Your GGPa's Grandma

Dear Byron,

A couple days ago I got a call from a cousin way up in Minnesota. His name is Loren Schmalz. He and his wife Eloise (my Aunt Elma's only daughter), found a picture of some of the Cordes sisters. They wondered if I knew anything about Louise Cordes, the sister of my Grandmother Ida who married my Grandfather Henry Franzmeier. I had to tell them I knew little or nothing. After they hung up I told your GG-Ma Sylvia about the call. She reminded me of a photo we have. I found it. Here it is.

Elizabeth (Wille) and Louis Cordes Family - 1888

This is my Grandma Ida's family photo when she was a young girl. That's her on the left, behind her little brother George. Behind her is Helen. To Helen's left are William, Emma, Louise and Lydia. On my Great-Grandpa Louis' lap is Amelia and on my Great-Grandma Elizabeth's is John. 

I grew up in Minnesota on a farm with Grandma Ida and Grandpa Henry. My middle name is Henry, after Grandpa. He died from cancer when I was only seven years old. I vividly remember him teaching me the hymn "Abide With Me" while I visited with him on the back porch of the big farm house where they lived. My parents, sister Elaine and I lived in a small house across the highway. One day soon I'll tell you more about that. 

A mile south of our family farm was another farm where Grandma's sister, Aunt Lydia lived with Uncle Eddie Franzmeier, as we called her husband. Uncle Eddie was my Grandpa Henry's brother. That made him my Great-Uncle, of course. 

As  you can tell by this, brothers married sisters. That was quite common in our community. Uncle Eddie's son, Arthur married Elma, the twin sister of my mother Thelma Turpen. Thelma introduced Elma to Art after she fell in love with my father Alvin, after whom I am named. Are you confused yet? 

It is interesting that you have ancestors who lived in Minnesota, both on your Grandma Cheryl's side and your Grandpa Derrick's side of the family. We'll get back to that another time. 

For now, just rejoice that you have so many in the family who love you, as do G-GMa Sylvia and I. 

Why I Started This New Blog

Dear Byron,

I'm sure you've heard from your parents or your Grandparents that I wrote three novels are about one young couple, Tillie and Albert Freitag. The series is called The Spiral Bridge Mysteries. One day soon I'll tell you more about the real Spiral Bridge. You may even be able to find my novels in ebook format.

In my novels Tillie and Albert fall in love, get married and have their first child, Louise, a beautiful little girl. My readers meet their families and friends, discover their thoughts and feelings, their doubts and fears, their joys and sorrows. That, of course, is why we read novels. In them we learn to love, like, admire, hate, fear or despise the characters—or not.

In this Blog I'll take you back at times to some of the events portrayed in my novels, but only to illustrate. My aim is to help you as you face the same kind of experiences Albert and Tillie encountered way back in the days of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Yours is a very different world, eighty years later. Yet in many ways it remains the same. People still quarrel, fall in love, have babies, grow up, try hard to make good grades in school, struggle other kids, get married, fail at marriage and divorce one another. They cheat, steal, celebrate birthdays, attend funerals, lose their jobs, go on trips, find new challenges and on and on. That's also what I'll be writing about in these blogs. As you grow up, Byron, you'll face the same kind of things, even though your world has outwardly changed very much.

One thing never changes: God's Word, the Word recorded in the Sacred Scriptures and proclaimed across thousands of years. I'll be drawing from that Word also as I ponder with you about the challenges of growing up, getting married, living in a family and learning how to trust God and His love for us all. I pray that you will receive many blessings by pondering that Word as you too grow up.

And please, Byron, be assured that I'll be praying for you, both during the days remaining to me on this earth and then in the great and wondrous hills and halls of heaven.

—Your loving Great-Grandpa Al