Happy Thanksgiving! Edeltraud and I wish you a wonderful family reunion and a great happening with your dear family members. Enjoy the day in grateful remembrance of the first settlers reaching their new home in America and the history of your family and your ancestors that came to the States one day.

We do hope that you all are in the best of health and that you will be able to celebrate Thanksgiving the way you are used to. Our thoughts and good wishes will accompany you.

This year was a special one for us, because we experienced some highlights, but also fateful days. I do hope to be able to inform you later. We had a gorgeous October and enjoyed a flight to Florence, Tuscany, Italy. From Montecatini Terme we were taken on sightseeing trips to pre-renaissance towns like Luccas, Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano, and Volterra. It was a great experience.

I might be able to write more about our trips at a later date.

Again Happy Thanksgiving and the very best to all of you.

Yours,

Edeltraud and Juergen

Courtesy of Ray Richardson

With gratitude,
We can say we knew them.
They were a part of our lives.
With hope,
We wish their memories live on.

Obituaries

Joy Health Peace

Happy Thanksgiving for all of you and your families. Enjoy the great festivity! Edeltraud and I send you cordial greetings. We do hope that you are in good health, and particular good wishes for those who are not well at the moment. We imagine that you’ll have great family reunions. May it be a great day with fairly decent weather.

As to us: We had a year of changing health. Edeltraud is complaining about her ankle joint fracture; even after one and a half year she still is having therapy. Walking for a long time is not possible, but she is trying to improve this.

We had to stays at Carinthia, Austria, this summer; however, both times weather changed at half-time. We had rain and cold. On August 30th snow had fallen down to 5,400 ft. The temperature sank down to 40° F.

This year’s highlight was my 70th birthday. Edeltraud gave me a surprise party with 40 of my friends. I hadn’t had any idea that that would happen, because I had mentioned before not to celebrate this date at all. My friends gave me money for a special trip of our choice. So we learned of a readers’ trip organized by our local newspaper: 4 days former Breslau ( Polish: Wroclaw ) in Silesia (which had been a German province until the end of WW II; it had been the wheat producer of the German Reich). Edeltraud was born there, so was her mother. In 1974 – in times of the Cold War – we had had a chance to visit the former capital of Lower Silesia with my parents-in-law to find out whether there were any remains of their Breslau flat. They had to realize that their former house had been destroyed during the siege of Breslau by the Red Army in the beginning of 1945. A week ago we didn’t even find the rest of German houses across the street we had noticed in 1974. The only remaining building we found was Edeltraud’s mother’s school building. The positive experience: Wroclaw has been re-erected with remarkable churches and buildings. There are 120,000 students among a population of appr. 640,000.

Our two days’ stay was topped by a wonderful performance of Verdi’s opera ‘La Traviata’. We had a Polish guide who had studied German. He gave us a lot of useful information about the developement of Silesia after WW II and led us to the most important sights. An excusion to former Schweidnitz (Swidnica) gave us an impression of the beauty of the country with its mountain chains.
Edeltraud was reminded of many fairy-tales and stories her grandmother had told her after the war. Finally, it was a trip into our past, and we are encouraged to learn more about the history of Silesia. By the way, several of my former colleagues have their origine in Silesia,too.
To summarize our experience: It was a great trip with nice people on the bus, and we might go to Silesia on our own one day. The distance was 440 miles. We made them in about 10 hours ( breaks included).

We wish you a wonderful Season anmd the very best for 2011. We’ll be thinking of all of you on Thanksgiving Day.

Cordial greetings

Edeltraud and Juergen Thewes

I considered both the text message and credit card routes of donating only to find the credit card companies were initially getting their cut and the cell phone monies would not get to the beneficiary for at least a couple of months until all 3rd parties got paid and any text messaging fees cleared, etc., etc., and etc.

I rejected donating to the Red Cross due to their political reticence in some Mideast situations and their extremely high admin costs.

Finally, I decided on Americares, Inc. out of Conneticut, a much smaller charity that claims to have 99% of its proceeds go directly to a charity and to multiply your contribution several fold by matching contributors.

I called Americares and asked if the credit card companies were getting their take. The person who took my call wasn’t sure but made the simple suggestion of SENDING A CHECK, which I did. Although the postage was only slightly lower than what would have been the credit card company’s take, I felt better about it. Later I read of similar concerns on the Huffington Post and I think now the credit card companies have waived their fees.

We all must deal with this incomprehensible tragedy in our own way. I just didn’t want to see credit card companies benefiting.

Fred Kagel

Now is the time — before memories fade — to send in your own pictures and and class mementos. Contact fkagel@psdpont59.com

For a copy of the high resolution DVD, contact fkagel@psdupont59.com.