Josefsdorfers played a key role in establishing the North Dakota Banat Colony.  About 25% of the ND Banaters can include Josefsdorf as their ancestral village.An article in the 15 Sept 2017 issue of the Banater Post by Katharina Szomoru describes the 135 th anniversary celebration on 15 August of the founding of Josefsdorf.Josefsdorf was established in 1882 on poor soils on hilly terrain in the hills East of Temeswar by transfer of the population from Elisenhain.  Today there are hardly any Banat Germans living in the village.  The present population consists of Romanians and some Slowak families who arrived in the 1970.   On the occasion of the anniversary the street leading into the village has been paved with asphalt and the Kulturheim cleaned and painted.  The Romanian orthodox priest of the village organized two German groups in Schwablsch Tracht from Detta and Billed to provide a bit of Banater Deutsch flavor to the celebrations.Only three Josefsdorf familes came from Germany to join the festivities, Engelbert Schmidt with family, Peter Bergmann with wife and Josef Szomoru with wife.  One suspects that we are witnessing the final stage of German influence, as we know it, in this small corner of the Banat. In a totally unrelated item in this same issue of the Banater Post was a school class photo from Josefsdorf for the years 1950-1951.  Such photos appear from time to time in the Banater Post but are most often without identification of the kids. This photo submitted by Regina Lutz has all 25 of  the kids identified.  Many of the surnames will be recognizable by ND Banaters, among these are; Giel, Trendier, Gaschna, Beketsch, Naegl. Descho, Thierjung, Helllmann, Dworscheck, Schaff, Weissmueller, Laub, Betschner, Neusatz and Bisch. Dave Dreyer