10 January 2005
Searching for Ernestine
By Annie Warmke
You can visit with Annie by going to http://www.bluerockstation.com
My Grandma Ernestine was born in 1882 in Mulheim, an
industrial city of about 175,000 people. The
city rests in the western portion of Germany.
The Mosel River runs right through the center of town.
The neatly manicured homes are surrounded by green hills and forests, and
look like giant gingerbread houses.
The first time I saw Mulheim, I had taken the train from
Dusseldorf. Cat was three.
It was the Christmas season and the holiday market chalets filled the
downtown streets. Gingerbread men,
delicate wooden ornaments and chocolate candies were just some of the goodies to
buy for the upcoming St. Nicholas Day.
We left the train and found a taxi driver who spoke
English. We only had a couple of
hours, but I hoped we could find Ernestine’s birthplace. I had the address burned into my mind, I was sure I would
find the house of my long dead grandmother.
We found the street, and I was thrilled to see that it was
lined with 500-year-old houses. The
house looked where we stopped looked vaguely like the one in I’d seen in a
grainy photo. I raced up to the front door and rang the bell.
But the woman who answered the door assured me in German
that my grandmother had never lived there.
She knew the names of every ancestor who had lived in the house before
her. As we climbed back into the
car, the taxi driver explained that she was afraid I was a long lost relative
coming to reclaim the house, which I had the right to do if I WAS a relative.
The taxi driver thought I had lost my mind.
I had come by train with a small child just to find the house where my
grandmother had spent her first years. I
tried to explain that in America it is not unusual to not even know the full
names of our grandparents, and this was my way of connecting with a past I had
only known from stories. He just
shook his head in amazement. I
boarded the train with a sense that I had somehow failed.
But now was my second chance to connect with Ernestine’s
birthplace. We booked a room at the
Hopfen-Sack Hotel on Kalk Street. The
outside of the building looked like a beer joint, but inside there were cozy
rooms with fluffy beds. The
restaurant served hot mugs of cocoa, and strong coffee.
The lunch consisting of cured meat, cheese and bread was served on
locally made delicate blue and white patterned china.
The hotel clerk gave us walking directions to 35 Gracht
Street, and we quickly made our way around the corner and down the hill into a
beautiful tree-lined neighborhood. We
were surprised to find the street right away.
Strangely enough, this “Gracht Street” did not look anything like the
“Gracht Street” I had visited by taxi a few years before.
We made our way up the hill, past the Jewish cemetery and
began reading the house numbers. 23,
25, 27, 29 and stopped at the 1970ish train station. We counted on the other side of the station…37, and 39.
I must have walked up and down that hill a dozen times but there was just
no number 35. It was clear that the
train station had taken over the spot of Ernestine’s birthplace.
As it turns out, I never did find her house.
My only souvenir was Ernestine’s birth certificate that I managed to
obtain at city hall. But I left Mulheim feeling I had somehow touched her memory.
I had walked in her faded footsteps.
I was content to have made the effort.
I found some little part of me. I
realized, as I left the city hall that Ernestine is with me, even though I never
knew her.
She had lived and died…as had her grandmother before her.
Cat and her children and grandchildren will follow on after I am gone.
We are all connected, through time and distance.
We are all here for only a moment, and I am reminded by this journey that
I’d better make the best use of that moment.