More than 88 milliion Americans can claim to be of German descent. My maternal great grantparents, Johannes and Katharina Berghofer, came from Hesse Nassau, Germany, to the United States in 1880 with their five children. This book is both family history and an investigation of my German-American heritage. By the time that I was born in 1942 in Hampton, Iowa, the German culture which shaped my mother and her parents had all but disappeared. This book is written so that their story can be remembered by succeeding generations."