Visit to Donnern
Mutti has wanted to visit Donnern, where Erwin lives, for a while now. As you know, Werner's family is not extensive. Erwin is the widow of one of Werner's two (only two!) cousins. He was married to Sophie, the only daughter of Werner's father's sister Dora (Tante Dora).
So yesterday was the day. We drove south into town to pick up Mutti, then headed back north to Erwin's.
He will put on a spread. Three kinds of cake ! Of course we tried them all. After recovering from that, Erwin had to show us around the house. It's not what we do in the US, but here, folks seem to want to show you around the house, so we did it again.
He has a lot of space to ramble in these days, and it seems he's a bit of a pack rat. A very organized pack rat, but still he doesn't seem to throw much away!
Hanging on the wall upstairs was a collage that Werner did for Sophie's birthday, many years ago.
After the tour, we looked at other old pictures. Unfortunately, no one knew who some of these folks were! Yet another reason to make notes on pictures.
But there were other pictures of folks we did know. The little kid with the knobby knees is Werner. Cute!
But certainly the most important was a picture of Sophie's uncle, Tante Dora's brother, Mutti's husband, Werner's father.
Tante Dora adored her brother and when she heard - officially - that he had died in the war, she donned black and wore black or gray for the rest of her life. And she had this picture of him on her bedroom wall in Affinghausen, before she moved with her daughter and Erwin to Donnern in the late 50s. Mutti said Tante Dora mourned her brother more than she mourned her husband, and told Mutti at the time she could not understand unless she lost a brother as well. At the time, Mutti did not understand, but 7 years later when Mutti lost her brother in an accident, she understood.
The picture had been up in the attic in Affinghausen all that time. It's a bit worse for wear, but we'll find a way to preserve it.
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