In “As the crow is bent” (perhaps my worst title ever), I explored the ramifications of my unusual surname.
Unusual, that is, outside Cass County and
environs. My father, on his travels around the country, would study local phone
books in search of other Krohes and found none. I understand the name is
uncommon in Germany too.
The name appears in its present form as recorded by nearly every
U.S. Census enumerator they came into contact with since 1840, which suggests to me that my
ancestors were insistent on the point. To their credit, they also resisted the
temptation (assuming they felt tempted) to anglicize the name to Crow or Crowe.
I was to be happy they didn’t change it; in the 1960s, “Jim Crow” was not a name a guy
wanted to have at Washington Junior High, where I went to school.
The unhappiest part of being a Krohe is the name
itself. It looks ungainly on the page, and it isn’t clear from the spelling how
it ought to be pronounced. In German it comes out “kro-uh” but many Americans
pronounce it just plain “kro” or “kro-hee.” The family version is “kroy.”
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2016.
