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What's in a name? Juliet asked Romeo.
You're about to find out.
Anne Springs Close, chair of the Springs Close Foundation, and Bruce Springsteen met backstage last week before Springsteen's show at the Time Warner Cable Arena.
Springsteen told Close two weeks ago that if she would donate the maximum amount - $50,000 - to Charlotte's Second Harvest Food Bank, he'd match it.
Thank you! Close said to Springsteen backstage. No, thank you, Springsteen said.
Close says Springsteen couldn't have been more down to earth or more charming. He even autographed her T-shirt. But where in the world does the conversation go from there?
For Close, it was easy. She told Springsteen the two of them shared a last name and were probably related through those early Springsteens who left Holland in the 1600s for what is now New York City. She'd send him a family genealogy, she said.
Close, daughter of the late Elliott White Springs, who headed Springs Cotton Mills, now Springs Industries, says her family name was changed to Springs in the 1700s when Derick Springsteen was living in Delaware.
Derick's son John Springs and his wife Sophia were lured south by friends who told them of a beautiful and promising section of North Carolina called Mecklenburg. In 1766, they packed up their children and headed this way.
Within a few generations, the Springs owned half the block on the northeast corner of what is now Charlotte's Square, as well as vast holdings in both Carolinas.
Bruce Springsteen's family has remained mostly in the Northeast, but there's no doubt that his family, too, immigrated from Holland. His father was called Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen. His earliest known Dutch ancestor was John Springsteen, born in 1759 in Middlesex County, N.J.
The Dutch, according to historians, were industrious and conscientious. (Also "stodgy," says Close.) And they were good assimilators, quick to throw off the styles of the old country and take on the new.
Close says she doesn't know why Derick Springsteen changed the name to Springs, but speculates that it could've been to assimilate more easily. The name Close, she says, is also Dutch, changed from Kloos.
There are still traces of the old Springsteen name in South Carolina. There's a Springsteen Plant in Chester, Springsteen Properties in Lancaster, a Springsteen Plantation in York County, and Springsteen Road off Dave Lyle Boulevard in Rock Hill.
Anne Close and Bruce Springsteen may share the same ancestors. But it's fascinating how the difference in their names has shaped our imaginations and their auras.
Juliet was right. A rose by any other name does smell as sweet.
But imagine buying a ticket to a Bruce Springs concert?
Or wanting to lie down on a Springsteenmaid sheet?
