[There was no Note yesterday as we had no electricity here, an event that has happened three times since last spring.]
On the Saturday of the Germanna Reunion, there were several events that caught my special attention. First, someone had said there was another Blankenbaker man at the Seminar who looked something like me. When I met Walter Blankenbaker, I had to agree there was some merit in the comment. So I introduced Walter to the audience but I did not hear from the audience whether there was any truth in our resemblance. Perhaps, of more interest to me, were the similarities in our history. Walter and I were born in the same year (1929). Both of us saw that best hope of attending college was to join the Navy where, for two years service, we would get four years of college. So he joined at 17 and I joined at 16. I had passed the Eddy test before I joined; he passed the test after he was in the Navy. This guaranteed us entry into the schools to train electronics technicians. We both went to primary school at Great Lakes and we went to secondary school at the Naval Research Laboratory near Washington, D.C. He made Electronic Technician Second Class while I was only Third Class (due to a change in the policy of the Navy). After the Navy, Dr. Walter pursued a career in medicine while I pursued a technical career, mostly in computers. Walter does not have his genealogy back to the immigrants, but I would bet that he descends from Matthias Blanckenbuehler, one of the three immigrant brothers.
After the Seminar, many of us retired to the Pooles in the Lake of the Woods for a mini-Clore reunion. (A few non-Clores joined us.) This is always a relaxing time, renewing friendships and enjoying some of the great Walter Clore Private Reserve wine. Then we retired to Salubria where the discussions continued.
One of the highlights of this event is the auction conducted by Germanna descendant Michael Oddenino. He missed his calling; he should have been an auctioneer, not a lawyer (do a Google search on Oddenino to learn more about his legal career). Michael is quick in his mind and very friendly with a banter that kept the crowd laughing. There were many great items in the auction and some of them brought very good prices to the benefit of the Germanna Foundation. I believe that a chocolate candy bar brought more than $25.00, but it was offered by a lovely visitor from Germany. Several clothing items requiring modeling and Suzee Oberg showed them to great advantage while keeping up the gaiety of the evening.
And so ended another full day of excitement, education, and renewal of friendships.
(20 Jul 06)
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.