Tim Melchior and Susan Berger

A month gone, and none of you have come forward to add a post. With the permission of Tim Melchior and Susan Berger, I, Bill Stott, am adding comments they sent me. You may remember that I said I (stupidly) misspelled the name we're using (only you're not!) as our password. Tim writes:


Bill,

You had it right. It is spelled Melchior. Trust your memory. A story
that I remember is attending my first grade class, coming home, and telling my
parents that they spelled our name incorrectly because my teacher taught me the
correct spelling. She told me it was spelled Melchoir, and Dad laughed
and told me that I had it right and that I should correct the teacher. That
was a challenge at that time in my life. Dad was a good educator. I also
remember attending Hamilton College and having my anthropology professor ask me
if I was Danish. I told him that my heritage was German and that I had a
German name. He laughed and told me that I was Danish. I believe that he based
his thinking on Lauritz Melchior, who was a famous Danish basso opera
performer, especially Wagner. I was smarter than to challenge his point of view.
Actually our name, appropriately enough, is related to the holiday season.

Our name comes from the wise men in the Jesus story, and one of the wise men
was Melchior, allegedly the King of Saudi Arabia. The other two were Gaspar
and Bathazar. You will see the names often at this time of year and very
often in Europe from which Susan and I just returned visiting Austria, the
Czech Republic, and Germany. Our name originally was Melcher, a German name, and
the original family settled in Bucks County, PA. My great grandfather,
Oliver Hoffman Melcher, was a minister, and he thought that he was bright and a
king, so he changed our name. In Bucks County today, at the Durham Church in
Durham, our family is buried, and there the names read: Melcher, Melchor
(because the congregation could not spell Melchior correctly, so he eventually
modified it), and Melchior. My grandfather allegedly changed it back to the
Melchior spelling. The family history is one of saving souls through religion and
education, and I have a cousin who was the minister, now retired, of the
Universalist Chuch next to Lexington Green in Lexington, MA. Her daughter is now
a minister, too. And now you know how my dad received his name; he was named
for his grandfather.

Tim Melchior, or Melcher, or Melchor, but never Melchoir, which I see all of
the time



As for my wonderful explanation of how to add a post to this site, Susan wrote:


I don't think I understood one word of all that explanation. You'll need to
explain it in other words when I see you someday. Happy Holiday!!! Susan


When I asked Sue if I could post her comment here, she replied:


Hi Bill..do you think my response was so worthy of being included on the website? I actually am able to find my way around the internet but that entire "direction" was too much for me!!!!! My favorite word....WHATEVER!!!!


I'm sorry not to have a picture of Tim, but I have a wonderful one of Susan and her handsome sons. Susan, I'd ask you to log in and add their names but I know my directions didn't work for you. Please email me their names and I'll add them.