My son is an awesome father. I might be slightly biased, but he truly is doing a wonderful job as a dad and his boys adore him. I love the way he engages himself with every aspect of his sons as they grow up. A quick online search brings up
„Gone, gone, the damage done“ are lyrics from a Neil Young song and, while the song is about drug addicts, the words could also describe the feeling my father, and I’m sure other Baltic Germans, felt when their properties were confiscated. I wrote about their estate, Nurmhusen, here and described
Last weekend I wrote about my family and their resilience here. After the family reunion I travelled to Neuruppin to research my father’s movements during WWII – more about that in another post, and then to Berlin for no reason at all, except that I love the city. Sometimes decisions
This is a picture of my paternal grandmother. She married my grandfather on 20 November 1912. She was 31, my grandfather was 36. By early twentieth century standards, and for a first marriage, they were older than the norm. My grandparents had at least five children between 1913 and 1919.
Does your family have a connection with a geographical place? I had to think about this for a recent writing activity which I had to produce for my study. Both my maternal and paternal sides of the family have connections with geographical places. But one example immediately sprang to mind.
According to Bram Stoker, garlic works a charm when warding off vampires. I am not sure what my grandfather thought about vampires, but he certainly believed in the power of garlic. My grandfather, pictured, learnt homeopathy and iridology in his middle age. He and his family had sought refuge in