Suzannah Zimmerman

Allow me to introduce you... This is Suzannah Zimmerman

You folks travel’n by foot or by wagon? My goodness, it’s not such a fine day to be travel’n. With all the rain we’ve been gett’n, you can’t be progress’n in your travels so well. You folks be join’n us this even’n? I’m prepar’n the dinner meal now, but you folks can join us for supper this even’n if you wish. Only two bits. Of course we only accept the proper coin. Have you viewed the accommodations upstairs? Twelve and a half cents for your place in the bed. Mother Zimmerman keeps the finest accommodations this part of the state. We keep our ticks clean of skeeters and mites. Ya ain’t gonna leave the bed scratch’n nor the table hungry. So will ya be join’n us?

. . . and so the visitors became acquainted with Suzannah Zimmerman. In my interpretation, I usually concentrated on the topics of cooking, traveling, and town activities. However, I did occasionally venture away from these topics, adding a bit of commentary on topics that interested the visitors. I also liked to add an entertaining element to my interpretation. My goal was to educate and to entertain the visitor. To achieve these goals, I interpreted Suzannah as a boisterous German woman, outspoken in every sense of the word. I commented on the need for women to learn how to read and write and cipher. I elaborated on my unfair sleeping conditions, emphasizing how my husband and I were forced to share our bed with his two brothers. I criticized Dr. Campbell who built and owned the Inn, questioning why such a learned man would be dumb enough to build a barn so close to the kitchen (my typical response to visitors’ reaction to the numerous flies in my kitchen). I also diverted attention to my brother-in-law, Richard, soliciting female visitors to take his hand in marriage. This was perhaps the most entertaining diversion away from my traditional interpretation. It usually went something like this: Richard, there’s a fine look’n lady in here. Make your way in here and greet her proper. Don’t you be smell’n like our hog none. Ladies don’t take to kindly to a man that smells like a hog. My goodness, Richard. Your clothes need some mend’n. You ain’t look’n too proper. Pardon his appearance, Miss. Richard ain’t too clean, but he’s a good man in need of wife. Can you milk a cow? No? I can teach ya. Richard only asks that you know how to cook and milk a cow.

The storyline was that Richard, my young brother-in-law, had terrible luck finding a good woman to marry. As his sister-in-law, I was eager to marry him off to reduce the number of people I had to feed and share my bed with. I would tease him unmercifully for his appearance and smell. After working with the animals all day, he began to smell and look like our livestock. Sometimes this storyline was nothing short of gut-splitting hilarious. As in the time I sacrificed one of my hollyhocks and had him chase a female visitor down in the village to propose to her. She made the mistake of admitting that she could cook and milk a cow. Children and adults alike found a great deal of humor in the situation. In the end, Richard (Jeff) and I would laugh hysterically when the visitors were gone. In reality, Jeff was happily married. He was really good-hearted about the whole thing. He even teased me on occasion, telling visitors he didn’t understand what his brother ever saw in a woman like me: I couldn’t cook, and I certainly couldn’t behave myself. All in all, it was fun and games for the visitors and the interpreters.