Bryan R. Monte
Education
for Nettie (Bingmer) Debus, 1890—1981
When I was nine, my grandmother
took me to High Street to show me
the pitted, cream-coloured, sandstone cladding
high above the door of a former bank building
where, for decades, the metal lettering had read:
First German Bank
which, overnight in 1917, when she was 27,
was changed to First : : : : : : Bank.
Schiller, Germania, and Bismarck Streets
became Whittier, Stuart, and Lansing,
and the Central German School
the Fourth Street School.
German books were burnt
in a bonfire on Broad Street,
guarded by the Columbus Reserve
just down from Ohio State,
which cancelled its German classes
and fired its German professors.
Standing with me on High Street in 1967
she pointed hesitantly
towards that doorway
and whispered in my ear
as if someone was still watching,
as if someone was still listening.