The people in the top photo are my maternal family.
My mother is the tall gal on the left. Her sister is on the right.
My grandparents are in the middle.
Heinrich Kuhn married Gertrud Gabel during WWI.
This photo dates back to about 1933.
It is the Kuhn side.
It is my father's family along with my mother and her sister top left.
To the right of my father was his 15 year old sister. Seated are his 19 year old sister and my paternal grandfather Franz Frederich Dietze, an inventor and an electician from the city of Aussig after 1918. He married Helene Rast and my father was their first born in 1920.
Non of them remain alive now that Ursula has joined them.
It is hard to think of the tough lives they once lived. Both of my parents had lost their moms before their wedding. Then my Dad's youngest sister died of cancer at age 28. The next to pass was my Dad of a heart attack at age 42. His father folloed him at age 71. He had a stroke. Then my mother at 70 joined her beloved. She had cancer. That left us with two aunties. The 19 year old made it to 82. She never married. Ursula made it to 96. Ironically all used to believe she was a sickly one who would die young. She fooled them all.
What is fascinating is I share genes with each of them and I have wondered often about their lives. The wars affected them all. They did share how they hated those days. They were peace loving but politics pushed them into a horrific situation.
Kuhn will not be passed on as there were no sons.
Dietze will not be passed on because my brother died childless at age 30 in an accident. Only genes go on.
Today is Canadian Thanksgiving and I am very thankful for the way my life is going. We spent a lovely sunny warm Sunday thankful to be fortunate for all we have and all we may share.
Looks like you got the good genes from both sides of your family! How fortunate you have those lovely photographs of your genetic contributors, haha. Sorry the name is ending, but you are right about the genes carrying on.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving and this is a great way to be thankful on this day, photos of your parents and grandparents and family. all of these dates are the era my parents lived in, they were married in 43 also and the war effected them to. the Mccalls name lives on, with my brother and his son but the Overby died out because there were 5 sisters to my grandmother and 6 girls only. I enjoyed this post
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving! I'm glad to know you have not died young and continue on with your blog (and you) continuing on, for what I hope is a long, long time to come. :-)
ReplyDeleteI love old photos, but your parents and grandparents must be a lot younger than mine. My father was born in 1909 and my mother in 1914. My father's father was born in 1872 and his mother in 1876, while my mother's parents came along about twenty years later. What this means is that my old photos aren't even in black and white but in browntone.
ReplyDelete"They were peace loving but politics pushed them into a horrific situation."
I can't begin to imagine! One thing about my people is that the only war that was fought on their shores was America's Civil War in 1861-65, but even that only directly affected part of the country. May we grow old and die before we see what your people saw.
What wonderful old pictures. I love seeing photos of family from days gone by--those images are to treasured. I hope this note finds you well. I have thought about you and your precious grandmother a lot. ((HUGS)) Blessings and peace to you, my Friend.
ReplyDeleteDear Heidrun, thank you for sharing this chronology of your family--both maternal and fraternal. As you said, genes get passed on even if the name dies out. The "Ready" name is going die out when my brother and I did as his son never had children. I find myself often thinking about the threads that go back over centuries and millennia to ancestors whose genes we still carry. Life I think is mostly mystery. Peace.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comment on my blog site. Our parents and families had a very tough time during the early forties. You look so much like your aunt (next to your mother). Really enjoyed reading your blog post.
ReplyDelete:) Love, cat.
ReplyDelete