US ambassador at Nick's school

The US ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, spoke at Nick's school (Bischof-Neumann-Schule) last night. The speech itself--"The Next Big Thing: The Impact of Innovation in the 21st Century"--was fairly basic; maybe I myself know too much about American history (references to John Quincy Adams, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King) and the lives of recent innovators (mostly Steve Jobs) to feel that I "learned" something from the speech to BNS alumni, students, and parents.

But I did have an aha moment during the ambassador's opening remarks. He mentioned having grown up knowing about Bischof Neumann (the namesake of Nick's school) as John Newman, as he is called in the US. Huh? Was it possible that Bischof Johannes Neumann was the John Newman, for whom our childhood church's "Newman Center" was named?? Could this be the same fellow--one with such a German-sounding name (Johannes Neumann) and one so Anglo-Saxon (John Newman)?.

Seems it could be though: According to Nick school's website, Johannes Neumann immigrated to the US, became the bishop to Philadelphia in the 1850s, and founded the Catholic diocesan school system in the US (over 80 schools). Who would've thought that all these years Nick has gone to Bischof-Neumann-Schule, it's really been the John Newman School.

Or is it the same guy after all? JOS's Newman Center spells the name "Newman," but apparently even in English the bishop's name is spelled Neuman (just lost an "n" in a reversal of the way the Germans added an "n" to my middle name on my official documents). Okay, a bit of further research and it turns out that the JOS student must be named after John Henry Newman. I love the Internet. The things we can learn!

In any case, I liked hearing about how Nick's school's patron saint is actually an American:)

Oh, and one other tidbit I learned yesterday evening: The Frankfurt consulate is the largest US consulate in the world!