Before I can properly explain the activities on the Sunday following our stay in Neustadt a. d. Aisch, I must go back more than a year. I received an email from a gentleman in Germany who had noted that I had mentioned a Tillman Gudelius in writing, in these notes about, the emigration from Freudenberg. There was a big coincidence in his message, as his name was Gudelius also.
He wondered if I knew more about the Gudelius family. I wondered if he knew anything in particular about Tillman Gudelius, who was on the ill-fated ship Oliver in 1738. So, with questions on both ends of the wire, it was not hard to keep the conversation going. The answers were negative, but the conversation kept going.
Jost (using his first name) had just about tracked down every Gudelius in the world except those in the U.S. He had a family history which extended twenty generations from his children to the most ancient ancestors. This had been summarized in a book written in German. He wished now to translate the first chapter into English, so that it could reach the English speaking world. He asked if I might help him a little bit on the translation, and I said, "Sure."
He sent the English version by an email attachment which I printed. I saw that a little work was needed, but I plunged in and marked the copy and sent it back to him. The second version came and I marked it up, but it didn’t take nearly as many marks. With the third version, I could send a few electronic comments. By now our topics of conversations had ranged rather freely, and we were becoming acquainted with each other’s family.
Jost’s family was from the Siegen area; in fact, his mother still lives there. Jost, his wife, and four children live in Jachenau, which is in southern Bavaria. When Jost learned of our proposed trip to Germany, he invited us to stop by his home. At first, I demurred, but then I thought about Andrea Gar at Illenschwang, which was in Bavaria, if only barely. Then I thought about Austria, but I hesitated to make that a formal part of the trip. In the end, we committed ourselves to going to Jachenau, and so I wrote Jost that we would arrive late in the afternoon on Sunday, May 21. I had told him that we would be going to church in Dinkelsbühl (I figured Illenschwang was so small that even a German would not know where it was), and we would start after the service. Jost sent us driving instructions and said it would take about five hours.
We got started early from Neustadt, which is a little farther away than Dinkelsbühl, but not much. And Jost did not know how fast Eleanor would drive. (Our VW had BMW genes in its oil.) The net result was that we were arriving much too early and so we had to stall some toward the end. Late in the afternoon we arrived at the home of the Gudelius family. The youngest son, Axel, was outside the house and, when he saw us coming down the driveway, he went running into the house. I knew then that the visit was going to be a success as children are the same the world over.
(20 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.