Good morning cousins, Wanda is having email program problems and couldn't get this posted. So, I'm forwarding this on in her behalf. I hope you're all having a magical Monday! :) Colleen ----- Original Message ----- From: Wanda Roberts <wmrobert@nalu.net> To: BOWER-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 2:38 AM Subject: Saving stuff Cousins, Colleen brought up a very good point when she mentioned old letters. I am one to never toss out anything, so several years ago,just after we bought our home and ground, we were going thru this old small two room house and found some old letters. We recognized a few names but the letters were in old German. We searched for several years, writing letters, calling people and contacting German Catholic Churches. Finally about 20 years after we found the letters, we were informed that not more then 3 miles from our home was a lady that could read old German. I contacted her, she consented to look at the letters and to translate them for us. In these letters we learn the exact location of our descendants, the married names of the sisters to my husband's gr grandfather and the children of most all the sisters and brothers. These letters were over 100 years old when we found them. There were 16 in all. The best part was that paper was expensive so they wrote to someone on part of a page, the answer came back on the same page. Sometimes there would be several letters on one paper. We learn that the gr grandfather had money problems and used all his inheritance and still had problems. We learned the date of birth of one of the children, a gr uncle, the exact location of their home in America and the date of their marriage and the wife was not exceptable to the family so they waited until landing in the U.S. before getting married. So, SAVE anything, no matter how small. It is important. Wanda http://www.crosswinds.net/~indbow/index.html