Kunigunde

If you have ever ventured up the small hill behind the live oak tree near the end of Howard Street you might have noticed the grave of Kunigunde Howard. Although, historically, there are a number of unusual Ocracoke Island names, most of them have British origins. Kunigunde has its roots in Germany. (If you've read Voltaire's Candide [the main character, Candide, is from Westphalia], you might remember Cunigonde, Candide's aristocratic cousin, and love interest.)

Kunigunde Howard was the daughter of German-speaking Hungarian immigrants. She met Ocracoke Island native, Lawton Howard, in the 1930s in Philadelphia. They soon married, and reared two boys, my brother, Lawton Jr., and me.

This is a picture of my mother's 1914 Tauf-Zeugnis (Baptismal Certificate). If you enlarge the image you will see that she is given the name Kundi Czechmeister (for most of her early life she was Kunigunde Guth, but at the time of her baptism her father was using his mother's surname, probably because his parents had not married).

And this is a 1946 photo of my mother.

You can read more of her story here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news061505.htm.

Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is about the Unionist North Carolina State Government established at Hatteras in 1861. You can read all about it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news092114.htm.