Looking in Earnest now!

Hans on the left, Paul on the right.

We have arrived in Bern, Switzerland. We are meeting with Paul Hostettler. This gentleman does not speak English so we'll have an interpreter. This will be a first for me! I will take notes. We have our trusty GPS and get close, however, we see a gentlemen walking on the sidewalk. Yes, it's our man!!! He directs us in to park and then we walk a short distance to his home.
  We meet Hans, the interpreter. Mearl tells them what he would like to see from this meeting and the objective is to see if we can find a link that will tell us for certain that we've found the man.
  This is very interesting, they have books, computer info and Paul has done a lot of studying on the Krehbiel's (Grabill's).  There is still no definite proof. The interesting fact for me was the names of the people, so many Ulrichs, Christians, Peters and etc. We learned that they had godmothers and godfathers during that time. Probably with the uncertainty of life, they wanted to make sure their children were taken care of. Often, the children were given names that came from a family member earlier.

Studying hard, Mearl questioning.

   They have copies of the ship papers that list families that were deported. The man's name was usually listed and if the children were over 16, their names were also listed. This leaves a gap with no women's names listed and the children under 16. Hans gave us a CD with the records on them. Very interesting.

Paul's wife Lucie serves us some goodies, and they were good. Tea from her garden. She enjoys gardening. She didn't speak English either but she and I had an interesting few minutes together.

  The next morning, Paul meets us at the hotel  and we're off. We meet Hans in a small town where a lot of records are kept.
The top row has very old books. We didn't look at these. We then went to another area and sat down and Hans showed us the books that have the lists in. A father and son team by the name of Shank (sp) wrote or copied these names down. The son was 8 and it's speculated that he was practicing his writing skills. The name of Krehbiel is in there. We have a picture of that also. Hans left us and we left with Paul and traveled the rest of the day around the area where the Krehbiel's/Grabill's could have been. Small villages where we stopped and took pictures and met folks.

  We went to a museum that morning, it was really interesting. The museum had lots of rooms and each room represented something the people did then or a room of their home in early times. We've seen so much and experienced so much, I hope we can give you that idea.

  Keep on the journey with us!

Sharon (Grabill) McMillan