Just Like Nana

Elisabetha Kaltwasser Simon

• Amie Penny Sayler • Episode 1

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0:00 | 23:05

In the debut episode of Just Like Nana, host Amie (Elizabeth) Penny Sayler introduces us to the Elizabeth Room. In this space, generations of her ancestors gather to tell their stories. Amie shares her deeply personal journey of discovering 45 grandmothers named Elizabeth through DNA testing and genealogical research.

The heart of this episode is a narrative reimagining of Amie’s fifth great-grandmother, Elisabetha Kaltwasser Simon. Set in Bavaria in 1823, we follow 12-year-old Betha as she navigates the rigid teachings of the church, the weight of family expectations, and a terrifying encounter with a wolf pack that reveals a forbidden power—one that carries the dangerous label of Hexe (witch).


In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • The Power of a Name: Why Amie’s middle name, Elizabeth, became the key to unlocking eight generations of family history.
  • Bridging the Gap: How to connect with ancestors even when family dynamics or religious barriers have cut off access to certain branches of your tree.
  • Elisabetha’s Story: A journey to 19th-century Bavaria involving blue ribbons, Napoleonic Wars, and the struggle to stay "pure" in the eyes of the church.
  • The "Hexe" Legacy: The moment Elisabetha used her intuition to save a friend and the heavy price her mother paid to keep that secret safe.
  • Healing the Future: Why telling these stories is the first step toward resolving generational trauma for ourselves and our children.


Featured Ancestor

  • Name: Elisabetha Kaltwasser Simon
  • Lived: 1811–1887
  • Origin: Bavaria to Illinois


Resources 



Connect with the Show

Do you have stories about your "Elizabeths," Nanas, or ancestors? We want to hear from you!

  • Website: justlikenana.com
  • Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Theme music by Carter Penny.

Amie Penny Sayler:

Welcome to Just like Nana. I'm so happy you're here. I hope you're enjoying your favorite hot, cozy beverage, maybe some tea with honey, or your favorite version of coffee, no matter how many ingredients that involves, maybe it's even some warm milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. Or just maybe it's the beverage that your Nana used to prepare for you when you would stay with her. For me, that was Tang. I only ever had Tang at my Nana's house, and I loved it. We're here at Just like Nana, to explore generational trauma or ancestral trauma. And I want to be clear from the get go that I am not a mental health professional. What I am instead, is deeply curious about how situations, events, traumas that occur in families can replay themselves through generations until they are resolved. And I think of myself as a curator of information related to that generational or ancestral trauma. At Just Like Nana, I would love to present you with a mix of information, some will be from professionals. So there will be interviews with mental health counselors and therapists, Reiki practitioners, who help folks with energy work, breath work facilitators, neurologists, who study the impact of family trauma on the brain and how that plays out through generations. Genealogists, if you'd like to learn more about your own family, we'll hear from authors many books address themes of family trauma that present in different ways through the generations until in your favorite book, it comes to a head and there's some sort of resolution. I will also tell some of the stories I've written about my Nanas, and I will interview anyone who's interested in talking about their families and some of the trauma they've seen played out in their families through the generations, or how a specific event affected generations that didn't actually experience that event. If you're interested, I would love to hear from you. The website is justlikenana.com. A nd now I'm going to back up. I've told you about the podcast, but you don't know who I am. My name is Amie first name, Elizabeth, middle name, Penny Sayler, last name, I broke it up like that because the Elizabeth part, my middle name is what's relevant to this podcast. I'm going to start with an apology to all Elizabeths out there. I've never been crazy about my middle name, Elizabeth is a lovely name. It just sort of niggled at me as a kid. It was too big, too fancy, too important, and it just didn't resonate with me. And I was so happy to find this connection with my Nanas and with my family roots, I did a DNA test about two years ago now, and then built out my family tree on ancestry.com they're not paying me. I'm just telling you, that's where I did it, and it was fascinating, because I discovered that I have so many grandmas going back 10 generations that are named Elizabeth, either first name or middle name. And you might think, well, that makes sense, because names get passed down in families. So of course, your family has a concentrated version of one name, and Elizabeth is that name, but it's actually not like that. Instead, there are Elizabeths in disparate parts of my family that won't become connected until many generations into the future. And I was just immediately drawn to these Elizabeths. One thing you need to know about my story to help this make sense is that, like many families, like all families, question mark, there are issues, you know, dynamics, relationship troubles in my family, so that impacted my access to different lines of my family. So let's start with my Dad's side of the family. That's sort of the easiest. My Dad's side of the family I didn't have a lot of access to. There were religious barriers there between my Dad's side of the family and my Mom's side of the family, and so my relationship with my Dad's side of the family was pretty cursory at best, and kind of waxed and waned through the years whether we would even have contact, so I didn't know them very well, and on my Dad's side of the family, it's fascinating, because there is only one Elizabeth, so she is the sole representative from my Dad's side of the family. So then you move over to my Mom's side of the family, and on that side of the family, you essentially, kind of have four lines that come out of each parent. So you have, we'll just take your Mom, she has her mom, so you have her mom's side of the family, which is her mom's side of the family, and also her dad's side of the family. So said differently, you have your grandma's side of the family, and then your grandma has her mom's side of the family and her dad's side of the family, and then you have your mom's dad's side of the family, so your grandpa's side of the family. And again, on that, you have the two lines, you have your grandpa's mom's side of the family and your grandpa's dad's side of the family. So in my family, my mom did not have a relationship with her dad. I don't believe I ever met him. If I did, I was possibly when I was a baby, but I've never heard that story, or have, obviously have any recollection of that. So that whole side of the family was completely and still remains unknown to me. So that's two out of the four branches of that family tree. Then on my grandma's side of the family, so my mom's mom's side of the family. Her father left when she was about two years old. Of course, I don't know anyone from that side of the family, so that just leaves me with out of these eight branches that you have in your family tree, just one line, which is my mom's mom's mom's side of the family. So because I only had access to one out of eight branches of my family, I always felt just a bit disconnected and unsure where I belonged. I know many of us have that experience in life, regardless of you know whether your your factual pattern of your family exactly matched mine. There's obviously all sorts of situations that people experience that sort of lead to that general feeling. And what I realized in seeing all those Elizabeths is that I do belong, and they're my ancestors, regardless of whether my parents or my grandparents or whomever had a relationship with them or others. In other words, I didn't need my mom or dad or my grandparents to give me access to my ancestors and all of those Elizabeths, they belonged to me regardless of what adults who came many years before me chose to do with their familial relationships, and that was really exciting to me. I really wanted to get to know my nanas, my Elizabeth nanas, and to tell their stories. Sometimes women's voices and stories are lost to history, and I didn't want that to happen with them. I wanted to get to know them, to tell their stories, and hopefully to resolve their traumas for me and for my children, my intention is not to blame my ancestors for any trauma or blame them for any effect that's had in my life, for how it's played out in my life. Instead, I come with an open heart to honor my ancestors, with an understanding that I do not know what their lives were like. I do not know what was happening in the world at the time, and it wasn't my life to live. So when I first started working on this, and this is still ongoing, I wrote in am writing a book, there is an Elizabeth room. Where they all hang out together, which, of course, has its own interesting dynamics, given they're from different countries, potentially, although there's a pretty strong concentration of Bavaria in Germany and different sides of the families, they're obviously from different times, anywhere from the 1600s on up to the 1900s so it's fun to explore those dynamics between the Elizabeth themselves. And then the book is structured such that the granddaughter, who, spoiler alert, is me, interviews each Nana and learns about her life story. So how I've been doing that is that I've been doing some research on ancestry.com and then also just research outside of that context to learn about what would the world where they existed have been like during the time they existed, and can I find out any information about their lives. Specifically, it's been really fun to trace the journeys from other countries to America, and then to see how the families move about in America. As I mentioned, my mom's side of the family, which is the side that has nearly all of the Elizabeth grandmas. There are 44 Elizabeth grandmas on my mom's side and one on my dad's side. They're all primarily Bavaria, Germany, came to America somewhere in the Midwest. Typically, I have one grandma who came through the New Orleans port. But otherwise they generally came to the Midwest. And then on my dad's side, his mom is Italian, and I have no Elizabeth's in that family line. And then his dad is very English. Came to America pretty early, so a lot of American families there, when I tell each Nana Elizabeth story, because you might be thinking, Well, how do you know what their story is? Fair question. I'm using kind of a combination. I'm using a little bit of the research, and I'll give some context for that. I am also an attorney, and research is bread and butter for what I do in my day job. So that's kind of my go to and then I also try to use some intuition. The entire point of this exercise is to get to know my Nana's and so I try to just listen to them. Now. I'd love to be able to tell you right now that I hear their voices and I channel them and all of that. I'm not that good, but I do try to just have an open heart and an open mind and see where the words take me when I tell their stories. So I'd love for this episode to tell you one of the stories. This is about my fifth great grandma, Elisabetha Kaltwasser Simon. She was born in Bavaria in 1811 she makes the journey to Illinois, and she dies in 1887 this is my story of her when she's about a 12 year old girl. So this story takes place in Bavaria, April, 1823, my long brown braids were tied at the end with blue ribbons. They were a gift from Mama because I just turned 12, I'd finished school and obtained a job with the cobbler. It was the first time I'd worn anything beautiful, the ribbons made it almost bearable that I wasn't to attend gymnasium secondary school with my best friend Lulu. Perhaps I could have if Papa had not fought in the Napoleonic Wars, but he had, and it had cost him his life. So Mama needed help. I was vain about the ribbons. I could not stop fingering the cool, smooth fabric. Of course, the church had taught me that all vanity was sinful, but their beauty made my heart feel big. My dresses had always been plain. Mama made them a few sizes too big so I could grow into them, plus the dresses had to be big to cover my body. When mama talked about how shameful well fitting dresses would be, I nodded solemnly, just like mama expected. But I knew the truth. I was already shameful. My thoughts were pure wicked. Mamma and Sister Fausta told me again and again that father Oskar was always right. He spoke with God's voice. They beseeched me to be pure. When they did, I squeezed my eyes until all I saw was darkness and little white, floating dots. I willed myself to listen to them, but it was so trying. Father Oskar just didn't make sense when he spoke. My heart grew cold and small, and I felt a gnawing empty. It was as though I was no longer there. I was just nothing. Father Oskar said all girls had the devil in them. Only fervent confession, penance and humility could save them turning hexe. That word made my breath catch and my stomach clench. Mama's face became worn and worried when hexe were mentioned, Mama would clutch her rosary and cross herself again and again. Sometimes I could sense mama looking at me when she did so, but I never saw it direct. Mama's eyes were always downcast. I reckon there wouldn't be enough rosaries in the world for Mama if she ever learned about the uncontrollable knowing at my beckon. I could smell an event before it occurred, I could converse with animals in their languages, and there was a voice in my heart that refused to be silenced. That voice was the worst. It said that being a girl didn't make me a sinner. That declaration never failed to make me gulp. I knew only a hexe would say such a thing, and it had to be dead wrong. Father Oskar was clear that all were sinners, and none more so than girls. The only way girls could redeem themselves to God was to have lots of babies for their husband. That was their only purpose in God's plan. You Lulu was tiny. I teased that she had hollow bird bones. Her hair was black, and her eyes even blacker. And such eyes, they saw everything and could immediately change from shrewd to innocent as warranted. She was the only girl in a family rife with men, uncles, brothers, cousins. Lulu's mama had died birthing her so Lulu was stuck with the men. They were tall and strong, all of them, the church let lulu's family work a wide swath of land, more land than any other family, was given in return. The Church demanded bounty. Crops were planted nearly everywhere, there was one small meadow, though, that had been spared Lulu and I loved that meadow. It abutted the forest. The dense trees created a tenebrous atmosphere. The Darkness framed the golden and purple wild flowers, which made the meadow all the brighter. Lulu and I hid a book of poetry in a rotted dogwood tree. It made us giggle that the dog- eared book was in the dogwood tree. The day I received my ribbons, I had to show Lulu right away. We raced to the meadow with my blue ribbons flying in the wind. Lulu was a bit ahead, but I didn't mind. Lulu could run faster in a short race, but I could not be beat in a long race, not by anyone. When we reached the edge of the meadow, we were panting from exertion. I got distracted by the bunnies and the great white egrets in the yonder fields. They were exchanging tidbits on the safest locations for raising young families. Even though the voice inside me was frightening, I could only delight in hearing the animals talk, I suppressed a grin, which quickly became a frown. I realized I didn't hear lulu's breathing anymore, and I smelled blood, lots of it. It was one of those smells that came before the event. It was not yet present, but it foretold what could be as all of this was registering. I spotted Lulu near the edge of the forest. Her face was waxen. Her eyes had expanded so much, they seemed to cover that face. I followed her frozen gaze to a pack of gray wolves. They were stately and beautiful and fierce and hungry. They were forming a circle around Lulu. Although I understood the language of animals. I'd never tried to talk to them. I was certain my first attempt should not be with wolves. They were intelligent, majestic and loyal to their pack, and the pack was hungry. I shook my head to clear it, then the voice spoke now Betha, tell them of Kali and the wolf pup. In ancient lupine, I shouted with all my might in the name of Kali and her babe, stop. Eerily every wolf raised their ears and swiveled to face me. I have never been so terrified. But Lulu was in danger. There was no choice. At these very woods, seven years ago, I found a wolf pup in a clump of beech trees. He was scared, lost and alone. I knew his locale, because the circling eagles were discussing their plan for a tasty morning snack. I ran and scooped him up before the Eagles swooped. Then his mama appeared. She was lithe with silver gray fur, black and white markings and the palest blue eyes imaginable. She took the pup saying to me, I am Kali. You are of us now. As one the wolves bowed their heads turned and loped back into the forest. Lulu ran to me sobbing. We hugged and comforted each other. We were safe, and then we heard the vulgarity. Hexe. Betha is hexe. Startled, we turned to see Lulu's Father, Matteo, at the edge of the meadow. Matteo spat at me, I saw you control the wolves. I knew you were rotten, just like your mother. Now I know you're hexie. Matteo grabbed Lulu's arm and dragged her away. I ran home and confessed all to mama. She was usually self composed. I had heard others talk of her beauty. I didn't think of her that way. She was just mama to me. She shrank as I told my story. Her face became taut and her eyes cloudy. I did not know terror. Had a look, but I saw it. Then I was crying and writhing, but mama did not comfort me as she always had. Instead, Mama took a deep breath and as if in a trance, said, I must go to Matteo. No one can ever hear of this. You are never to listen to this voice again. You are only to follow the teachings of the Church. The Church is what can keep you safe. Your only duty, as my daughter, is to stay safe. But Mama, you cannot stop the accusation. Matteo, as us all, must tell the church of hexe. Mama quivered and retched, refused to look at me and muttered, some men have a deeper passion. Then she was gone. When she returned, the stench of her humiliation filled our home. It was weeks before she looked at me. I did not at the time know exactly what happened, but I knew the blame was solely mine. My vanity and willingness to use power caused Mama deep shame and made us unsafe. I burned the ribbons. Many of you probably figured this out, but to be clear, hexe is witch in German. Thank you so much for joining me for episode one of just like Nana, I look forward to talking to you about your nanas soon.