October 2001  Volume 5   Issue 3 Issued Quarterly

Gossip/Klatsch (formerly Dies und Das)
Birthdays
Four More Kids Bring Total to 96
Links
Midi Music Mini Mall

(Editors' note: The underlined persons are Konrad's Kids.)

The horrible events of September 11th affected the entire world. They directly affected at least four of our member Kids. Ellen Schoenfeld worked in one of the World Trade Center towers. Here is her story. It is from an email sent to her parents, Karl Schoenfeld and Lori.

I see this email went through but my first did not. Now that I'm home, I can't get online, can't get thru with long distance calls and my cell's battery is dead from all the use (or trying to use) today.  So, now that you know I'm OK, let me tell you about my day.

I got off the Express bus at 8:50am and saw that 1 WTC was on fire. So, of course, I did not go toward 2 WTC. I gawked for a while along with everyone else and then figured I'd better get out. I started walking east toward Broadway and turned around in time to see 2 WTC explode (apparently after getting hit by the plane). I then walked over the South Street Seaport where I found some co-workers. From here, we heard the 1st tower implode. Everyone went hysterical, I was ready to jump into the East River and swim over to Brooklyn. I thought I was dead. We started walking north away from the debris which was blowing east toward Brooklyn. For a few seconds, we considered walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, but walked north instead.  A few blocks later, the Bridge was already enveloped in dust and debris. We walked through Chinatown and the Lower East Side to 14th Street, about 2 hours.  Stopped to rest and eat. Then walked to Imelda's (a co-worker) on 32nd Street to rest, make phone calls and catch up on news. We

got ready to walk across the 59th Street Bridge but found out about a ferry service a few block away. A tugboat took us to Queens and from there we took the G subway train to Brooklyn. Got home around 7:30pm. It's been a long day but I wanted you all to know I was OK. Thanks for all the calls and concern.  Talk to you soon. Love, Ellen

JoAnn Schwenk Carlson had flown to Utah a few days before the attack. Because of the grounding of all aircraft for the three or so days following that, she and her friend had to rent a car to be able to travel back to their homes in Minneasota....Becky, the wife of Gordon Schwenk, had flown to Denver on business on September the 10th and intended to return to Seattle the following day. Because all flights were cancelled, she boarded a train. The train was involved in a head-on collision with another train near Wendover, Utah. She sustained no injuries, but several other passengers did. She and a few other travelors were forced to rent a car and then drove on to Seattle.

Richard Schwenk and wife Caring of Pasadena, CA had planned to fly to Wheaton, IL to be with their two daughters. Because of all flight cancellations, they had to postpone this trip for a week or so.

Now on to gossip. Gordon Schwenk and Rebecca "Becky" Green were married on Bainbridge Island, WA on Saturday August 25. Four of his five siblings were in attendance; Rodney, Marvin, Tyrone and Christine as well as his parents and many friends. They honeymooned in many theme parks in S. Florida and took a cruise in the Caribbean...Rudi Schoenfeld of Leutkirch, Germany, an editor for the Schwäbische Zeitung (newspaper), wrote an article for that paper in mid August of his experiences at the Schwenk Reunion in the Black Hills in late June. This appeared also in the Laichingen issue. Thus, the many Schwenk families in Laichingen were made aware of a get-together of their kin in far away South Dakota...Following the attack, emails of concern and condolences were sent to your editors from Gudrun Hilsenbeck of Neu-Ulm near Laichingen, Beate Schwenk Betz of Corsica and from Rudi mentioned above...A fax conveying the same concerns arrived from Heinrich Schwenk of Laichingen, the father of Michael Schwenk of near Stuttgart...Michael and his wife Maike had returned home just a day before the attack. They had flown to British Columbia for a three week vacation. They did a lot of camping. They rented a vehicle and drove south to Seaside, OR where they visited Kyle Schwenk, wife Beth and daughters...Charlene Laur Soos of Niagara Falls area reports that her husband Robert underwent a heart operation on Aug 30th and is now recovering nicely...Richard Schwenk reports the birth of two grandchildren born to his daughters in September in Wheaton, IL. Here an edited excerpt from his email of Sept. 29:

Emily Noelle Pearson was born to Arlene and Judd Pearson at 1:27 p.m. on September 7, 2001 weighing 7 lbs. 12 oz. and 21 inches long. She has short brown hair.Jonathan Marc James was born to Clarinda and Jeff James at 1:24 p.m. on September 28, 2001 weighing 10 lbs. 1 oz. and 21 1/4 inches long. He has long dark hair.

Karl Schoenfeld and wife Lori of Wappingers Falls, NY flew to Spokane toward the end of September and spend one week there visiting their fireman son Fred Schoenfeld...The one common ancestor of everyone in this network of kin, Conrad Schwenk, did not die on September 23, 1686, contrary to what has appeared in the many descent trees you have seen. The sharp eyes of Rainer Betz of Corsica, the husband of Beate Schwenk Betz caught this error and recently brought this to the attention of Don Schwenk. Conrad passed away on Feb. 23rd of that year. As it turns out, the wrong month was encoded into our family tree way back in 1995. Photocopies of the death entry in the Laichingen Church Records bear out the correct date of death. Please change your records to reflect this...Irene Rehse of Laichingen just this week returned to her job in a local tax consultant's office after spending eight weeks recovering from a serious operation involving a badly infected gall bladder...On July 18th, Gudrun Hilsenbeck wrote: Monday, the day before yesterday, we received your package!!! The "Schneckenpost" was very fast, the parcel arrived by airmail. The whole evening, we were regarding the nice things you all sent to us. We felt a little like in America, it was like X-mas in the summer! It was a very nice idea of all the Konrad's Kids! Say hello and many thanks to all of them: from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, NY-Niagara-Falls, California....
Gudrun was referring to a package of mementos donated by the attendees of the Schwenk Reunion in June and shipped to Gudrun because their planned trip to the reunion had to be cancelled due to illness in the family.

And now to the descendants of Johannes Schwenk b. 1798 and his wife Maria Barbara Lieb b. 1808. Those descendants constitute about 25% of the present 96 Kids. Back in 1659 in Pfullingen near Stuttgart, Maria's paternal ancestor, the clergyman Johann Christoph Lieb, married Maria Margarethe Bansovius. It was through this union and her paternal ancestry going back to Johannes Brenz, b. 1498, that we descendants of that Schwenk and Lieb marriage carry some genes common to some very famous persons in the past. Check out in a search engine: Johannes Brenz, Jakob Heerbrand b. 1521 and Erhard Schnepf b. 1495. All were significant figures during the Reformation. And all are ancestors of "us 25%." Brenz was a close friend of Martin Luther. And now it gets possibly even better. Here are some of the well-known German poets and philsophers known by everyone in Germany and by many in America. They all descend from one or more of these three men above: George Wilhelm Hegel, Ludwig Uhland, Max Planck, Friedrich Hölderlin, Wilhelm Hauff, Eduard Moerike, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Karl Gerok. Here is a tree showing Elmer Schwenk's descent from Johannes Brenz. Here a tree showing Hegel's descent from J. Brenz' daughter. Here a tree showing Ulhland's descent from J. Brenz. Here the signatures of Martin Luther and Johannes Brenz on a document in 1529 called the Augsburg Declaration.  If any of you have questions on this subject, contact Don Schwenk.
Postscript to remaining 75%: It is likely that you too are descendants or cousins of these illustrious figures of history. All these men were born in the general area of Stuttgart. It's simply that the connections are not yet discovered.
 
 
 
 

Birthdays   For Birthday List for Konrad's Kids, click on cake >

Four More Kids Bring Total to 96

Since the last newsletter, four more online descendants of our Konrad have come to the attention of your editors. Here they are in the order of their "joining".  Welcome aboard!

Hans Hilsenbeck was born in 1922 in Laichingen where he was raised and still resides. Heinrich C. Schwenk of Laichingen is a good friend of Hans and introduced him to me via faxed documents several years ago. Through those pedigree documents, I learned of his descent from our Konrad 1601. Here is his descent tree from Konrad.

Ruth Hilsenbeck Janda is a daughter of Hans Hilsenbeck. She was born in 1958 in Laichingen where she still resides. It is through her computer that her father has Internet access. Ruth is one of four daughters born to Hans and his wife Maria Agnes born Ufrecht. Ruth generously provided via email personal data of herself and sisters. Thank you.

Susan Albert was born in 1960 in Buffalo, New York. She is a systems manager and resides in nearby Hamburg. She is a 2nd Cousin once removed to Karlheinz Schoenfeld, but this was unknown until August when Charlene Laur Soos of Niagara Falls began doing some intensive sleuthing through local church records, making phone calls and sending emails. Through her efforts, it was learned that Susan is a great-granddaughter of Barbara Schwenkbeck, a sister of Karlheinz's grandmother. Barbara came to NY as a young girl and married there in Buffalo. What is so remarkable about this whole story is that Susan did not know the real family name of her g-grandmother until Charlene made contact with her in August. Here is Susan's tree of descent from Konrad.

Sharan Elizabeth Myers Boehmer was born in 1967 and resides in Columbus, Ohio. And how did we learn of her? Through an email from her to me dated October 9th in which she said Peter Hayes of Albany, New York had sent her a GEDCOM file some years ago which contains her Schwenk/Schwenkbeck ancestry. Peter and his sister Sally Hayes Downey near Chicago are "members" of our club, but did not know Sharan was online until now. They are first cousins once removed to her. And that, in short, is how she has come aboard. Here is her tree.

Peter Hayes replied to me on Oct 10th saying, "Thanks. I'll rattle the bushes for some more," meaning he will check around to see if any more of his close kin are also online, but not yet in our "Klub." I would ask that you all do the same. Don Schwenk
 

Links
 http://www.fontfiles.com/ Fonts are fun. Here you can download a great variety of them, many of which are free.
 http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=donschwenk This is Don Schwenk's online family tree. More than 12,000 individuals appear in this tree, including, of course, all of Konrad's Kids. All the names are linked to their parents, and descendants - if any. We think you will find this very interesting and informative.

 http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=laur1 This is Charleen Laur Soos' online family tree. It contains more than 17,000 individuals. It works the same as explained above.

http://www.terraserver.com/  Here you can find topographic maps and aerial photographs of places in the US. Check it out. Very interesting!
 http://www.kbb.com/  This is Kelly Blue Book's Website. Here you can check on the retail and wholesale value of your car.
http://www.laichingen.de/ This is Laichingen's official homepage. Check out what's happening in our "cradle community." In the German language, naturally.

http://www.infospace.com/  Here you can locate phone numbers and addresses of people in many countries of the world.
http://www.thumbsplus.com/ will take you to the homepage of ThumbsPlus (Cerious Software, Inc). ThumbsPlus is a remarkable image viewer and organizer program.
http://www.paintshoppro.com/ - This is where you can download as shareware an excellent image editing program.
 
 

Midi Music Mini Mall

Some Webpages contain hidden imbedded links to midi files. That is, 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 of choice. If you choose, simply click on the links and adjust the volume according to your preferences. A tip: If a large window opens containing the midi file, simply minimize it so as to allow the continued reading of the newsletter while the music plays in the background. If that doesn't work, right click (Windows users) on the link, then select Open in New Window.
 

Email to Don

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