Farewell, my homeland
Bags packed. Ready to go. Hugs, and tears and kisses all around. “I’ll write as soon as I can,” Lisi says to her father, sisters and brother. “Safe journey,” they say. “Come back to us.” “We’ll miss you so.” I [...]
Bags packed. Ready to go. Hugs, and tears and kisses all around. “I’ll write as soon as I can,” Lisi says to her father, sisters and brother. “Safe journey,” they say. “Come back to us.” “We’ll miss you so.” I [...]
The blue flowers are “forget-me-nots” Josef’s long, heartfelt letter of May 25th, 1911, (click: If you love me…) could not yet have reached Lisi in Transylvania when she picked out this sweet postcard and wrote to him on May 30th. [...]
If you’ve ever been young and in love, this post will take you back to those heady days. I’ve been chronicling the letters I’ve found between my grandfather, Josef Gärtz, at aged twenty-one, (photo left), after he left for America on Christmas [...]
Travel Tuesday It was getting later into the afternoon by the time we left Frau Sonnleitner, her pigs, and her dog named Linda. (See Going to the Dogs) with no luck in finding the Ebner Hof, my great-grandfather, Samuel Ebner’s, home [...]
Given the shocking name of “Linda” TRAVEL TUESDAY My parents named me Linda. This shocked my grandfather, Josef. He said to my father, “For why you name a girl Linda? In Romania they only name the dogs Linda.” [...]