I am not the only Suter from Muotathal living in the United States. Four brothers of my grandfather immigrated to the States (Portland, Oregon, and St. Louis, Missouri) in the early 1920s because of economic reasons.

My American Suter family has always had close ties to their Swiss ancestry. I remember many visits from all my different second-, third-, and fourth-grade cousins. One of the reasons our contact remained close was my grandfather. He immigrated to the States as well, but he went back to Switzerland after four years because of the stock exchange crash called ""Black Friday"". Until his death in 2005, he was the connector between the American and Swiss Suter family. The American relatives adored my grandfather and called him ""Uncle Theo"".

Thanks to him, the ties between the younger Swiss and American relatives have prevailed, and family members still travel back and forth from Switzerland to the United States and vice versa.