On Being a Gesch: An Ode to my Last Name

Yesterday I sat in the Social Security Administration office waiting in line for 3 hours. This was the first step in changing my name over to Brian's, a step important to both of us when it comes to getting married. At first, I went with the idea of Anna Kathryn Whartnaby as my full name, dropping the old last name and replacing it with the new. The moment in our wedding when my hand was transferred from my dad's to Brian's to go up to the altar was the bittersweet picture of this. As I thought about changing my name, though, I couldn't let it go completely. I had to keep Gesch in there somehow, not as a hyphenated thing, but as my new middle name. So Anna Gesch Whartnaby it is. I had to keep it, because being a Gesch is a special thing. I'll try to explain.

Dancing with the guy who gave me the name in the first place. 

This is not everyone's experience in my family, it is solely my own, as I have the particular brand of Gesch-ness influenced by my parents, grandparents, siblings, and geography. There are so many things that go along with this title at the end of your name, and when I think of being a Gesch, I am so proud to be one. Here is a little bit of what it means to me.

1. When you are a Gesch, you have to know that you are pretty quirky and high strung. It's just one of those things that go along with the territory. You and your people are weirdly talented, but kind of like purebred animals, also a tad temperamental and nuanced. I have family members who are brilliant jazz pianists, historians, pigeon-raisers, writers, singers, trumpet players, artists, bow hunters, bicycle fixers, self-taught craftsmen and carpenters, hunting outfit guides, and a lot of preachers who never went to a day of class in a seminary, yet are delivering theologically layered sermons with the best of them. Walk into a room of Gesches and the subject of conversation can be anything from Shakespeare to shotguns, and you can believe there is a lot of incessant foot tapping, finger fidgeting, and coffee sipping as the debates or rants ensue. We're all just a tad uptight. 

2. When you are a Gesch, you have strict parents. It's just how it is. You hate it at 16, but are pretty grateful for it later on.

3. When you are a Gesch, you are painfully early to everything. You are overly punctual. Of course my wedding started 5 minutes early. My dad, meeting my mom and I at a restaurant for dinner a few weeks ago, showed up 45 minutes before the meeting time we agreed on and hung out in a booth, greeting other patrons and making conversation with our server. A Gesch tends to make friends with the custodial staff at various places of worship and business, because those are the only other humans present in these locations at such ridiculous hours. Gesches spend large potions of their lives waiting around awkwardly for things to begin. But it's okay, these kinds of lessons in delayed gratification build a lot of character, a virtue also incredibly important to the Gesches.

4. When you are a Gesch, you have learned from your family to be faithful and loyal. They stick with their local roots, spouse, family, and church. Of course we are not always perfect just like anybody, but this little area is very important to the clan. 

5. When you are a Gesch, you are a communicator. My grandma was famous in far off countries throughout the world for writing letters to missionaries on a consistent basis. We all tend to write in one way or another, and we definitely have the problem of talking too much. This means large vocabularies, stimulating discussions, and opinionated children articulately lobbying for later bedtimes (guilty as charged; I think the Brian Gesch clan's offspring was particularly strong in this area). It also means a necessity to do the whole foot-in-mouth thing every once in awhile due to the lack of filter between your brain and your mouth. Please forgive us, for we Gesches mean well. 

6. When you are a Gesch, you tend to get emotional in old age. We are a sentimental bunch. In my case, "old age" is the ripe, ancient year of 24, because I get teary-eyed every time I talk about my grandma, say goodbye to my parents, or hear Edie Ritsman sing anything in church.

7. When you are a Gesch, you are part of a friendly, handshaking crew. You meet new people all the time (probably other people who are early to events) and are well versed in the art of Meeting New People. Gesches bombard New People with talking too loud, enthusiastic yet random inquiries into cultural heritage, and invitations to Thanksgiving dinner celebrations so that other Gesches may Meet the New People.

8. When you are a Gesch, you sing. This is not optional. There is no question of whether or not you participate in church singing groups and choirs, it's just sort of assumed with your name that you will. You can always count on a Gesch to belt out the favorite hymns.

9. When you are a Gesch, you are sarcastic and witty. You laugh a lot as a Gesch, but it's a hard-achieved humor, one you have to work for. No easy laughs. Not much is easy-going in the life of a Gesch, but it is worth it to be present for a brilliant joke cracked by Uncle Jeff. 

10. When you are a Gesch, you're probably a teacher, married to a teacher, a sibling of a teacher, or born of a teacher in one way or another. All of those categories happen to apply to me. Being a Gesch means loving to learn and loving to help people learn. It means an odd talent for trivia games, episodes of Jeopardy, and any other form of quickly generating information. It also means having so many random and useless facts up in your brain that you have a hard time remembering other things, like where you put your keys. Or whether you turned off the oven. Things like that.

So that's why I couldn't let go of my wonderful last name, not altogether at least. I will always love the book hoarding, coffee stirring, muskrat trapping, small town loving, churchgoing people who raised me and the values they instilled in my life, no matter how quirky that might make me. I look forward to seeing what it means to be a Whartnaby, and even helping define what that means in our own family unit with Brian and I. When I look at my name, my whole name, I will still get to see Gesch right there in the middle. And I am very proud of that.