The following is a diary entry from August 17, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.17, Donnerstag, Luxembourg via Preizerduhl to Wasserliesch
2017-08-17
2017-08-16
Germany Trip Diary #9
The following is a diary entry from August 16, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.16, Mittwoch, Merdingen through Nancy and Metz to Luxembourg
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.16, Mittwoch, Merdingen through Nancy and Metz to Luxembourg
2017-08-15
Germany Trip Diary #8
The following is a diary entry from August 15, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.15, Dienstag, Merdingen
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.15, Dienstag, Merdingen
2017-08-14
Germany Trip Diary #7
The following is a diary entry from August 14, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.14, Montag, Hochhausen and Königheim
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.14, Montag, Hochhausen and Königheim
2017-08-13
Germany Trip Diary #6
The following is a diary entry from August 13, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.13, Lunedi, Strasbourg
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.13, Lunedi, Strasbourg
2017-08-11
Germany Trip Diary #5
The following is a diary entry from August 11, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.11, Freitag/Vendredi, Straßburg/Strasbourg
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Next day's post.
2017.08.11, Freitag/Vendredi, Straßburg/Strasbourg
2017-08-10
Germany Trip Diary #4
The following is a diary entry from August 10, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
2017.08.10 9:00 a.m., Mittwoch, Königheim to Heidelberg, Ettlingen, and Rastatt
Next day's post.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
2017.08.10 9:00 a.m., Mittwoch, Königheim to Heidelberg, Ettlingen, and Rastatt
Next day's post.
Germany Trip Diary #3
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
2017.08.10 9:00 a.m., Mittwoch, Königheim to Heidelberg, Ettlingen, and Rastatt
My plan for today:
- Buy some Königheim Kirchberg wines.
- Drive into TBB (Tauberbischofsheim) to the Stadtsbibliothek or -Archiv to see if they have copies of the "Tauber- und Frankenbote" newspaper of the mid-19th C.
- Tour the main church.
- Have a Distelhäuser on a terasse near the Tauber.
- Drive to Külsheim to meet Otto Spengler and buy a copy of his Königheimer Familienbuch.
- Bike
southnorth along the Tauber.
2017.08.10 21:00 (9 p.m.)
It's a good thing I wrote out the day's plan, for these days are already blending together!
In short, yesterday [today?] was full but overall unproductive in research. I first went to the tourist information bureau in the "new" Rathaus and got tentative directions to the Stadtbibliothek, but I was also informed that it opened only at 14:00. I followed the directions to find it, but I couldn't. I saw only a media museum in the given area. So I went to the St. Martinskirche and photographed much of the statuary. The building was errected in 1910-1914 in neogothic style—I wondered if the former church had been damaged in a war? The altar pieces and many side altars seemed to come from late Renaissance hands, which I assumed were saved from a previous ediface. (Reading later in the evening, I found many pieces were in fact newly made in the 20th C to imitate earlier styles.)
After that, I went to Külsheim to find Otto Spengler. I had neither phone nor address, but I trusted in the small size of the town. Although the Post was closed for lunch already at 11:30, a small food shop across the street was open. The propietor didn't know th eSpenglers, bu an older customer thought they lived in the new housing area. But he suggested I go uphill to the Kirchplatz and ask there.
Up 77 steps in about 6 flights, and at the top a woman was washing her stoop. When I asked after the Spenglers, she said, "Doch, die Frau da drüben ist ja die Frau dem Spengler!"
Next day's post.
2017-08-09
Germany Trip Diary #2
The following is a diary entry from August 9, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Stefan Lindtner arrived a bit before nine, fully equipped with laptop and printed Ahnentafel of the Stephan Familie, as well as of Anna Maria Stephan's three other grandparents!
Notes from the meeting with Stefan Lindtner
By that period, Stefan asserts, the town's population had grown too large to be supported by the surrounding land. In this period before the Industrial Revolution, it was only the Landschaft that could provide livelihood, and over-population would bring overall poverty to the town. Therefore, the city fathers saw a need to encourage emigration.
Stefan pointed to many family members who emigrated, many to form small communities of emigrés in a few cities: Cleveland, Dayton, St. Louis, Washington DC, New York, and Rochester were the most likely to hold former Königheimer.
Stefan drove us to Königheim. We walked up Kirchberg among vineyards. [From there, Stefan pointed out the neue Siedlung (new settlement) to the west of the original town. He pointed out the cemetery and its chapel, which were originally on the western edge of the original town. He pointed out the train station, now unused, which had been built before the first World War. He pointed out vineyards on the southern hills, which are not considered to be part of the Königheim growing area.]
Then we walked down to St Martin Kirche, a modestly beautiful, baroque architecture built in the 17th C from the richesse of the vineyard and wine produce of the town.
Placed into the masonry of the façade were two dedication plates, which read:
[In 1635 on the 11th September the church was burned by fire. In 1642 and
43 rebuilt and expanded. To the triune God be praise and honor, and may
their blessings be upon all prayers. Amen.]
[From the commanding view of the porch of St. Martin's, we walked into the town square, which was defined on the east side by the Rathaus. Stefan was not encouraging that detailed records of the family could be found there, and I determined that I should make my own inquiries later.
We walked along the Brehmbach, and crossed it to walk through the town cemetery and view its chapel that was built in the early 17th C. He spoke of a 1984 flood (a 500-year event, with no known antecedents for the whole town history) that reached to the first floor of homes that lined Brehmbach. Many houses were torn down and rebuilt anew, although a good number were renovated to their original appearance at great cost.
[On the way back from the cemetery, we wandered through several streets. About 70% of the houses were modern, with full stucco exteriors and very sqare corners. The remainder were half-timbered like the Rathaus, but of varying perfection. A very small number were highly decorated on the wooden corners and primary timbers.] He could not identify the home of Maria Stephan, which might have been torn down and replaced due to the flood.
Stefan gave me —in addition to the Ahnentafeln— two books: one lists and follows the history of some 80% of the Königheimer who auswandered into the USA, and the other amasses hundreds of old photos of Königheim.
One that Stefan wrote is Von Königheim im Großherzogtum Baden in die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika: Auswanderer im 19. Jahrhundert. [From Königheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden into the United States of America: Emigrants in the 19th Century.] 2nd edition, 2014; 232 pages in German with illustrations from old postcards, maps, city directories, census pages, naturalization papers, newspaper reports, tombstones, marriage certificates, family pictures, county plat maps, and funeral cards. Most source documents were contributed by living family members.
The book includes a table of all known emigrées from 1834 through 1900 and a list of known marriages in the U.S. between two emigrées from Königheim.
The book is not available on Amazon, but it is available direct from Lindtner. The first edition is available for search on Google books. (The book cannot be printed or saved from this source.)
The city society Heimatverein Brehmbachtal prepared the book Königheim in alten Bildern [Königheim in old pictures] and published it in 1999 to celebrate the town's ninth centenary. 128 pages, 297 photos. The earliest photos come from the last two decades of the 1800s, and most photos come from before World War Two. The book is available for €12.50 by postal order with their order page.
We returned to his home [a two-story building on the Hauptstraße that has a Keller stocked with wine barrels and vintner tools and machinery], and drove to Gissigheim to buy lunch supplies— brötchen and würstchen—and return to his home for Mittagessen and Kaffee. And much conversation about emigration, about his family (Beate, two daughters, and his in-laws).
Back at my hotel by 3 p.m., I went to 2-Rad Esser and rented a road bike, had SPD pedals attached, and took off for a ride to Hochhausen, return to Königheim, and back.
In the evening, I walked to Esser about 4 km and then drove into Tauberbischofsheim [TBB from here on] for dinner at a Greek restau.
Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.
Königheim Emigration History
2017.08.09, Mittwoch, Hochhausen and Königheim |
| Stefan Lindtner, Königheim genealogist and author |
Notes from the meeting with Stefan Lindtner
- 730 Königheimer emigrated nach den USA, some to Dayton OH.
- Die Gemeinde Königheim hatte ein Schiff 1852 geliefert, und 84 Einwohner sind auf diesem Schiff "Jane Anderson" dem Atlantik übergequert. [The Königheim community had purchased a ship in 1852, and 84 residents crossed the Atlantic on the ship "Jane Anderson."]
- The reasons [for the emigration] included that the town had grown too large for the land to support its population. The village bought the ship, and the mayor went along with the Auswanderer as far as Liverpool and then returned to Königheim.
- Other Einwanderungsörte included
- Saint Louis MO
- Cincinatti OH
- Rochester NY
- Washington DC
- New York City NY
- Dayton OH
- Cleveland OH
- The Vater Jakob war Landwirt; das heißt das er den Land gewirkt ohne ihnen zu behalten. [Maria Anna's father Jakob was a farmer, although he did not own the land that he worked.]
- Maria Anna Stephan and her sister sind auf dem Schiff Algeria öberquert. [M.A.Stephan and her sister crossed the Atlantic in the ship "Algeria."]
- Stefan hat JPGs of all Steffan- und Rauch-Taufe, -Heirate, und -Begrabung früher zu 1678 gemacht. [Lindtner has images of all the baptism, marriage, and burials of all the Steffan and Rauch family members through as early as 1678.]
- Village civil records exist from about 1810 through 1870. From then are the Preußische records, which end with the kaiserliches Reich in 1918.
- Le Havre - NYC; Hamburg/Km - Liverpool 1870 [I'm now unsure of what this note means, other than that it lists two possible routes for ship travel.]
- Tauber v Franken Bote [I believe we discussed the uniquely shaped bottles used for Franken and Tauber wines.]
- Grundbücher [No additional information for this single note in red: [Real estate deed books]; perhaps it was a note to ask Stephan about this possible resource later.]
By that period, Stefan asserts, the town's population had grown too large to be supported by the surrounding land. In this period before the Industrial Revolution, it was only the Landschaft that could provide livelihood, and over-population would bring overall poverty to the town. Therefore, the city fathers saw a need to encourage emigration.
Stefan pointed to many family members who emigrated, many to form small communities of emigrés in a few cities: Cleveland, Dayton, St. Louis, Washington DC, New York, and Rochester were the most likely to hold former Königheimer.
Königheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany
 |
| Königheim, in Main-Tauber-Kreis of Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
Placed into the masonry of the façade were two dedication plates, which read:
Anno 1635 den XI Septbris ward die Kirch durch das Feuer verbrand. Ano 1642 und 43 wider auferbauet und erweitert Got 3v lob und Ehr der den Friden genad. und die ewige Seligkeit all engv thetern verliehen wolle. Amen.
 |
| Dedication tablets, St. Martin Church |
Im Jahre 1752/6 wurde diese Kirche unter Pfr. Severus nach den Plänen Balthassar Neumanns erbaut, 1757/8 durch Tiepoloschüler G. Anton Urlaub im venezieanischen Stil bemalt, 1766 konsekriert. Innenrestauration: unter Dekanen Eckert u. Kieser i. J. 1872, 1894, 1914. Aussenrestauration unter Dekan Rothermel i. J. 1936.[In the years 1952-6 this church was built under Pastor Severus after the plans of Balthassar Neuman, in 1757-8 painted in Venetian style by G. Anton Urlaub of the school of Tiepolo, and in 1766 consecrated. Interior restoration: under the deacons Eckert and Kieser in the years 1872, 1894. and 1914. Exterior restoration under deacon Rothermel in the year 1936.]
 |
| Rathaus, under the tower of St. Martin's |
We walked along the Brehmbach, and crossed it to walk through the town cemetery and view its chapel that was built in the early 17th C. He spoke of a 1984 flood (a 500-year event, with no known antecedents for the whole town history) that reached to the first floor of homes that lined Brehmbach. Many houses were torn down and rebuilt anew, although a good number were renovated to their original appearance at great cost.
[On the way back from the cemetery, we wandered through several streets. About 70% of the houses were modern, with full stucco exteriors and very sqare corners. The remainder were half-timbered like the Rathaus, but of varying perfection. A very small number were highly decorated on the wooden corners and primary timbers.] He could not identify the home of Maria Stephan, which might have been torn down and replaced due to the flood.
Stefan gave me —in addition to the Ahnentafeln— two books: one lists and follows the history of some 80% of the Königheimer who auswandered into the USA, and the other amasses hundreds of old photos of Königheim.
 |
| Von Königheim im Großherzogtum Baden in die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika |
The book includes a table of all known emigrées from 1834 through 1900 and a list of known marriages in the U.S. between two emigrées from Königheim.
The book is not available on Amazon, but it is available direct from Lindtner. The first edition is available for search on Google books. (The book cannot be printed or saved from this source.)
The city society Heimatverein Brehmbachtal prepared the book Königheim in alten Bildern [Königheim in old pictures] and published it in 1999 to celebrate the town's ninth centenary. 128 pages, 297 photos. The earliest photos come from the last two decades of the 1800s, and most photos come from before World War Two. The book is available for €12.50 by postal order with their order page.We returned to his home [a two-story building on the Hauptstraße that has a Keller stocked with wine barrels and vintner tools and machinery], and drove to Gissigheim to buy lunch supplies— brötchen and würstchen—and return to his home for Mittagessen and Kaffee. And much conversation about emigration, about his family (Beate, two daughters, and his in-laws).
Back at my hotel by 3 p.m., I went to 2-Rad Esser and rented a road bike, had SPD pedals attached, and took off for a ride to Hochhausen, return to Königheim, and back.
In the evening, I walked to Esser about 4 km and then drove into Tauberbischofsheim [TBB from here on] for dinner at a Greek restau.
2017-08-08
Germany Trip Diary #1
The following is a diary entry from August 8, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.
Trip preparation post.
I closed up all my work files and transferred them to a thumb drive and my phone, finished some yard work under the gaze of Phil Rrig, and showered after Chuck returned home from volleyball. We were out the door before noon! That fact took Mitch by surprise, and he was just tying his shoes when we arrived to pick him up.
The auto trip into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) was a typical Sunday traffic situation—two delays getting from I-10 to I-210, then little problem until heavy traffic again on the 605 and 110 freeways, but no stalls.
With arrival at LAX by 14:45, I had plenty of time for security check and finding the gate: arriving there a solid hour in advance. The flights were atypical, but uneventful. On the 12-hour flight from LAX to DUS (Düsseldorf), my seat-mate watched films the flight long, dozing occasionally. I put stoppers in my ears, a sleep mask over my eyes, and I slept from 15 minutes after takeoff until midnight or so, more than 6 hours, After a pee break, I slept for another 2 hours or so, and I was awake from the flight over Europe, from the Atlantic shore until touchdown.
The flight from DUS to STR (Stuttgart) was by a much smaller turbo prop. We were bussed from the gate around the terminals to our plane, which we boarded outside by rollaway stairs. The flight lasted only an hour.
My rental car, a VW Beetle Cabriole, is very nice, although the rear hatch area is too small for my luggage to fit through its opening. I'll try to remove some articles from the bag to see if it can squeeze through then.) [I later found levers to open the hatch access wide enough to allow the suitcase.]
My first errand (to find a Fahrradgeschäft [bike shop] and buy a helmet and SPD cleats) was frustrating.
My arrival at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek [state library of Württemberg] was hampered by the building renovation, street closures, and a very hard to maneuver street layout. [Though I arrived in downtown Stuttgart quickly from the airport, taking wrong turns and finally finding a parking place took at least an additional hour.] I arrived too late to order and view books by the end of the afternoon hours. (It takes a minimum of two hours to receive books from the stacks for use in the Lesesalle [reading room].)
So I headed off to Tauberbischofsheim by 19:00 Uhr (7 p.m.), stopped unterwegs for a sandwich and juice, and arrived at my hotel —Landhotel am Mühlenwörth in Hochhausen, about 2.5 miles north of Tauberbischofsheim— as dusk turned to night.
[Google Maps "told" me that the drive from Stuttgart to the Tauberbischofsheim area was to take about two hours, including the side trips without the visiting time at the library. I'm not sure I took exactly the route that Google devised, since I used the GPS system installed in the Cabriole.
[The route took Autobahn A27 north from Stuttgart, with a short connection via A10 to A81 that took me to the turn-off to Tauberbischofsheim. Larger towns that I bypassed included Ludwigsburg (population 93,000) and Heilbronn (pop. 124,000), and the route stops 15 miles short of reaching Würzburg (pop. 126,000). None of these towns were visible from the freeway, and I saw only a few much smaller towns along the way. For the most part, the route was through alternating field crops and thick forests that covered rolling hills.
[It took more than a few turns underway before I became adjusted to the German instructions from the GPS and to the amount of distance between an announcement of an upcoming turn and the actual corner. I found the German GPS system much more suitable to auto driving than the GPS in Chuck's Toyota Prius and the iPhone GPS I use in my Mazda MPV.
[Certainly, though, the Cabriole GPS system took me to the east around central Tauberbischofsheim and connected me more efficiently to the street from Tauberbischofsheim to Hochhausen. (Google Maps names this street "Pestalozziallee," though I never saw that name the many times I took the street.)]
2017.08.08, Monday, Hochhausen
Heute I am to meet Stefan Lindtner at 9 a.m. here at the hotel. Then I plan to go to the Königheim Standesamt and perhaps meet Otto Spengler afterwards.
Next day's post.
Trip preparation post.
Flight from Los Angeles to Düsseldorf
2017.08.06, Sunday evening in Los AngelesI closed up all my work files and transferred them to a thumb drive and my phone, finished some yard work under the gaze of Phil Rrig, and showered after Chuck returned home from volleyball. We were out the door before noon! That fact took Mitch by surprise, and he was just tying his shoes when we arrived to pick him up.
The auto trip into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) was a typical Sunday traffic situation—two delays getting from I-10 to I-210, then little problem until heavy traffic again on the 605 and 110 freeways, but no stalls.
With arrival at LAX by 14:45, I had plenty of time for security check and finding the gate: arriving there a solid hour in advance. The flights were atypical, but uneventful. On the 12-hour flight from LAX to DUS (Düsseldorf), my seat-mate watched films the flight long, dozing occasionally. I put stoppers in my ears, a sleep mask over my eyes, and I slept from 15 minutes after takeoff until midnight or so, more than 6 hours, After a pee break, I slept for another 2 hours or so, and I was awake from the flight over Europe, from the Atlantic shore until touchdown.
Düsseldorf to Stuttgart to Tauberbischofsheim
2018.08.07, Monday |
| Germany |
My rental car, a VW Beetle Cabriole, is very nice, although the rear hatch area is too small for my luggage to fit through its opening. I'll try to remove some articles from the bag to see if it can squeeze through then.) [I later found levers to open the hatch access wide enough to allow the suitcase.]
 |
| Route from Stuttgart Flughaven to a bike shop |
- The nearest on-the-way shop found by Google Maps was closed, or never was at the location. [The Google Maps information placed me in a suburb of Stuttgart, in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I knocked at the door, and nobody answered. I asked a deliveryman on the street if a bike shop was in the area, and he said there had never been one nearby.]
- The second shop did not take a visa card and had almost no selection of SPD cleats. [I had used Google Maps again to find a bike shop along the way to the library, and I chose one that was on one of my planned streets. It turned out the shop was pretty small, not oriented toward road bikes, but e-bikes and neighborhood biking.]
 |
| Route to the Württembergische Landesbibliothek |
So I headed off to Tauberbischofsheim by 19:00 Uhr (7 p.m.), stopped unterwegs for a sandwich and juice, and arrived at my hotel —Landhotel am Mühlenwörth in Hochhausen, about 2.5 miles north of Tauberbischofsheim— as dusk turned to night.
 |
| Route from Stuttgart Flughaven to Hochheim |
[The route took Autobahn A27 north from Stuttgart, with a short connection via A10 to A81 that took me to the turn-off to Tauberbischofsheim. Larger towns that I bypassed included Ludwigsburg (population 93,000) and Heilbronn (pop. 124,000), and the route stops 15 miles short of reaching Würzburg (pop. 126,000). None of these towns were visible from the freeway, and I saw only a few much smaller towns along the way. For the most part, the route was through alternating field crops and thick forests that covered rolling hills.
 |
| VW Cabrio (think Mini Cooper) |
[Certainly, though, the Cabriole GPS system took me to the east around central Tauberbischofsheim and connected me more efficiently to the street from Tauberbischofsheim to Hochhausen. (Google Maps names this street "Pestalozziallee," though I never saw that name the many times I took the street.)]
2017.08.08, Monday, Hochhausen
Heute I am to meet Stefan Lindtner at 9 a.m. here at the hotel. Then I plan to go to the Königheim Standesamt and perhaps meet Otto Spengler afterwards.
Next day's post.
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