Retracing the Steps

 

Friday			Drove from St. Paul, Minnesota to Lincoln, Nebraska, visited in evening with maternal Aunt Edie and Uncle John
Saturday			At the Nebraska State Historical Society, visited with Dorothy Jahn in evening
Sunday			Worship at 9 am at St. John's Lutheran, Lyons, Nebraska, then to the Elkhorn Valley Museum and Research Center, Norfolk, Nebraska,
Sunday (continued)			then to the Norfolk Regional Center, to Seward, visited Uncle Ted, back to Lincoln
Monday			To Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska, then back at St. John's Lutheran, then to Norfolk, then to Wayne, Nebraska, then to First Trinity, Altona, Nebraska, then to Grand Island, Nebraska
Tuesday			At Zion Lutheran Church, Worms, Nebraska, then to Kearney, Nebraska
			The parsonage today (left) and right after Konrad left
			The general store (bar)
			Tin roof today; original altar, lectern and baptismal font
Wednesday			At Trinity Lutheran Church, Amherst, Nebraska, then to the site of Immanuel Lutheran near what once was Watertown, Nebraska, back to Kearney
Thursday			To Peace Lutheran Church, Natoma, Kansas, then back to Kearny, Nebraska
Friday			To Lincoln, Nebraska, Historical Archives, then to St. Paul, MN Saturday

The task ahead: copies of church records were graciously made available to us. As you can see, I'm learning Sütterlin so the going will be slow - patience!!

For those of you with high-speed Internet, here's a video taken at the Watertown site. Interestingly, from pictures taken about the time when the Jahns lived there in 1892-1901, it looked pretty bleak. But today it's our favorite site - a beautiful view with a constant, refreshing wind blowing and a remarkably deep, tree-filled ravine to the far right of the picture (which you cannot see in the first picture but you can in the second taken later) ...

First, the picture below. The church, of course, is to the left. In the middle is the school and to the right is the parsonage. The second picture, taken some years later, shows the changes in buildings and terrain. In the video, I am standing in what would have been in front of the school. The video starts with the clearing where the parsonage was, then pans left to the site of the school (you'll see my wife Sharon and Pastor Bert from Amherst who took us there), then left again to the site of the church. If you watch carefully, you'll see a marker, like a grave stone, where the altar once stood. You'll then see the arched gate under which you drive to the back of the property to the cemetery. Then the camera pans to the right again and finishes where it began.

  <== click here to (hopefully) see the video

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