Darcy's Birthday Surprise

Darcy's Birthday Surprise: Amanda Reinke Kleemann

This posting was inspired by Darcy Kleemann Boock's 26 February 2007 email, relating the great news that through The Keepers blog, a persistent German woman, Ingrid, contacted her about possible family connections. As it turns out, Ingrid may well be Darcy's second cousin, opening a whole new chapter of family history and personal connections between them. Seems appropriate that this joyful story be told to celebrate Darcy's birthday, TODAY!
[Typically engaged in extended family activities, with camera in hand, Darcy is in the midst of Gertrude's 90th birthday celebration.]

Hi Jim and Marilyn,

I haven't been on The Keepers site lately and now I see that I am way behind on reading all of the material that you have been posting, Jim. You have been busy.

I think I told you that last week someone contacted me from Germany in regards to my father's mother Amanda Reinke. Ingrid is 56 and only speaks German, so I have been using Alta Vista Babel Fish Translations and my dictionary to correspond with her. She said that she remembers that her father once and only once mentioned that he had an Aunt Amanda who went to
America. It appears that her grandmother Meta is my grandmother Amanda's sister, which would make us pretty closely related.

I asked her how she found me on the Internet and she said that she first tried searching for Amanda Reinke, but there are too many by that name. So she tried just Amanda and Bresin, where she was born. I tried that same thing but there are too many people by the last name of Bresin. So I tried Amanda and Bresin, Kreis Lauenburg and then two hits came up that are both from/by me. One was a post I made to a mailing list back in 2001 and the other was from the interview of me that you posted on The Keepers blog. So she found me on The Keepers blog. Amazing isn't it!

I know very little about my grandmother. She never spoke English very well and was sick in bed a lot. She died when I was 13. I was very close to my grandfather, however. It is hard to believe that I could be so close to him and at the same time feel that I didn't even know my grandmother. I have a copy of only one letter that was written by Meta in Bresin and sent to my grandmother in 1913.

It is written in the old German Schrift, which I transcribed as well as I could and then sent it on to your mother, Jim, back in 1999 to translate for me. So I have this nicely written translation from her. The letter doesn't tell me a lot, but several names are mentioned who I believe are my grandmother's siblings.