Background
Vonnegut was born in Münster, Westphalia, to a tax collector father who was an official for the Duke of Westphalia.
Vonnegut was born in Münster, Westphalia, to a tax collector father who was an official for the Duke of Westphalia.
He was educated in Hanover to the equivalent of a bachelor"s degree, speaking French and German fluently and having familiarity with Latin and Greek.
Instead of continuing his university education to Doctor of Philosophy level, he decided to work as a salesman for a textile firm in Amsterdam. In 1848, at the age of 24, he emigrated to the United States, and arrived in Indianapolis in 1850. Another source states that he arrived in New York City in the summer of 1851.
In Indiana he formed Vollmer & Vonnegut retail hardware and sundry merchandise store with a German immigrant named Charles Vollmer (who left for the Wild West in 1852).
After 1852, the firm was renamed, and remained under his family"s control after his death. The family name is derived "from a distant forebear who had an estate, "ein Gut," on the little River Funne, hence the surname FunneGut." Subsequently, Funnegut was changed to Vonnegut.
"Funnegut sounded too much like "funny gut" in English.".
