European Family History Tour: Day 3 – Waldsassen and Falkenberg, Germany
Thursday, October 10, 2024 (Waldsassen, Germany) — We spent the morning at the Abbey and Library in Waldsassen, Germany. In the afternoon Dave and Gerhard took me along as they visited people and places who could teach them more about the Kuhns – Mark lines.
We even took a tour inside the Kuhns-Mark house where Johann Kuhns and Viktoria Mark left from Germany for Wisconsin. This house was the impetus for our European Family History tour. When Dave found it through some generous German family history connections, his Dad insisted that we go, take pictures, and share our adventures with the family.
Bakery or Backerei, They’re Amazing!
Thursday, October 10, 2024 (Waldsassen, Germany) Every day starts better at a Backerei! I’m loving the German bakeries. The Rosner Backerei in Waldsassen was one of the best ones we tried. The minute we stepped out of the car, we could smell the delicious pastries and breads. Dave said he wished there was some way to capture aromas on video.
I got a marzipan croissant in honor of my mother. She wrote in her personal history about her time in Germany in 1953: “Roger (her first husband) did not want breakfast, and I usually went to the bakery around the corner and bought a croissant. I had a life of leisure, eating croissants, and playing canasta for hours. I gained a few pounds, which didn’t hurt me since I was thin, but then I became pregnant in October so that probably had something to do with a little weight gain.” She was expecting my eldest sister Karen.
The Waldsassen Abby
This was the first Baroque Basilica I had seen in person. It is part of a complex of buildings that comprise the Waldsassen Abbey. We also toured the Walsassen Library which is full of artistic sculptures. Unfortunately, the impressive quantity of old books it normally contains had been removed as they’re doing some restoration on the library.
Down the road from the Abbey is a lovely herb and natural garden which we thoroughly enjoyed and came away with ideas for Spirit Tree Farms.
Before leaving Walsassen, I had a chance to sit and journal in the Basilica. My thoughts from there are in this post.
Loving the Germany People
(Falkenberg, Germany) — One of my favorite parts of this trip to Germany was the people. We stayed in the small village of Falkenberg in Bavaria, Germany. It’s where Dave’s 3rd great-grandparents, Johann Kuhns and Victoria Mark, met, married, and lived until they left for America in 1845.
They sold their home to another family whose descendants still live in the very same house! We sat with them around their kitchen table as they talked about how they had been wondering what happened to the Kuhns couple who once lived in the house and immigrated to America. “What had become of them?” they wondered. Within a few days, they received a letter from David Kuhns asking about the home and whether he might be able to see the house on his visit to Falkenberg.
David and Gerhard walking into the Johann Kuhns-Viktoria Mark house.
View out the dining room window as I sat at the kitchen table in the old Kuhns home
Dave standing by the only remaining wall from the original Kuhns house.
The current homeowners showed us a load-bearing wall that is the only interior wall remaining in the old homestead. They also had old photographs of the house hanging in their entryway. They were so kind, hospitable, and excited to meet us.
In fact, as we walked around the village, went into the bank, ate in the local restaurant or purchased pastries from the local backerei, people seemed to know us: “The Americans who have come home to learn about their ancestors.” Word travels fast in a small rural German village!
The Keeper of the Scrolls
We also visited a treasure-trove of family history information. There was a gentleman who descends from Dave’s 4th great-grandmother (Victoria Mark’s mother). He lives on the family farm, in the very house where Dave’s 4th great-grandmother lived. He has a hearing problem, so he quickly said hello, went about his farm work, and left us in the capable hands of his wife, who is an avid genealogist.
She produced a bag full of scrolls on which she’d mapped out her and her husband’s family lines. She opened a scroll across her kitchen table on which she’d neatly mapped out the line of her husband’s family that connects to Dave’s mutual ancestors. As she unrolled her scroll, we snapped photographs of it in sections to capture it all. In German, she enthusiastically showed Dave his connection to her husband and Gerhard’s (Dave’s cousin) connection to her.
I didn’t understand much of the German, but I felt a lot. I could feel the spirit so thick in that little kitchen, watching family unite over a common ancestry and a common love of family. Each of their eyes lit up with something illuminating and vibrant—the sweet ‘spirit of Elijah’ that ‘turns the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.’
I could see that a Divine hand led these two men to this sweet woman’s kitchen table. She’d felt compelled to research at the local land deed office to gather her data and map it all out in scrolls. Whether you call it fascination or hobby, I could see the same force had compelled these three individuals to research and document their roots, and for Dave to travel across an ocean to meet people who instantly accepted him as family.
German Hospitality at Its Finest
Most significantly, there were Doris and Gerhard Rasp and their son Leopold, whom we have spent much of our time with in Falkenberg. Gerhard (Dave’s distant cousin) has done so much to assist Dave with his research. He’s lined up people to give him tours of homes, castles, and cemeteries, and provided access to so much family research that Dave feels like he’s drinking from a firehose. Doris and their son Leo speak English really well and they were so kind to me and taught me a lot a lot of things about the culture and were the perfect hosts. They fed us so well and were so kind.
On this night, we spent a wonderful evening with Gerhard, Doris, and Leopold enjoying a smorgasbord of German delectables that Doris had prepared for us. Dave and I ate too much because it was all just so delicious. We laughed, talked, asked questions, and learned about each other’s lives. I enjoyed asking them questions about their rural communities in Bavaria. I found their lifestyle so delightful: carrying your basket down to the local bakery for bread, the local butcher for your meats, and the cheesemaker for your cheeses. Doris has her eggs delivered to her door. by a neighbor.
I love how they are so connected to family, to the past, and to the land. I think we could learn a lot about what matters most from the rural people of Bavaria, Germany.
