Be My Valentine, 1911
This little Valentine has no date and no signature. So I had put it aside, only to rediscover it just last week! I was able to read the strange writing better after a year of practice, and when I translated [...]
Love Finds a Way
Section of Eva Beer’s letter included with Josef’s. On February 11, 1911, the mail arrived in Hermannstadt, Hungary, where my grandmother, Lisi Ebner, worked for Mrs. Jickeli. I can imagine Lisi’s heart quickening when she saw a letter [...]
The Road from Alsace
Renate, Neppendorf Lutheran Church secretary and keeper of genealogical treasures. TRAVEL TUESDAY What’s in a Name? I had no inkling our family surname had ever been anything other than Gärtz. But then we visited my grandfather’s home town [...]
Love Across 5,000 Miles
No email. No texts. No chats. No tweets. No Facebook. By God! No telephone! So how does twenty-one-year old Josef Gärtz, my grandfather, persuade the love of his life, Lisi, merely twenty-two, to make a 5,000 mile trek to join [...]
A Millennium of Germans in Transylvania
Evangelische (Lutheran) Kirche Neppendorf (near Sibiu)Historically, the Gärtz family church TRAVEL TUESDAY Church as History On the second day of our 2007 roots-finding trip in Romania, my brother, Bill, and I met up with Renate, church secretary of [...]