Back in the 1980s we were visited in NZ by a Mr Ickinger from Kunzelsau. We received much background material & photos from him and I reproduce the following. I've tided up the English and made a couple of comments:
Morsbach at this Time
In the year 1883 Morsbach had 398 inhabitants, most of them occupied with farming, which brought a small profit. Nobody became rich. The famine of 1817 and the typhoid epidemic of 1863 (some contradictory information about this) were still in the memory, but everyone had food. Wine-growing was an important industry.
In the town itself were small businesses - butcher, baker, blacksmith, carpenter, cabinetmaker. Some people worked in the small factories of nearby Kunzelsau. "Also pedlars were living there" [I take this to mean street traders who carried their wares around with them].
There was an active emigration movement at that time. The young people mostly went as butchers to England, to America, and even to the southern Pacific [possibly Australia & NZ??]. But older people were also leaving. The connection of the English emigrants to their homeland is evidenced by, for example, a stained-glass window in a church established by the Kantenwein sisters in 1907.
The most exciting event of the period in Morsbach was the suicide of the mayor in 1880. There was evidence of some misappropriation of money and the mayor himself was suspected. It was 40 years later that the thief anonymously confessed [sounds a bit of a tall story to me].
In 1889 the parish church received 2 new bells, the older ones were not working correctly in harmony.
The mill on the Kocher was generating electricity from 1910 and technical progress could be seen by all. In emergencies, the local fire brigade had men with the ability to double up as electricians.
In WW1 Morsbach had to bury some victims - just like any other town.
In March 1933 Hindenburg became an honorary citizen as the Nazism started to spread into the town.
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