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Schlenker
As a young man I went shopping in Villingen at a clothier. My accent was obvious to him and he asked about me. When he learned my surname, he said, "Sie sind ein Schlenker aus Schwenningen." Indeed, that is how I was taught to think of the Schlenker surname by my father. Succinctly: All people with the surname Schlenker can trace their ancestry back to Schwenningen which town/city is the place of origin of that name. A visit to Schwenningen, even today, reveals the prevalence of "Schlenker" in Schwenningen. A little reading of the Heimatblaettle, a publication of the Schwenninger Heimat Verein, reveals its continuance there. On my first visit fifty two years ago, the population was smaller and the post- and some pre-war business establishments still flourished so that one could see commercial signs liberally scattered through the town that included the name Schlenker as part of the business name. The great clock manufacturer that came to be known as Kienzle at one time was known as Schlenker-Kienzle. As that business provided employment to many of my relatives and ancestors, I am particularly keen on recalling the Schlenker-Kienzle designation. The pleasant hotel on Buerkestrasse, located between the offices of the Heimatblaettle and the Uhrenmuseum on the one side and the house where my father grew up on the other, 67 Buerkestrasse, is called the Ochsen but its vehicles recognize it as Schlenker's Hotel Ochsen. The hotel management is related to me through my uncle by marriage Oskar Barth. The 67 Buerkestrasse house is what we in the USA would call a duplex. In 1962, the family living on the right hand side of the duplex was headed by Willi Schlenker, no relation to me. My aunt Elsa Barth, born Schlenker, lived on the left hand side of the duplex. This is to indicate, that one could, with no difficulty at all find pockets of Schlenkers scattered around town, who were apparently unrelated to one another.
My father, Martin Schlenker, was the son of Martin Schlenker, and the grandson of Martin Schlenker, and the great grandson of Martin Schlenker. Four generations in a row at least. My father, his father, and his grandfather and possibly others in this line all worked for the Kienzle clock works, my father's father for at least forty years. This speaks to the stability of family employment and employer loyalty in the old tradition of the town. Here in the USA the Schlenker name is quite uncommon. Thus, one day at a technical congress, a man approached me and introduced himself saying that he had always wanted to meet someone with the name Schlenker that he was not related to. We had a pleasant chat about family histories. I grew up in the Rochester New York area, which, in the nineteenth century and the twentieth century up to the start of World War II attracted a large German population. Amidst the thousands of families in the city of German origin was one other named Schlenker. Theirs was a farming family that dated from the earlier part of the 19th century. By the time I was born, one of the descendants of the original Schlenker settlers had settled about a mile and a half from us. So, uncharacteristically, there were two boys named Schlenker in our high school at the same time, but in different classes. When I went to college, one of the first people I encountered there was a senior named Schlenker. Out of a student body of about nine thousand, only we were named Schlenker, he a senior and I a freshman. So the Schlenkers have wandered far and wide, but so far have not proliferated to such a great extent that the Schlenker name is well recognized. I find that I still must spell out my name so that people will be able to connect the pronunciation with the spelling. If they have only the spelling and decide to pronounce it strange sounds will sometimes come out of their mouths. These mispronunciations are quite varied. One that stands out in my memory is "Shellnecker." If anyone named Schlenker reads this, they will know what I mean.
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