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My "natural" father died when I was 4 months old. My mother, who was all of 21 years old at the time, didn't take long to find another fellow, officially change her and her kids' last name, and have another baby, her fourth.
My stepdad's family name, and hence mine, is of German origin, but the Teutonic blood is considerably more diluted, and the cultural connections more tangential, than those of my German "real" father's people, many of whom now reside along with him behind the church, under stones bearing inscriptions in German.
These are rural people, who, upon arriving on these shores in the latter part of the 19th century, formed a farming community along with others of similar origin. My father's generation grew up speaking English, predominantly, and knew a bit of German. For those of the generation before his it was just the opposite. Remaining aunts and uncles speak with what I recognize as a countryside German-American accent. So do their kids, kind of.
And the proper old ladies, who would never cuss or speak of unspeakable things (which covers a lot of territory), drink beer from cans. In the public park. On Sunday afternoons. And pass many a pleasant hour socializing in taverns.
I don't recall hearing those folks call taverns "beer gardens." Maybe that's among the regional differences? Both here on the New Country and/or the Old? Eastern U.S. Germans vs. Midwesterners? Alpine Germans vs. Flatlanders?
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