In a message dated 2/21/2005 12:14:49 AM Central Standard Time,
gapcreek@qldnet.com.au writes:
With regards to "why did they come" - our German family came after the
first
world war. My grandfather left the Bremen area first in 1924 and went to
Holland, South Africa (we think) and then Australia looking to begin a
business or find work. He owned a business, but after the war and with the
very high inflation, the business floundered. My grandmother and her three
children followed in 1929, when her father and uncle retrieved the children
from an orphanage and paid for the passage of my grandmother and her three
children to join their father and husband. I have doubts that my
grandmother wanted to leave Germany. Life in Australia for the family at
that time proved to be very difficult. My grandfather was sick and died
five years after his family joined him.
To Marlene,
Almost exactly same situation as my wife's grandfather. Came to Chicago in
1924. Had enough money to get my wife's grandmother and father a couple of years
later. He did do comparatively well as tool and die man, but died about 1940.
His wife would rather have stayed in Germany. We visited the wife's sister,
my wife's great aunt, in East Berlin in 1977. She said they were wrong, and the
grandfather was right, they should have come to America.
Viele Grüße aus Illinois
John Rodenburg
Werner (Hesse-Darmstadt), Brunkhorst (Hannover), Steinke (Pommern)
Krause (Pommern)
Schröder (Mecklenburg-Schwerin), Meyer (Hannover), Zum Mallen (Hannover)
Röhrdanz (Mecklenburg-Schwerin)