Elisabetha Kaltwasser Simon

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).

• 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.

When I was in junior high, I was assigned a biographical research paper. I had no idea who I wanted to research. A faint voice suggested Queen Elizabeth I. Aha! Elizabeth. My middle name — which I thought of as dreadfully old fashioned — but still, the idea made sense to me. I wrote the paper and I even won a class award. But it didn’t do much to change my perception of my middle name.

 

Several decades later, my husband and I decided it would be fun to take DNA tests to figure out our ancestry.  It was a blast!  The best part was building out my family tree on ancestry.com.  As I did so, one fact stood out above all others.  There were so many Elizabeths.  Indeed, I had 45 grandmothers (nanas) with the name Elizabeth.  45!  And most of these Elizabeths would not be connected until generations later.  They came from all over Europe and America.  As I stared at my family tree, my charge became clear.  My Nana Elizabeths wanted their stories told.  Since I was the only one left alive, the choice of author was plain.

 

I dug in with a vengeance.  There are so many resources available.  I wanted to know everything about my nanas.  Not just where they were born and where they died (which was interesting), but also what their lives were like.  How they were affected by historical events and religion.  Not just how they acted superficially but what their dreams and secret wishes were.  I wanted my grandmas to talk to me.

 

My desire had two root causes.  First, I had spent the last 20 years trying to heal my own familial dynamics, history, and trauma.  Through the years I have engaged in myriad modalities — talk therapy, acupuncture, breathwork, reiki, journaling, online healing courses too numerous to list, healing retreats — the list goes on.  Nearly all of that work had been internal, me reflecting, me feeling, me writing for myself, you get the idea.  I felt strongly that it was time to take outward action.  Further healing (for me) required sharing with community.  Second, I sensed that some of my pain belonged not solely to me but in some way to the women in my family who came before me.  I wanted to honor them by telling stories of who they were or might have been.

 

I do not have a photograph of my Nana Betha.  Pictured here is her daughter (my fourth-great grandmother) Anna Mary Schneider Daub.

 

And let me be clear on that point.  My stories are fiction.  I hope to do my nanas proud but I’m not professing to be accurately portraying their lives.  Instead, I’ve researched what I could through ancestry.com, newspapers.com, and all of the resources referred to on our website.  With that baseline information, I visited the graves of my maternal great-grandmother (my beloved Nana) and her mother and grandmothers.  They are buried in North Dakota and Illinois.  I also visited the land my fifth great-grandmother (Nana Betha — the subject of Just Like Nana’s first podcast episode) lived on when she moved from Bavaria to America.  (Huge shout out to Metamora Association for Historic Preservation in Illinois for helping me figure out where that was in current Metamora.)  From there, I tried to listen to my grandmas (I do not claim to have channeled them) and honor their memory.

 

In fairness, this project began as a mechanism for me to help my grandmothers heal.  I should have known better.  It is they who have helped me heal.  Most of my nanas come from families that I never knew.  My family history involves significant estrangement.  My mother did not have a relationship with her father, so I never knew anyone in that family or even anything about them.  My maternal grandmother’s father left when she was 2 years old.  So I never knew anyone in that family either.  Nor did I hear stories of them.  I have felt surrounded by love while I get to know my nanas.  I am honored to be their granddaughter.

 

As a final note, I acknowledge that my ancestors lived on traditional native lands that were taken as the political entity “United States of America” grew.  I cannot begin to address that taking from a native perspective and do not endeavor to do so.  My silence is not intended as disrespect.  Those are simply not my stories to tell.

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

• Ancestry.com: The platform used to build the Elizabeth family tree.
• JustLikeNana.com:Connect with Amie and share your own family stories.
• Baker, Irene Elizabeth, The Napoleonic System in Bavaria, 1799-1813 (1928)
• Cass County Historical Society, Inc., Rural Cass County: The Land and People (1976)
• Drury, John, This Is Woodford County, Illinois (1955)
• Hudson, Ruth Elizabeth, The Position of Women in Germany, Especially Since 1800 (1913)
• Larsen, Celeste, Heal the Witch Wound (2023)
• Lee, W. Robert, Population Growth, Economic Development, and Social Change in Bavaria, 1750-1850 (1977)
• Palmer Frane, Lucy, Early Marriages Performed in Woodford County, Illinois, 1841-1870 (1939)
• Penn Higby, Chester, The Religious Policy of the Bavarian Government During the Napoleonic Period (1918)
• Perrin, William Henry, The Past and Present of Woodford County, Illinois (1878)
• Portrait and Biographical Album of Woodford County, Illinois (1889)
• Schleusen, Karl A., Schooling and Society: The Politics of Education in Prussia and Bavaria, 1750-1900 (1989)
• von Schonewerth, Franz Xaver, Edited and Translated Wolf, M. Charlotte, Original Bavarian Folktales (2014)
• Woodford County Board of Supervisors, The Woodford County History (1968)

Are you curious about the “Elizabeths” of Nanas in your own family tree? 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.