After leaving Heidelberg and spending the day looking at farms, such as Wagonbach (pigs, Utz, Volck), and Unterbiegelhof (chickens, Herr), it was time to find a place for the night. Last winter, when we were planning the trip, we had selected Eppingen for a couple of reasons. First, it seemed to be a pretty town, and two, it was centrally located. Neither of us had any ancestors in it, but it was so close to the numerous villages where there were ancestors that it hardly mattered.
We bombed out in finding a place to stay in Eppingen. All the places recommended by the locals were full already. The problem seemed to be there was a business conference in Sinsheim, and it required many rooms in neighboring towns. Next we tried Gemmingen, which is smaller, and again we had no luck. The next village down the road was Schwaigern and we were not doing well there. We were talking to the manageress of an inn, who said she had no room, but she was kind enough to call some other innkeepers, without any luck. Finally, she said that she had an old room that was vacant. Inquiring what she meant by "old", we were told that we would have to go down the hall to the W.C. but we would have our own shower in the room. This was no problem for Eleanor and me, as we both have lived for significant periods where there was no indoor plumbing. Actually the situation was quite nice.
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Note from WebPage Manager: W.C. is short for "Water Closet", which is "European" for "bathroom" or "toilet".
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Looking out our window we could see the Rathaus (Literally, Council House; City Council Building). Next door to the inn was the town church. In the other direction is the old wine Keller ("cellar") where grapes were pressed. So we were in the thick of things. Later we found out the inn building was owned by the Neipperg family. Perhaps you will remember they were involved in the "hog war" in which the peasant’s hogs were taken while they were in church. When I learned this, I had mixed feelings.
Schwaigern was the lowest on the scale of photogenic situations. There was no angle from which a decent view of the church could be obtained. One side was against the Neipperg residence, which itself was hidden behind walls. The other side of the church was against the inn, and, in front of it, there were trees. The Keller was not positioned well in the light. Though we slept there four nights, we did not bring home any decent pictures of Schwaigern.
The next morning we commenced a swing through villages lying to the west. This was a very pretty country side of gently rolling hills with some extended vistas. And it was very rural. We passed through Landhausen and to Neuenbürg, the home of the Blankenbakers, Fleshmans, Schlucters, Thomases, and Scheibles. In the eighteenth century this was land that belonged to the Bishops of Speyer, who were Catholic. So, the church in Neuenbürg is Catholic. (The town is too small to support two churches.) One of the little mysteries is that there are Lutheran records for Neuenbürg, in which the families above are found. The question is, where were the services actually held.
The Friedhof for Neuenbürg is not exclusively Catholic, as there are six Jewish grave sites. There is some tragic drama connected with the deaths of these six, as the dates were all in May of 1945, during the last days of WW II. Also, the grave sites are now about 55 years old which is rare in a German cemetery. It would be interesting to learn the story, but it would take someone whose German is better than ours.
(12 Jun 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.