By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Librarian
Oct. 17 is the "5th annual National Playing Card Collection Day"
Do you remember your first game of Euchre? Mine was in sixth grade during "inside recess" on a rainy day. For most Midwesterners, including Ohioans, learning to play Euchre is one of the rites of passage into adulthood. Once one knows how to play Euchre, he or she has so many social opportunities from playing with family members at family functions or a spontaneous game on the back porch with friends on a summer evening to bonified Euchre tournaments. While Euchre has become more widespread in modern times, there are still many people in different parts of the country who have never heard of one of our region's most endearing pastime for several generations. Moreover, after 2016, they probably were very curious if they overheard a group of card players throwing in the words "heart," "diamond," "club," and "spade" with the question, "What's trump"?
Before television, football, the internet, and cars, playing card games, including Euchre, was a common past-time for the groups of German immigrants who settled in the Midwest. After all, they are the ones credited with introducing it to the United States. Euchre is a tradition that has stayed alive in the Midwest because it has been passed down through each generation. Most card experts agree that Euchre as we know it today originated in Alsace, France in the 19th century and was called "juckerspiel." The German term "Jucker" (The J in German is pronounced the same as the Y in English) derives ultimately from the French word for trump, "triomphe." Over time the name of the game simpled became "Anglicized" like so many surnames of our ancestors. An earlier version, Kaiserspiel, dates back to the 1400s. Suites included an Unter (equivalent to a Jack), Cardinal, Pope, Devil, and the Kaiser ("King" in German). Perhaps this is why one Junior Home kid recollects in the June 1995 issue of the Junior Homekid newspaper that a teacher there called the face cards the "Devil's Cards." Maybe she wasn't being sinister like the child thought?
The New Riegel “Euchre Gang”, using barrels as chairs in the early 1900s. Taken from “A History of New Riegel” on the Seneca County Digital Library, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/32068/rec/2
Luckily, Euchre is a very easy card game to learn. There are different levels with different rules, but most unofficial games within our homes are played just for fun. It became so popular that many Euchre clubs formed, including schools and churches. For example, starting in 1984, the "55 Club" was a group of about three dozen people in the Bascom area who gathered in the basement of St. Patrick's Catholic Church every Monday evening to play Euchre. Likewise, members of the Tiffin Woman's Club held monthly card parties as well as the Bloom Grange Club in Bloomville and even Calvert High school boasted a Euchre Club.
Even if some fellow Ohioans has never had the opportunity to learn Euchre during their youth, there are several other classic card games our ancestors also enjoyed which also remain favorites today. One such game is Pinochle. Pinochle is such a beloved game that in the 1924 and 1925 Columbian Blue and Gold yearbooks a graduating senior "bequested" his "Pinochle playing ability" to an underclassman. Pinochle was among the activities offered regularly at the Kiwanis Manor after it was built in the early '70s (along with chess, checkers, bridge, and poker).
The Pinochle Club of National Machinery in the 1940s. Taken from the National Employees' Review, Picnic Edition 1947.
https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/64321/rec/1
Several issues of Tiffin University's TYSTENAC newspaper in the '40s and '50s marks Pinochle as a common activity among the students. In a couple of instances, pinochle was somewhat of a lifesaver. In the Tystenac July 1951, there is a story about a group of sorority women who went on a club trip to Cincinnati. While on their way home, one car got a flat tire so they spent the time they waited to get it fixed playing pinochle (in the same scenario today, the group would spend the entire time on their phones, disregarding everyone around them). The TYSTENAC May 1949 issue recaps how when it rained during a picnic hosted by a fraternity they all went inside and "played pinochle and softball at the same time." In fact, Pinochle was so popular during that time that a faculty member actually requested a course in Pinochle be added to the curriculum (Tystenac 1948/1949).
Another fairly easy game to learn is Rummy, which has been turned into a popular board game. There are several versions of Rummy, including Michigan Rummy, Gin Rummy and the Mexican version, Canasta. An author of card games, John Scarne, believes Rummy started as ‘Whiskey Poker,’ later called ‘Rum Poker.’ It was then shortened to ‘Rummy’ (maybe during Prohibition years?).
Dominoes, Hearts and Pinochle were some of the games a Junior Home kid records having played in his youth in the December 1991 issue of Junior Home Kid. Hearts originated in the United States around 1880 and eventually became included in the software of most modern computer systems. But playing with virtual competitors will never be the same as sitting around a card table with friends and family, even with the Zoom, Skype and other options of seeing others across a divide. Our ancestors didn't just pass down the rules of card games. More than the game themselves, our ancestors instilled the importance of comraderie and that's the most important rule of all.
WORKS CITED:
Bascom Area Sesquicentennial, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/41849/rec/2
“A Brief Summary Of the Origins of Rummy”, October 24, 2018. https://www.rummyculture.com/blog/history-of-rummy/
“Historic Card Games”, David Parlett https://www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/euchre.html
Haddad, Ken. "Why does Michigan love playing Euchre?" November 7, 2019. https://www.clickondetroit.com/features/2019/11/07/why-does-michigan-love-playing-euchre/#:~:text=Origins%20of%20Euchre,terms%20also%20come%20from%20German
The Junior Homekid, June 1995. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/49366/rec/92
The Junior Homekid December 1991, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/47768/rec/1
Kiwanis Manor Brochure, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/52013/rec/1
Tiffin Woman's club program 1965-1966, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/54828
Tystenac 1948/1949. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/46246/rec/20
Yearbook Columbian Blue and Gold 1924 and 1925, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/1315/rec/1
Seneca County Digital Library, Ohio Memory Project, https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27