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Anna Jarvis, the Germanna Descendant who Founded Mother’s Day

May 7, 2018 By Germanna Leave a Comment

Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother’s Day, devoted years to gaining national recognition for a day to honor mothers, as a fulfillment of a dream held by her own mother—Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis.

Ann Marie was born in Culpeper in 1832, the daughter of Josiah Washington Reeves and Nancy Kemper Reeves, whose Kemper ancestor Johannes had come to Virginia in 1714 as one of the original Germanna colonists whom Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood settled at Fort Germanna along the Rapidan River frontier.

Ann Marie’s father was a Methodist minister who was transferred in 1843 from Culpeper to Philippi, now in West Virginia, when she was a girl.

Ann Marie married Granville Jarvis, a successful merchant, and was mother to eleven children, but only four reached adulthood.

She organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve health and sanitary conditions for families in several towns.

When war broke out and the western part of Virginia broke away and formed the new state of West Virginia, Ann Marie Jarvis urged her Mother’s Day Clubs to declare neutrality and provide aid to both Confederate and Union troops. For many years after the war, she spoke of her dream to have a day in which Americans would honor mothers.

After her husband died, she moved to Philadelphia, where she died in 1907.

Her daughter Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) began her campaign for the creation of a national Mother’s Day on the first anniversary of her mother’s death. She gained the support of the Philadelphia philanthropist John Wanamaker, and by 1909 there were unofficial Mother’s Day observations in 45 states.

Official recognition began to follow, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution adopted by both houses of Congress recognizing Mother’s Day.

To read the full story on the founding of Mother’s Day, read this article by Germanna Foundation Trustee, Katharine Brown, Ph.D.

This Mother’s Day, we not only honor our mothers and grandmothers, but remember the legacy our female immigrant ancestors left behind.

Elsbeth (Elisabeth) Heimbach Fischbach was the daughter of Johannes Heimbach of Trupbach, and his wife Clara. Elsbeth is a real grandmother to First Colony descendants as several First Colony
families descend through her children:

Anna Elizabeth, who married John Jacob Rector
John Fishback
Harmon Fishback
Maria Els, who married Melchoir Brumback
Maria Elisabeth, who married John Spilman

Anna Barbara Schon is one of the matriarchs of the Second Colony. Married three times, she immigrated to Virginia with her third husband and children from all three marriages.

Anna Barbara first married Hans Thomas Blanckenbuhler in 1680; married second to Johan Jacob Schluchter in 1691; married third Cyriacus Fleischmann in 1697. Other families that descend from Anna Barbara through the marriage of her children include Merklin, Thoma, Kaifer, Broyles, and Weaver.

Today we pay tribute and remember the legacy and sacrifice our mothers and foremothers made.

Click here to donate to our Mother’s Day Tribute Campaign and make the donation in honor or memory of a mother who is special to you.

We’ll add their names to the Germanna Honor Roll of Mothers.

You can honor their memory and leave your legacy this Mother’s Day by making a donation to the Germanna Foundation in their name, and remember the Germanna Foundation in your estate plans and will as well.

By including the Germanna Foundation as a beneficiary in your will, you will help us preserve Germanna’s history and heritage for future generations.

You can also name the Germanna Foundation as a beneficiary of your life insurance policy or your retirement plan (such as a 401(k), 403(b), IRA, or other pension plan). By naming the Germanna Foundation as a beneficiary, you maintain complete control over the plan while living, but at your passing the plan passes to the Germanna Foundation free of both income and estate taxes.

The Germanna Foundation can be named as a primary beneficiary for part or all of the assets in the plan, or as a contingent beneficiary, or as a beneficiary at the death of your surviving spouse. Please ask your insurance agent, your employer, or the financial institution managing your retirement plan for the proper forms.

Please consult with your attorney or personal financial advisor regarding the legal and tax benefits of all estate and planned gifts!

By making a planned gift in the form of cash, securities, real estate, or other assets, you will be investing in the continuation of the Germanna Foundation’s vital work to preserve Germanna history for years to come. If you choose to make this kind of gift, you will become a member of our Germanna Legacy Society.

And, by including the Germanna Foundation in your estate plans, you will honor and protect Germanna’s history for the next generation, and generations to come!

For more information on planned giving with the Germanna Foundation, call us at 540-423-1700.

Thank you for honoring Mother’s Day with your gift and for consideration of including the Germanna Foundation in your estate plans. Together we not only honor our mothers and grandmothers, but also remember the legacy our female immigrant ancestors left behind!

The Chalice of Oberfischbach & Germanna

March 23, 2018 By Germanna 2 Comments

At the Germanna First Colony 300th anniversary celebration, Marc Wheat told those assembled at the Fort Germanna Visitor Center that perhaps the most meaningful object that our members had touched on the Germany trip with the Foundation was the Oberfischbach chalice.

It was a chalice used in that parish to administer communion by Rev. Henrich Haeger, later pastor at Germanna, and had been given to the parish by Johann Moritz, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, when he was elected Herrenmeister of the Johanniterorden (Order of St. John) in 1665.

One of the men present that afternoon was Dr. Hans-Martin Sass, delegate of the Johanniterorden to North America. Through his good offices, the Order sponsored the manufacturing of ten museum-quality reproductions of the Oberfischbach chalice, two of which would be used for a special communion service at St. John’s (across from the White House) for the Order’s first global convocation outside of Germany in its 900-year history.

As the original was in Oberfischbach, we had to rely on the Germans taking accurate measurements and photographs-and, frankly, no one could have done a better job than Teo Schwarz.

Once the exact measurements (including the size of the lettering!) were in hand they were sent off to Danforth Pewter who had agreed to produce the limited run. This involved a fair amount of trial and error work to make the bucks on which each of the pieces was hand formed.
After several weeks of careful handwork, the prototype was completed, sent to Scott MacMillan (formerly of the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland), and approved for production. The prototype was then sent to master engraver Doug Larson for hand engraving.

In order to properly engrave each piece with an exact copy of the coat of arms as it appeared on the original, Doug had to make a special rotating jig to hold the piece while he carefully inscribed each line with one of several different sized engraving tools. In all, each chalice took just a little over twelve hours to engrave.

When completed, Doug inspected each bit of the engraving using special high power lenses to make sure the lines were perfect, before removing the chalice from the jig, and giving it a final polish.

Doug, an absolute master craftsman, did a superb job, and delivered the first three chalices in ample time to be presented to the Herrenmeister of the Johanniterorden on the occasion of his visit to the United States in November of 2015.

Two chalices were exchanged as gifts between the Germanna Foundation and the Johanniterorder, and several more are with sponsors in Virginia, Texas, and Germany.

One, purchased by Marc and Marie Wheat, was used for the first communion of their children Benjamin and Laura Elizabeth on 18 September 2016-continuing a tradition begun 350 years ago.

Article by Scott MacMillan and Marc Wheat which first appeared in the Spring 2017 edition of the Germanna Newsletter

View gallery of the process of making the chalice (click to enlarge):

Original Chalice

2. Chalice Parts

3. Prototype

4. Chalice before engraving

5. Engraving chalice

6. Inspecting chalice

7. Master Engraver Doug Larson with chalice

Master Engraver Doug Larson

The Finished Chalice

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The Germanna Foundation and the Johanniter Order — Our Shared History

Introductory Remarks by Rainer Koehler (Delegate of the Johanniter Order to the USA, Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Knightly Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem)

Culpeper, Virginia, July 16, 2016

Esteemed Members and guests of the Germanna Foundation, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to stand here today as the Delegate of the Johanniter Order to the United States on the occasion of the Germanna Foundation’s 59th Annual Conference and Reunion.

You may ask yourself what is the Johanniter Order and what has it to do with the Germanna Foundation?

The Johanniter Order is a spiritual Protestant knightly order and has its foundation in the confession to Jesus Christ. This is the basis of its existence. Without this spiritual dimension, the Order would have faded away long ago in the course of its over 900-year history.

The Johanniter Order is registered in Potsdam, the capital of the German state of Brandenburg and counts roughly 4,200 Knights worldwide.

The Order’s full title is “Brandenburg Bailiwick of the Knightly Order of St. John of the Hospital of Jerusalem” and it is one of the four Protestant Orders of the St. John “family”.

The other three Protestant Orders are:

The Johanniter Order in the Netherlands, based in The Hague,

The Johanniter Order in Sweden, based in Stockholm, and

The Most Venerable Order of St. John in London, which is also represented here in the United States by a very active Priory.

Your President Marc Wheat is a member of the US Priory of the Venerable Order of St. John and we are proud to call him “confrère.”

With me today as members of our group are my predecessor Professor Hans-Martin Sass, Dr. Frederick Schroeder, and Scott McMillan.

In 1961, the four Orders formed the Alliance of the Orders of St. John. Part of the Alliance of the Order is the Cooperation Group which includes the (Catholic) Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

We have intensive and close relationships in this circle, meeting regularly, feeling all part of one family, and having so much in common. Together, with all our aforementioned organizations, we are the largest humanitarian Christian aid organization in the world!

I am representing the Subcommandery of the USA of the Bailiwick Brandenburg, which counts 77 knights, of which about ¾ are Americans, most of whom are of German descent or have some other kind of affiliation to Germany.

You may still ask “and what has it to do with the Germanna Foundation”?

Well, it is a wonderful 300-year-old event that “bridges” our two institutions. The Johanniter Order’s Herrenmeister (“Master of Knights”), Prince Moritz von Nassau-Siegen after his investiture into the Order in 1652, had donated a communion chalice to the Protestant parish
of Oberfischbach (a small village near Siegen, in North Rhine Westphalia).

This chalice was used by Reverend Heinrich Haeger to administer communion to his parish. In 1714, Rev. Haeger and other citizens of Oberfischbach settled as miners and farmers here in Virginia and founded the town and fort Germanna.

In November 2015, thanks to the work of the Germanna Foundation and the Johanniter Order, a replica of the Oberfischbach chalice was presented to the current Herrenmeister, HRH Oscar Prince of Prussia, the 37th Herrenmeister, on the occasion of the Bailiwick Convocation in
Washington DC, the first convocation of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg that took place outside of Germany in the Order’s over 900-year history.

The engraving on this chalice read:

“Dedicated to HRH Oskar Prinz von Preussen from the Johanniter in the United States of America, November 7, 2015.”

We are very grateful to confrère Marc Wheat that he found out about this historical bond between the people of Germanna and the Johanniter Order.

It is now my pleasure to present to Marc, as we did for our Herrenmeister last year in Washington, a replica of precisely the same chalice Prince Johan Moritz gave to the Oberfischbach community from which came the Germans who settled here in 1714. The engraving on this chalice reads:

“Presented to the Germanna Foundation by the Knights of the Johanniter Order in the United States of America in honor of our shared history – July 2016.”

I wish you all a productive annual conference and to all of us the continuation of our excellent relationship as we both serve the public as nonprofit organizations through charitable and educational activities.

Thank you!

Who Were Germanna’s Founders?

March 13, 2018 By Germanna Leave a Comment

The inspiring history of the Germanna colonies lay nearly forgotten for 200 years.

Threads of awareness emerge in the historical writing of professor William J. Hinke c. 1920, in an inquiry to President Calvin Coolidge from Müsen, Germany, in 1927 about descendants of the 1714 emigrants from that village, in the Reformed Church’s commemoration of its 220^th anniversary at Germanna in 1934, and in the annual Picnic Parties of Germanna descendants that R. Brawdus Martin, a Kemper descendant, organized from 1949-1955.

From Brawdus Martin’s group emerged the two principal founders of our Germanna Foundation, the respected Charles Herbert Huffman and John Walter Wayland.

Both men held doctorates from the University of Virginia, and were professors at Madison College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, now James Madison University. Wayland’s many published books included the textbook from which all Virginia schoolchildren learned their Virginia history for many decades.

In a wonderful roundabout way that involved Dr. Huffman’s letter of congratulations to the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) in Siegen upon its restoration after World War II bombing damage, this scholarly duo were connected with Ernst Flender, a successful banker in New York who was a native of Siegen.

Mr. Flender became so interested in saving and telling the story of the Germanna colonies that he provided the know-how to create a non-profit organization incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia, The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, Inc. That is still the official name of what we all call the Germanna Foundation today.

Next, Mr. Flender provided $10,000, a very large sum in the 1950s, to enable the Foundation to purchase the 270 acres of the original Fort Germanna tract along the Rapidan River. This they named Siegen Forest. It is the site of the R. Brawdus Martin Fort Germanna Visitor Center today.

At its first annual meeting in November 1956, the original board (Huffman, Wayland, Flender, Border Stanley, Trammel Fishback, Frank Switzer, and Jesse Boyd Carpenter), expanded their membership to add Benjamin C. Holtzclaw, Professor of History and Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Richmond, who was an experienced genealogist.

Holtzclaw, Huffman, and Wayland became a dynamic trio that researched and published half a dozen books that became the foundation of the Germanna Record series that now numbers 21 volumes.

Holtzclaw’s Germanna Record No. 5: Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau-Siegen Immigrants to Virginia, incorporates documentary research by Ernst Flender’s brother Emil Flender in Germany, and remains an invaluable resource today.

And so it is that today, on Founder’s Day, March 14, Germanna salutes its founders, and especially R. Brawdus Martin, Charles Huffman, John Wayland, and Benjamin Holtzclaw who made it possible for us to discover our own proud Germanna heritage and tell the story of the Germanna immigrants to Virginia’s frontier in 1714, 1717 and beyond.

— • —

Consider making a donation in honor of our founders and Founder’s Day to support the continuing work of the Germanna Foundation.

Remember the Germanna Foundation in your will and estate plans.

Become a member or renew your Germanna Foundation membership.

— • —

More information about the Germanna Foundation’s history can be found here:

Germanna Record #17: The First Fifty Years of the Germanna Foundation

The Cuntze Family of Niederndorf and Oberfischbach

January 25, 2017 By Germanna 3 Comments

By Barbara Price

The Cuntze / Kuntze / Coons family can be traced back to around 1500 in the village of Niederndorf, located in the parish of Oberfischbach, near the city of Siegen.

The family appears to have moved back and forth between Niederndorf and Oberfischbach. (1) The parish of Oberfischbach originated in the 12th century and in 1597 was comprised of the villages of Oberfischbach, Heisberg, Oberschelden, Niederndorf, Dirlenbach, Niederheuslingen, Oberhueslingen and Bottenberg.

In 1665, Prince Johann Moritz of Nassau-Siegen dedicated a silver communion set to the parish of Oberfischbach and it is still in use today, 350 years later.

In 1703, the Rev. Henry Haeger, and his wife, Anna Catharine Friesenhagen, came to Oberfischbach where he was the parson, or minister.

The Kuntze family attended church in Oberfischbach and would have been very familiar with the Rev. Henry Haeger and the schoolteacher, Hans Jakob Holzklau.

Were they an influence on Jost/Joseph Cuntze, and his family, to emigrate to America when Johann Justus Albrecht was recruiting miners for the George Ritter Company in Siegen?

The village of Niederndorf, and home of the Cuntze family, is well known in the mining industry with an iron works dating back to at least 1417.

The owner of the iron works at that time was Tyl van Fispe, the ancestor of the Fischbach/Fishback families. The Kuntze/Cuntz family was also involved in the mining industry.

Johannes Kuntze, the father of the 1714 immigrant, Jost/Joseph Cuntze, and all of his sons, including Jost/Joseph Cuntze, were all members of the Steelsmiths and Toolmakers Guild. (2)

Jost/Joseph Cuntze received permission to leave his country on 31 July 31 1713 (see Emigration Permission below), the same day that Philip Fischbach and Hans Jacob Richter obtained their permission to leave: (3)

Jost/Joseph Kuntze/Cuntze was born in 1674 in Niederndorf, the son of Johannes and Anna (Schuster) Cuntze.

He married Anna Gertrud Reinschmidt on 7 Feb 1704 and along with their children, Johannes and Anna Elisabeth, emigrated in 1713.(4)

The Kuntze home is still standing in Niederndorf and occupied today (see below).

Joseph Cuntz proved his importation to Virginia in 1724, along with his wife, Katharin, and children in the Spotsylvania courthouse:

It is thought that Joseph’s first wife, Anna Gertrud, died early upon arrival in Virginia and that “Katharin” is the second wife of Joseph Cuntz. She is probably Cathrin Weber/Weaver, the daughter of Johann/John and Anna Margaretha (Huttmann) Weber/Weaver.

Cathrin is not listed in the importation document of her brother, Tillman Weaver, but he does list his mother, indicating that his father is dead, and, as you can see in the document below, Joseph Cuntz lists his wife as being imported in April 1714 and her name is Katharin. (5):

Joseph Cuntz died in 1731, both of his wives preceding him in death, in Germantown, Fauquier Co., Virginia, according to his will that was probated on 10 Feb 1731.(6)

Other members of the Cuntze family also emigrated to Virginia—the nephew of Jost/Joseph Cuntze, Johann Jost/Joseph Coons, and his niece Anna Margarethe Kuntze, both children of his brother, Johannes Kuntze and his wife Catherine Daub, immigrated to Virginia in 1737 and 1750, respectively.

Anna Margarethe Kuntze married Tillmann Weissgerber/Whitescarver, also from the village of Niederndorf. They emigrated to Virginia in 1750 with their 6 children, settling in Culpeper Co., but not with the Little Fork Colony,(7), as it was called, due to its location at the Little Fork of the Rappahannock River in the northern part of Culpeper County.

Johann Jost/Joseph Cuntze/Coons was born in Niederndorf in 1712, the son of Johannes Cuntze and his second wife, Anna Gertrud Stieger.

He emigrated to Virginia in 1737, probably staying with his relatives in Germantown (Fauquier County) before being granted 127 ½ acres in the Little Fork (Culpeper County) on 8 December 1747.

This land was located between the land of two other members of the First Colony, Jacob Holtzclaw and John Fishback, and below the land of John Crim/ Grimm.

John Crim, son of Christian and Elisabeth Spielman Grimm of Oberschelden, was also an immigrant from Nassau-Siegen, and was related to First Colony immigrant John Spielmann / Spilman.(8) This is yet another link to the Germanna immigrants of 1714!

The home of Joseph Coons, the 1737 immigrant, is still standing and occupied in Jeffersonton, Virginia, once part of the Little Fork Colony:.

Jacob Holtzclaw and John Fishback, enterprising members of the First Colony, purchased more than 2000 acres in the Little Fork area in order to settle families here. This was just one of several land ventures in which the two were partners.

This venture was successful in that many of the families of the Little Fork Colony were either relatives or neighbors of the First Colony immigrants and had lived in the Nassau-Siegen area of Germany.

Kinship and settlement patterns in the Little Fork Colony is positive proof of active communication between the members of the First Colony and their homeland.

Sources:

(1) B. C. Holtzclaw, Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau Siegen Immigrants to Virginia 1714-1750, (Virginia, The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia 1964), 89-93.
(2) Ibid, 91.
(3) Furstentum Siegen Landesarchiv 11, No. 28th.
(4) Holtzclaw, Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau Siegen Immigrants to Virginia 1714-1750, 93
(5) Will Book A, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, 74.
(6) Stafford County, Virginia Will Book 1729-48, 22.
(7) Holtzclaw, Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau Siegen Immigrants to Virginia 1714-1750, 92, 95, 520.
(8) B. C. Holtzclaw, “The Little Fork Colony “in The Story of Germanna Descendants in Reunion at Siegen Forest Virginia, (Virginia, The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia 1960), 10.

This article was first published in the Spring 2014 edition of the Germanna Foundation newsletter. Get our newsletters delivered to your home by becoming a member.

The Family of Anna Margreth Otterbach

January 25, 2017 By Germanna 1 Comment

By Barbara Price

In my last article, I discussed the two wives of Hans Jacob Holzklau, Anna Margreth Otterbach and Catherine, maiden name unknown. What do we know about the first wife of Hans Jacob Holzklau, Anna Margreth Otterbach, and her family, namely, her sisters?

Anna Margreth Otterbach was one of five daughters of Hermann Otterbach and Elisabeth Heimbach. Her parents were married on 11 Aug 1685:

Hermann and Elisabeth (Heimbach) Otterbach lived in the village of Trupbach, in the house called, “Welmes,” that was built around 1680 and is still occupied today. Welmes is the house on the right, c. 1960.

The Otterbach family is well documented in Trupbach. Hermann was noted in the census of 1707/08 as “Mannus Otterbach mit Ehefrau, 7 Kinder, 9 Personen, Vermogenslage Mittel (Average Income), Haus—Welmes.”

Hermannus and Elisabeth (Heimbach) Otterbach had the following children whose baptisms were recorded in the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) register in Siegen:

1. Anna Margreth Otterbach, born 1686
2. Ellsbeth Otterbach, born 1689
3. Johann Philip Otterbach, born 1692
4. Johannes Otterbach, born 1693
5. Johann Jacob Otterbach, born 1695. This child died as an infant on 30 Jan 1696.
6. Elisabeth Cathrina Otterbach, born 1697
7. Maria Cathrina Otterbach, born 1699
8. Johannes Otterbach, born 1702
9. Anna Catharina Otterbach, born 1705

There are no records in either Germany or Virginia regarding the sons of Hermann and Elisabeth other than their baptisms. We do know that Hermann Otterbach was the first of the 1714 group to apply for permission to leave Germany, just a few weeks after Johann Justus Albrecht signed the contract with the ministers of Siegen.

On 5 Sep 1711, Otterbach stated that he wanted to emigrate to Prussia, a common request at the time according to the staff at the Stadt Archiv (City Archives) in Siegen, where this document was found:

In Virginia, we can only conjecture as to the fate of the daughters of Hermann and Elisabeth. We know that before they emigrated, the eldest daughter, Anna Margrethe, married the school master at Oberfischbach, Hans Jacob Holzklau, her lifelong friend and neighbor in Trupbach. But, we do not know when she died for certain, just that her death occurred between 1727 and 1729 when his second wife, Catherine, is named in a Virginia deed.

We can gather some information about Margret and the other four daughters from the importation statements made by their probable husbands at the Spotsylvania County Courthouse in 1724.

Anna Margreth Otterbach, born in 1686, the wife of Jacob Holtzclaw:

Ellsbeth Otterbach, born in 1689, is the probable second wife of Peter Heide/Hitt. His wife, Elizabeth is named in his statement, but there are no children named. This could be his first wife, Elisabeth Freudenberg, but it is thought that the first wife died before 1724:

Elisabeth Cathrina Otterbach, born in 1697, named Alice Katherine in the document, is the probable wife of John Kemper, who emigrated from Muesen near Siegen:

Maria Cathrina Otterbach, born in 1699, is the probable wife of John Joseph Martin, who also emigrated from the mining village of Muesen:

Anna Catharina Otterbach, born in 1705, is the probable wife of Harman Fischback, one of the sons of Philip and Elisabeth Fischbach, who emigrated in 1714 from the village of Trupbach:

We can only guess as to the death dates of any of the Otterbach sisters. The only one of the above who is named in the will of her husband is Elisabeth, the wife of Peter Hitt, but there are no further records of her after her husband’s death in 1772. Maria Cathrina, the wife of John Joseph Martin, died prior to his death in 1758/59 and his second wife, Eve, was still alive in 1777. Elisabeth Cathrina, the wife of John Kemper, probably died around 1745-50, prior to her husband’s death in 1758/59. Anna Catharina, the wife of Harman Fishback, died prior to 1745 according to a deed dated 7 Feb 1745 in which Harman Fishback is solemnizing his marriage to the widow Mary (Otterbach)Noe/Nay.

Unfortunately, there is no certainty as to the deaths of the five Otterbach sisters, all wives of members of the First Colony. Wouldn’t it be great to know when and where they died and where they are buried? Just another reason to take note of your female line, they’re the other half of your genealogy!

Do you have a MISSing female in your line? If so, contact me at: Barbara.Price@germanna.org.

First published in the Summer 2015 edition of the Germanna Foundation Newsletter. Get our newsletters mailed to your home by becoming a member.

Anna Jarvis, the Germanna Descendant who Founded Mother’s Day

Click here to donate to our Mother’s Day Tribute Campaign and make the donation in honor or memory of a mother who is special to you.

We’ll add their names to the Germanna Honor Roll of Mothers.

The Chalice of Oberfischbach & Germanna

The Germanna Foundation and the Johanniter Order — Our Shared History

Introductory Remarks by Rainer Koehler (Delegate of the Johanniter Order to the USA, Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Knightly Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem)

Who Were Germanna’s Founders?

The Cuntze Family of Niederndorf and Oberfischbach

Sources:

The Family of Anna Margreth Otterbach

Germanna Foundation

Hike Siegen Forest!

Fort Germanna Visitor Center, Museum & Library

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