with his wife and his 5 children. In 1849 he finally moved to today‘s Winneshiek County with a group of other German families.  Many of the descendants of these families still live in this area. 

Joseph Spielman purchased a lot of land in this north-east corner of Iowa and managed to pull other settlers to this region – among them Swiss, Norwegian and especially Czech speaking people from Southern Bohemia.

Till now, the first 35 years of Spielman’s life in the village Dietersdorf in Upper Franconia in today’s German state of Bavaria, had been shrouded in mystery. Thanks to Barbara Ortwein’s extensive field research work in Spielman’s Bavarian hometown and in the archives of this region, Barbara will unveil these forgotten beginnings of Joseph Speilman and how they shaped his later life in Iowa.

The author will read from her new book Joseph Spielman: A Bavarian Pioneer in Iowa, and from her book about Anton Dvorak’s stay in Spillville, A Summer in Spillville 1893. Come and immerse yourself in local history at its best.