Originally, we had reserved Saturday morning for meeting with Lars Bohn but this was fulfilled by the time with him on Friday. Our next objective was Kettenbach where we wanted to attend Sunday church services. Kettenbach is the home of Martin Zerby, an ancestor of Eleanor.
We decided to take a detour from Siegen to Kettenbach by way of Cologne. We are always nervous about driving in the large cities but we got in without much difficulty and found a parking garage. Eleanor had visited Cologne many times decades ago so she wondered if she could remember anything. She decided they had moved the cathedral. We opted to visit an art museum and have lunch after which we continued our trip on to Kettenbach.
When we got to Kettenbach, we went to the church and checked the schedule of services. It seemed there would be a service Sunday morning at 10:30. Then we needed a place to stay but there are none in Kettenbach. We went to Michelbach which is about one mile south of Kettenbach and about a half mile out of town we found a guest house by the name of Zimmerman's Mill. There was an adjoining restaurant and we went there for dinner. As we were concluding dinner, I decided to ask the waitress what all of the preparations were about. We did not get far with our limited German and another patron helped out.
The activity which we had seen and not understood was the setting up outside of tables for a hundred people plus a couple of cook tents and a sound system tent. At first we understood there was to be a bicycle race tomorrow on the one road through the valley. The road was to be closed to automobile traffic. We said that we needed to get to Kettenbach for the church service. They said that it was only two kilometers and we could walk. But in addition to church we needed to be on the way with our trip. Finally, they saw our problem and gave us a solution. Before eight in the morning, we had to move our car to the pasture. Then we could use the lane along the pasture until we came out in Michelbach and then we could get through to Kettenbach on city streets that were not closed. We decided that we should walk over the route on Saturday night. As we came off the lane and onto the streets of Michelbach, we met and explained to a man what we were trying to do. He offered a fuller explanation in great detail of what we had to do.
Sunday morning we were up early and packed our bags and loaded the car and moved it to the pasture. Then we ate breakfast and set out for the church in Kettenbach. It turned out to be no problem and we were at the church long before the time of the service. This gave us time to walk around the village and take some photos. We waited outside the church and the pastor came back from a service at another church and we talked with him. He told us there would be a special service, not in the church, but in the public square.
The event, for which the road had been closed, was "family day." Anyone could use the road as long as they walked, bicycled, rollerbladed, or propelled themselves by any means other than an internal combustion engine. As people went up and down the road, places such as Zimmermann's Mill were offering food, drink, and entertainment. We decided to skip all of this and continue on our trip.
(17 Jun 02)
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.