We left Schwaigern on a Saturday morning with the objective of reaching Illenschwang and finding out what the schedule for Sunday services was. Churches do not always have services on every Sunday (Sonntag); some do have them every Sonntag, some every other Sonntag, and some have services only once in a Monat (month).
On the way, we wanted to visit Waldbach (just east of Heilbronn), where there is a record of Thomas Wieland in the church records. (Thomas Wieland’s family could have moved from Austria to Franken, and then more westerly, but not as far west as the majority of the people who were making a similar move.) It was no problem getting to Waldbach, as it was on our natural route. The church has dates of 1616 and 1748 in stone. By style, I could believe the 1616 date was when it was built. Incidentally, all of the churches that we saw were in excellent condition. There is no standardized style for decoration. Each one seems to be the continuation of its particular historical pattern.
It was not difficult to reach Illenschwang by early afternoon. (See Illenschwang Photos) The bulletin board, which every church must have, told us that there would be no services on Sunday. So we took our mandatory photos and then I got up my nerve to knock on the Pfarrer’s door. Most of the time he lives next door to the church. While I did not know his name, the nameplate on the door said Pfarrer. The door was answered by his wife. We quickly established that her English was better than my German. We learned that the Pfarrer was on vacation.
I explained that I was a descendant of Andreas Gar and that Illenschwang was famous in the history of the Gaar/Garr family. She recognized the name and said that it was not unusual to have descendants of Andreas Gar stop by. She volunteered to open the church. She came over with us and talked a bit, but then she excused herself, saying that she had a child who should not be left alone. We did discuss the painting that Andreas Gar had sponsored (one of the twelve apostles), but she was not sure which one it was, and they were too high on the wall to take them down. She expressed some interest in learning more about Andreas Gar, so I have mailed her copies of pages from the " Garr Genealogy ".
The countryside around Illenschwang is much flatter than the average land in Germany. Except for the major river valleys, where there are vestiges of the flood plains, there is not much level land in the parts of Germany that we had been traveling through.
Illenschwang is small, fewer than three hundred inhabitants, and definitely it is a village of farmers. Not many miles away is Dinkelsbühl, which is much larger and would have places to stay. Our original plan had been to spend the night there, but we had second thoughts when we found there was no Church Service the next day in Illenschwang. Coupled with higher prices than we had been paying, plus a swarm of tourists, we conceived, and put into action,
Plan B
. One always wants to have some flexibility.
(18 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.