| Birthdays & Wedding Anniversaries
Dies und Das A Dedicated Sleuth of Family History New Kid - David Schwenkbeck - Makes 60 Schwenk Reunion Chairperson Steps Forward A Water System for a Needy Village by Rev. Richard L. Schwenk A Word from Uncle Don - Tracking down more Kids Midi Music Mini Mall |
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6. Maurla Haehlen White in Herndon, VA celebrates her 64th.
Want to see how these and other Kids are related to you? Click here for those who are descended from John Schwenk and his immigrant siblings. Click here for all others. Want to see a gallery of pictures of most of these 60 Kids? (212 KB).
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(Editors' note: The underlined persons are Konrad's Kids.)
Karl Schoenfeld and wife Lore of Wappinger Falls drove down
to New Jersey to spend Thanksgiving with their children, Ellen,
Fred,
Andrea and Karen...Robert Schwenk of Pasadena is in the Philipine
Islands visiting his parents Richard Schwenk and Caring, who are
in the process of winding up 42 years of missionary service and will soon
return to the US. They will officially retire on July 1, 2000...Rodney
Schwenk and wife Jacki of Boise, Idaho spent the weekend of Nov. 20th
with his father Don Schwenk in Bellevue, Idaho. They all drove to
Ketchum and had a late breakfast on Sunday at the Kneadery where Tyrone
Schwenk works. No celebrities were seen dining at this popular, laid
back eating place, however they learned a couple days later, that Tom Hanks
and wife had dropped in for a bite...In a fax of Nov. 13th, Uschi Gorzelany
of Kochstetten reports that a few days earlier she and two other students
took a bus to Stuttgart where they boarded a high speed train for Hannover
where they attended an agricultural exhibition. She said there were many
tractors on display, but none as large as what she had seen in America
this past August...Did you know that Laichingen, the cradle of our Schwenk
ancestry, lies on or very close to the 48.5 line of latitude north, which
is the same as for Burlington, Washington which is only about 30 miles
south of the US-Canadian border? This is good information to know if Irene
Rehse of Laichingen should write and ask you if you live north or south
of Laichingen's latitude. That is what she recently asked of her penpal
Don Schwenk. She also told him that she and her husband
Dieter Rehse
had traveled to Berlin in the middle of November where they spent 4 days
sightseeing and relaxing. While there, they visited Dieter's brother Friedemann
who has lived there for the past 20 years...Did you know that MS Outlook
Express 5, the newest version, allows the user to save an imbedded image
as a jpg, gif or bmp? Earlier versions give no option other than the bulky,
uncompressed bmp format...Milton Schwenk of Yakima, Washington
recently made good use of the Website Altavista Translation,
http://babelfish.altavista.com/cgi-bin/translate? when he sent a snailmail
to Heinrich Schwenk in Laichingen, the father of Michael Schwenk.
Heinrich said later that he understood all the translated English, even
though some of the phrases were hilarious. On another subject, Milton reports
that his mother's sister's daughter's son (
Milton's first cousin once removed) Randy Carper was recently promoted
to the post of Chief of Police in Richland, Washington...Duff Schwenkbeck
has moved from New Hampshire back to Buffalo, NY. and recently acquired
a computer for his mother. See New Kid article in this issue...JoAnn
Schwenk Carlson of White Bear Lake, MN has recently put her beloved
lake shore cabin in northern Wisconsin to bed for the winter. Her daughter
Heidi
Carlson of St. Paul helped stain/paint the cabin this fall...Gordon
Schwenk of Boise recently taught his father Don how to imbed a hidden
midi link in an email so that when the NS or Outlook Express recipient
opens up that email, music begins to play. That's really a cool tool. Don
didn't know how to stop the music from playing other than moving this email
to the trash folder. Later, he learned simply to select another email which
stops the music. Strange!...Christine Schwenk Moore of Boise is
getting good grades in 
with her 
...Jim Schwenk
and wife Mary of Wausau, Wisconsin spent Thanksgiving on the road. The
highlight of their trip was visiting Galena, Illinois, the home town of
former President Ulysses Grant. He wrote in part, Next morning went
to cousin Ulysses' house for a guided tour ( as he and his wife were not
at home). A beautiful Italianate place that was purchased for him
when he returned as Galena's hero after the civil war. It was great to
see all the rooms and the belongings of the Grants which remained in their
house after their passing and was maintained by the family through the
years...Did you know that AOL users cannot send imbedded animations?
Even to other AOL recipients. Does anyone know why this is? Does anyone
really care, except for a few oddballs out there in cyberspace?...If you
didn't see your name in this column, it is probably because you didn't
read it or didn't send any news to your editors.
...That's
all folks.
A Dedicated Sleuth of Family History
Maurla Haehlen White of Herndon, VA is a very dedicated, thorough family historian. Proof? First, a little background. Maria Barbara Lieb married Johannes Schwenk in 1828 in Dettingen/Erms, Wuerttemberg, Germany. Four of their children emigrated to the USA. One was Maria Agnes, the gg-grandmother of Maurla. Another was John, the forefather of nearly one half of us Kids. After Johannes died in 1869, his wife Maria Barbara - all this according to oral history - moved to America. She lived with her son August in Kirkville, MO, then later with John in nearby Bloomington, Missouri. She died in 1878 in Bloomington, MO. and was buried in a now-neglected cemetary. In April of this year, Maurla visited Darrel Schwenk (great-grandson of Maria Barbara) and wife Juanita near Bloomington, MO with the hope of finding some tangible evidence of Maria Barbara's life and death in America. None was to be found. Then in November, she wrote the following to Don Schwenk: Today I got a call from our library saying that the Kirksville newspaper microfilm is in for 1878 and so tomorrow I will go down and check that out for any mention of Maria's death. Have you done that? Not long ago, I found out that Liberty TWP was in Adair Co., not Macon---did I mention that to you? Thus, I am hoping that the death might be in the paper of the county seat--just maybe. I think I am banging my head against a wall!!! Keep working and have fun. Maurla
Shortly after sending that email, she wrote: Hi: Sorry but I found nothing. It turned out that there were only 3 months of 1878 papers included in this grouping of years--1875-1879. The only deaths they mention are people who died when a pig attacked a child, a man said he had a bad feeling about going into the mine and within minutes a rock had fallen on him, or a person was stampeded by a horse! No mention of little old ladies dying. Interesting what those old papers talk about. I haven't given up yet though! She can't have been her 8 years and left NO trace! Maurla
Maurla and Don believe it highly probable that Maria Barbara Lieb Schwenk did, indeed, come to America. Much oral history supports this. And there was no record of her death in Mundingen where her husband was buried in 1869. And there is one piece of evidence, this time tangible, which supports the oral history. That is a photograph, a copy of which was given to Don by Darrel and Juanita Schwenk in 1993. Juanita
| believes this is of Maria Barbara, but can not be positive. Here is
a copy of that photograph:
This is clearly not of Sophia, the wife of John Schwenk, the immigrant. So what is the point of this little story? It is to illustrate that sometimes a great amount of persistence and patience is required of the family historian to document, to prove handed-down oral history. And Maura is one of those!
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New Kid - David Schwenkbeck - makes 60.
David John Schwenkbeck, born in 1941 in Niagara Falls, NY, lives in
Varysburg, not far east of Buffalo, NY. We have known of him and his wife
Candace for some time now, but it was not until very recently that they
became connected to the Internet. David and Candace have three grown sons:
Darrin, Duff and Dean. It was Duff (already a "Kid") who informed us of
his parents' new online status. David's sister Joyce Schwenkbeck Spencer
is also one of "The 60." And so we welcome you David into this online
network of kin, each of whom can trace one of their lines of ancestry back
to Konrad Schwenk, 1601-86. Click here for David's
12 generation descent tree. Here is his likeness: 
Schwenk Reunion Chairperson Steps Forward
Schwenk Reunion 2001- My wife Mary and I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the Black Hills area near Rapid City, South Dakota during our recent trip back from California. I was so impressed at what I saw there, that I have volunteered to be chairperson for Schwenk Reunion 2001 to be held somewhere in the Rapid City area on June 27 and 28 of the year 2001. There is a lot of sights to behold in the Black Hills; Chief Crazy Horse Monument, Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and Sylvan Lake, to name just a few. I think it will be a great opportunity to meet as an extended family and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. I will do my best to make the arrangements. In the coming issues of the SchwenkNet Newsletter I will keep you posted as to the reunion plans.
Jim Schwenk
A Water System for a Needy Village
By Rev. Richard L. Schwenk (email of 9 Nov 1999)
Dear close kin,
Weve been out traveling to our Aeta projects from November 3 to 8. We left Manila on November 3 with Caring, Robert, Bruce Young and Lagtom Rasag of PAFID (Philippine Association For Intercultural Development) and myself. Bruce Young is a former Peace Corps who is skilled in developing mountain springs into gravity feed water systems. He is also fluent in Tagalog and easily communicates to get the job done. Our van was heavily loaded again and we had the last roll of plastic water pipe in the car top carrier along with other boxes.
The next morning at 5:00 A.M. Caring prepared our breakfast of boiled eggs, rice and rolls. She stayed at Immanuel Bible School while us men joined Larry Ramos and Ramil Roeda as we loaded up two carabao carts with all our tools and foods supplies for the 10 mile hike from Sta. Juliana to Manibukyot. We had already sent up four bags of cement and pipe the previous week. (Ramil is an Aeta scholar of Richard and Eva Wehrman who finished his B.S. degree in Agriculture recently.)
We were expecting five carts to show up to help with transportation, but some had flat tires. So the cart of Larry Ramos was overloaded even though he had two carabaos pulling. We called it our "10 wheeler" because it consisted of eight feet of the large work animals (water buffalos) plus the two rubber tires of the cart. Apo Milio also had a heavy load for his smaller carabao to pull. The hard test came on the steep mountain trail on the other side of the lahar-filled O'Donnell River.
The rain the day before left the trail a mess of slippery clay. At one point the animals were down on their knees and Lagtom had to pull on their rope while Larry and Bruce were pushing the cart. Going over one big bolder, the cart balanced on one wheel for several seconds before stabilizing. Another time Apo Milio's carabao got excited and crashed through a grove of giant wild sunflowers before it could be calmed down to continue up the mountain. Ramil was then asked to run ahead to Manibukyot to ask for another cart to come and carry some of our load.
Apo Bidong and other extended family members were glad to see us in their hamlet. After lunch we went jungle slashing looking for the best possible spring to tap. We finally settled for a bubbling spring coming out of a rocky cliff even though at a lower elevation. The other places were not as clear and could dry up in the months of March and April.
That evening a meeting of introduction and explanation prepared us for the work the next four days. A total of 38 men and six women turned out for work the next day. One crew did the cement work at the spring, five men cut form lumber from a log with a chain saw, while a bigger group cut a path through the brush with the new machetes that we provided. About 18 men stated to dig a two foot deep trench for burying the 3/4th inch roll of plastic pipe that would stretch 1800 yards from the spring to the community. On the river bank, the women prepared a delicious lunch of soup and rice cooked in bamboo tubes and eaten on banana leaf plates with our hands. Robert and I pitched in wherever we could.
By evening the 3 x 4 ft. spring box was poured into its forms and the cement hardened over night. The next day they cast the cement top and the day after the cement cover. I was pleasantly amazed by the carpenter and masonry skills of several of the Aetas who made a beautiful and secure spring box under the direction of Bruce Young. The 1.25 in. overflow pipe easily filled with crystal clear mineral water. The Aetas were joking about exporting the water to the lowlands. And who knows it might be feasible as we continue to pollute our sources of water in so-called developed areas.
Finally, on the fourth day we had water running near the homes of Manibukyot. They will still have to fetch the water from a stand pipe, but it will be only about 100 to 300 feet from most of the 38 homes. The children were overjoyed and shouting at the top of the lungs as they splashed in the first water. They will now be able to drink pure water and take a bath daily.
One night in the flicker of kerosene lamps, and delighted at the prospect of pure water accessible to all, some of the leaders composed this song to the guitar accompianment of a popular local song about the environment, the people started composing these words that I have translated from Tagalog.
THE WATER COMING FROM THE SPRING
We'll be able to have water even in the driest month of
April.
We'll have water all year around.
The people are happy that the water is close to their
homes.
The water is good and sweet as it comes from inside the
rock.
It is like a crystal ball.
Our children will now be more healthy because they can
keep clean.
The extra water can be used for irrigating our plants.
Thanks be to God for the bubbling spring.
All best wishes and love, Dad/Ric
A Word from Uncle Don - Tracking down more Kids
From time to time I enter the name Schwenk into a search engine just
to see if I can find something new. A couple weeks ago, this led to a Schwenk
clothing store Website in Münsingen, Germany. This caught my attention
because I had known there were Schwenks living in this small city some
15 miles SW of Laichingen. I learned several years ago that two grandsons
of our Konrad Schwenk had moved from L. to Münsingen
(small map) in the late 1600s or very early 1700s. And so I visited this
site http://www.schwenk-mode.de/
and learned that two Schwenk brothers, Dieter and Uli, own and operate
this clothing store. After a short exchange of email, I learned that they
do not know their paternal ancestry beyond that leading back to their
gg-grandfather Gottfried Heinrich Schwenk, a weaver, b. 1816 in Münsingen,
the founder of this clothing business. I then ordered the four microfilmed
church records of this community from the LDS Family History Library in
Salt Lake City. I have now traced the paternal line of Gottfried back to
a Johannes Schwenk, weaver, b. ca. 1706-1710 in Münsingen. Two of
the four films have not yet arrived (as of Nov 29th). Hopefully those films
will reveal the paternity of Johannes, which I believe will lead back to
our Konrad. If so, we will have found more Kids. Stayed tuned.
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soon after you open the page, music begins to play which is usually entertaining,
but the visitor has no control over this. Here, we will give you the freedom
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according to your preferences. A tip: If a large window opens containing
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