“Family Archaeologist” explores a century of family letters, diaries, and artifacts, and how they illuminate history and our shared humanity. To get an overview of the blog, click: “Welcome to Family Archaeologist”
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The Highest Recommendation
Mrs. Berta Jickeli, center in black (Lisi’s employer who wrote her therecommendation (Zeugnis-below), and her household help.Lisi is seated 2nd from left.The little girl she cared for, Berta’s daughter, Lisbeth, is at washtub, right. Dec.,1910. The above photograph was signed on the back to my grandmother from Mrs. Jickeli, in December, 1910. (For details [...]
When a resumé worked as passport
Lisi’s “Passport” Traveling sure was different 100 years ago. My grandmother, Lisi Ebner had to get all her papers in order to travel to America. I found her “passport” among the artifacts she left behind. She had actually written on it “My Pass von [from] 1911.” I can’t read most of the lines in the “pass” [...]
Are we going there to stay?
June 7, 1911, postcard from Lisi to Josef. The two love-birds in a heart of roses, the clasped hands, and the forget-me-not blue flowers speak of love without saying a word. Lisi has made up her mind! One hundred years ago today, she sat down to write another postcard to Josef, probably in response [...]
I will come
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. For one thing, she chastises him for sending her such a “short” response, making clear she [...]
The Fallen—Part III
Travel Tuesday – Monument to the dead Sam Ebner, Lisi’s brother, died in the Battle of Galicia, one of the earliest battles in WWI. (See previous two posts: The Fallen-Part I and The Fallen-Part II). I wrote about my brothers and my 2007 visit to my grandmother’s (Lisi’s) church courtyard in her hometown of Grosspold, where we discovered [...]
The Fallen—Part II
Travel Tuesday “Names of the Fallen”Samuel Ebner-2nd from top Father and Son, both Samuel Ebner ~ 1902-05. My grandmother, Lisi’s,brother and father. In the first post in this three-part series about Samuel Ebner, my grandmother’s younger brother, I explained how my two brothers and I discovered this monument to the fallen soldiers in [...]
The Fallen—Part I
“Names of the Fallen” #403 “Samuel Ebner” Travel Tuesday Many of us family history buffs have relatives/ancestors who fought in World War I and/or II, and if they died in those wars, it’s likely we might find their names on a memorial in their home town, on a plaque in a church, or [...]
Happy 125th Birthday
Alöisia (Luisa) Woschkeruscha – circa 1901 ~ age 15 – Born May 4, 1886 Today, May 4, 2011, marks the 125th birthday of my maternal grandmother, Alöisia nee Woschkeruscha (VAUSH-ker-UZSH-uh). Luisa was born in 1886, in the town of Wiener-Neudorf, not far from Vienna, Austria. She was baptized four days later on May 8th. [...]
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