Maternal blood

The calendar covers our kitchen chair.

Ever since our discovery that Mom's great granddad and grandma (Kohlmann) Wendelken were married in Worpswede, Germany, before emigrating to America in 1843, our dear German friend has done her best to add to the excitement of our common German heritage. Worpswede is located near her Hannover home.

Click to see the bog.
Fritz Overbeck -- 1900

Yesterday we received a card and a huge brown package from the European Union. It was from Ingeborg.
The package contained a 2011 calendar filled with the work of the colony of artists who populated Worpswede in the late 1800s and early 1900s, one colorful painting for each month of the year. It is a gorgeous calendar. Since Gutenberg, Germans have been the best printers in the world.
Earlier on this blog, Ingeborg revealed that the area abandoned by our forebears was mostly a swampy peat bog. They must have been poor peat diggers, we surmised. Our bloodline, it would seem, is rooted in rotten earth.

Paula Modersohen-Becker
1876-1907

In a well-intentioned attempt to add some polish to the family coat-of-arms, Ingeborg kindly provided these examples of ever more refined work springing from the soil of Worpswede. A museum there has a worthy collection of the art colony's best. A prestigious address indeed.

A close reading of the captions on the calendar paintings reveals, however, that the great artists boosting the Worpswerde image were not even born when our kin left the country. Oh well.

Nonetheless, we are most grateful for the kindness of our German friend.

Ingeborg does quite well with her English, but her handwriting is definitely European. The card reads:

-------------------------
Christmas 2010
Dear Kathleen, dear Stan,
This calendar will make an impression on the landscape around the city of Worpswede and its 1000 inhabitants. As I told you, around the turn of the 19th century the region became a colony of artists. Nowadays there still live painters and craftsmen, the houses of the former artists are now museums. A lot of visitors go there.
Worpswede is worth to go for a trip at any time!
I wish you a wonderful Christmas! Enjoy the calendar over the year!
Your Ingeborg
---------------------------------

I've got your back???
1891 photo of some Worpswede artists (don't ask what they're doing, I can't read German). From left, Heinrich Vogeler (1872-1942), Fritz Overbeck (1866-1953), Hans Mueller-Brauel, Fritz Mackensen (1866-1953), Otto Modersohn, (1865-1943) Hermann Allmers. As of this date, no genealogical studies have linked any of these distinguished gentlemen to the Rolfsrud bloodline.