Bersenbrück

The Voglewedes, the Holthouses, the Meyers' and a lot of other Decatur families migrated in 1835-1845 to Decatur from two small parishes in lower Saxony, Bersenbrück and Ankum. Their land, up to 1648, was owned by the Catholic diocese of Osnabrück, the only large town nearby. The farmers and their craftsmen paid a tithe for their rent.

The people were converted from heathenism quite late, 900-1000 AD. The parish at Bersenbrück has a church window commemorating its seven hundredth anniversary in the 1930s. About all that is left of the early times is a part of the wall of the Cistercian Abbey going back to about 1200 AD near the church.

Common people did not have family names in those days; you were known as the daughter or son of a father or from a town or estate. I did not find any useful cemeteries for tracing families, although there may be some.

This is not tourist country; there are no mountains, big rivers, castles or lakes. This is farm country with a lot of new small factories scattered around. The people are like the rural Dutch. They raised cows for milk and cheese, rye and barley for pumpernickel and beer, pasture and hay, and flax for linen. In the olden days, there was no wheat with a short enough growing season for this far north. Nowadays, cotton has just about killed the flax/linen industry. There still are dozens of good breweries.

This is the land of the Grimm's Fairy Tales: Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltzkin, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, the Piper of Hameln, etc.; also Roland the giant (statue in Bremen - see image at right) and all kinds of dwarfs, gnomes and wicked witches.

The big change came with the Reformation. The Church lands were gradually turned over to the political states, in this case, the dukes, kings, electors or whatever at Hanover and Oldenburg. The rival faiths tried to get along. There were any number of churches which Catholics and Evangelicals (whom we call Lutherans) shared, some parts of Sunday service together, some parts separate.

The kings and the generals, and sad to say, some of the bishops too, could not let things alone. The thirty-year war between protestant and Catholic states destroyed a large part of lower Saxony. There are very few buildings that survived this period. Records of family histories were completely interrupted.

Finally, a sharp division of territory was drawn up in 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia. Of interest to us is that the line dividing protestants from Catholics runs right along the eastern edge at Vogelwedde. Everyone east of this line had to be Evangelical, everyone west had to be Catholic. The line is, of course, no longer a boundary between faiths, but it still can be seen as a weed overgrown canal running along the Vogelwedde estate. We came within a half mile of being Lutherans. A lot of them came pretty close to being Catholics.

People started to go back into this country in the 1700s. The king of Hanover were also the king Georges of Great Britain. They killed most of the linen business with their cotton grown in America by slave labor. The Saxons switched to the extent they could to fruit trees, tobacco and of course, potatoes.

Then came Napoleon and the French army. They changed the government completely. They are also blamed for the fever which was brought into this country about then which killed a lot of the cattle. They gradually had to develop new breeds of cows which were resistant to the fever.

The last straw was the cholera, which struck in the 1820s. Unfortunately, many of the people who emigrated to America found the cholera here too, especially in 1847 and 1848.

For most people the outlook was pretty bad. The oldest son always inherited the whole farm. The other boys could join the army, be hired hands or work in the coal mines. There was room for some in the church, in civil service, in skilled trades, in merchandising, and in teaching school. However the government was so restrictive that the economy could not grow and there were not enough jobs. Even some of the girls had to work in the coal mines.

For the times prior to the 1800s, the people of Lower Saxony had always lived a relatively free and democratic life. Now they had essentially no say in their government and they lost all hope for more liberal laws. Millions left their homes and moved to new countries, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and of course the USA.

After Germany was unified under a single central government, in 1871, things got much better for the Saxon people. The country was industrialized and very advanced social programs made them secure and prosperous. Then, of course, along came Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler.

The oldest mention of the name Vogelwedde that I have been able to find is the poet Walther von der Vogelweide. He came from Tirol, Austria, where there are still a couple of places named "meadow of the songbirds."

This was back in about 1200. There is no record of Walther's family, but he was given an estate in Wurzburg which he called Vogelwedde. No one to my knowledge has connected our Vogelwedde ancestry with Herr Walther back to 1200 AD.

My own theory is that our great great grandfather, Johann Hermann, who was a rather wealthy and educated man, liked the poetry of Herr Walther. After Johann Hermann purchased the estate in Bersenbrück, he named it "Vogelwedde," after the estate of Herr Walther in Wurzburg. He acquired a title, "Colon," and his wife became a "Colonnat".

Johann Hermann's family name was Wästmann -- and he was a well-off manufacturer of shoes, among other things. His wife was Maria Elizabetha Kreke. The family is still prominent in Ankum.

Colon Johann Hermann Wästmann von der Vogelwedde was ambitious to build a larger landed estate. He wanted his first son, Johann Gerhard Heinrich to marry another colonnat, Carolina Korfhaugen, who would inherit substantially. However, our great grandfather, Johann Gerhard Heinrich, was already involved with Maria Catharina Holzhaus, a landless commoner, but who was by tradition a gorgeous blonde.

Johann Gerhard Heinrich refused to obey his father, married Maria Catharina, was disinherited and banished to American in 1840. They migrated to Decatur, where her brother Bernhard had already settled. Romance, huh! Old Groszpop would not be pushed around!

Johann Hermann then pressured No. 2 son, Johann Anton, into marrying Colonnat Carolina Korfhaugen. They had to get a special dispensation, as they were cousins. This was of course, true also of Johann Gerhard and Carolina, her mother being a Kreke, probably. That's really keeping it all in the family.

Johann Anton and Carolina's family was a disaster. Four of their five children died in infancy. A son, Johann August, lived for 48 years; he was a "waterhead." Johann Anton himself died suddenly, July 22, 1857, after he ate "spoiled fish" at a wedding in Lîninzen.

Carolina then married Johann Heinrich Albert Breckhaus in 1861 and Johann Hermann's estate probably passed to their heirs, although there were at least two other children of Johann Hermann and Maria Elizabetha; they may be the ancestors of the other Vogelwedde families in the area, such as the Rüsse-Vogelweddes.

Enclosed is a picture which I took about 5 years ago of the main house at Vogelwedde. This is a fancy, four-story brick house, landscaped and everything. It replaced the older house in 1920. There are also two beautiful brick barns on the estate.

The main house has an inscription on it, as do most of the fancy houses in this part of Germany. If you magnify it on the picture you can read it. Translated, it says, "The work by us, the blessings from God; this house built in the year of our Lord, 1920. Theodor zu Hîne and wife Rosa, born Vogelwedde."

How to Get There:

• From Frankfurt -- Autobahn E-5 to Dusseldorf, then E-3, getting off at route 211 to Bersenbrück; or I think it is better to go on up the E-3 to Cloppenburg (see map enclosed)

• From Hamburg -- Autobahn E-3 to Cloppenburg, going the other way

Where to Stay

• Bersenbrück is a relatively small city and its hotels are rather ordinary
• Osnabrück is a city like Ft. Wayne and has hotels and motels
• I liked best staying at Deckers Inn in Cloppenburg: magnificent breakfasts and good dinners. Fine beer but almost no English.
• Remember, it is hard to find people around here who speak English

What to See

• Vogelwedde: about 2 miles east on highway 214; beautiful four-story brick country house, gorgeous landscaping, with the inscription. No one was home when I was there. See the lovely brick barns. Go to the eastern boundary, where the weed overgrown canal once marked the reformation line.

• Bersenbrück: the church where the Vogelweddes and the Holthaus' were baptized, married and buried. Don't miss the Shrine of the Sorrowful Mother, to the right as you face the altar. Read the names of all the young men of the parish killed in World Wars I and II. About half of them are the names you are familiar with in St. Mary's, Decatur, German spellings, of course.

  Note the church window which commemorates the 700th anniversary of the founding of the parish

  Note the crucifix on the main altar - the nails are through the outside of the church. There is the old convent and abbey wall and the "Kreismuseum," the county museum.

  There is a lovely picnic woods across the river in back of the church.

• Ankum - a town about 4 miles west of Bersenbrück, where great great grandfather Johann Hermann came from.

  Don't miss the Shrine of the Sorrowful Mother here also; more names you will be familiar with.

  If there is a Holyday while you are there, don't miss the celebration: bands, choirs, congregational marches around town, men and women dressed in formal clothes! Guns fired!

• Cloppenburg

  Don't miss: Museumsdorf, the museum of the old village, a collection of 300 year old houses, barns, windmills, shops, etc. You can really see how people used to live.

  Also the old Baroque church in center of town, contrasted to the glitzy new church on the outskirts

  Also the high school, which has everything

  According to tradition, Wesley Meyers' grandfather was the mayor of Cloppenburg in the 1700s.

Bill Borns

Ancestors of William Borns (Born August 19, 1917 in Ft. Wayne, IN)

Father: Henry Borns
Mother: Helena Meyers (Helena had brothers Edward, Leo and William)

(Children William, Mary Virginia, Ruth Ann)

Mother's Father: John Henry Meyers
Mother's Mother: Mary E. Voglewede ("the E. might possibly stand for Elizabeth") - OR Elizabeth Voglewede* - Daughter of Johan Gerhard Heinrich Vogelwedde, mentioned in the previous account as husband of Mary Catherine Holthouse.

[*NOTE: In my family records, there is both a Mary (born August 15, 1849) and an Elizabeth Voglewede (born May 30, 1864) who are daughters of Johan Gerhard Heinrich Vogelwedde. I am in the process of determining which is the wife of John Henry Meyers.]

Addendum - Conversation with Bill Borns on April 7, 1998, written by Michael Egan.

In 1910, various descendants of Johan Gerhard Heinrich Vogelwedde wanted to investigate whether the disinheritance of Johan Gerhard Heinrich Vogelwedde was legal, and therefore the land and building(s) in Germany might rightfully belong to the descendants.

In that year, Edward Meyers, an attorney and judge, as well as a descendant of Johan Gerhard Heinrich Vogelwedde, went to Germany to investigate the matter. Edward Meyers was the brother of Helena Meyers and uncle of Bill Borns.

The result of his investigation was that the statute of limitations had long run out. However, while in Germany, Edward Meyers was able to conduct additional research - much of what resulted in the account written by Bill Borns.

For instance, Edward Meyers spoke with the parish priest at Bersenbrück to get information on the background of the Voglewede family. The church there is St. Martins, and this is where there is the Shrine of the Sorrowful Mother, built to commemorate the veterans of the world wars (featuring familiar family names).

Bill Bornes recalls that one of the names was "Karl Vogelwedde" but we are unsure of his exact relation - possibly a descendant of other children of Johann Hermann Vogelwedde (husband of Mary Elizabeth Kreke).

The "Rosa, born Vogelwedde" in the Borns account (wife of Theodor zu Hîne) was also possibly from this line.

Johann Hermann Vogelwedde (husband of Mary Elizabeth Kreke) had a shoe factory in Ankum, Germany, where he made shoes for the German Army. This factory still stands today.

There is also still a Vogelwedde Lane near the Vogelwedde estate near Bersenbruck.

There are no grave sites in this area of Germany. In this part of the country/world, where agriculture is so important, graves are kept for a limited time - only around 30 years or so.

Notes on John Henry Meyers

John Henry Meyers was a graduate of Gîttingen (school between Hannover and Bremen) in NW Germany. Among teaching jobs he eventually held in America - teaching English to German immigrants in Ft. Atkinson, Iowa, and Windom, Minnesota.

When Mary E. (or Elizabeth?) Voglewede attended the Lyceum in Ft. Wayne, IN, John Henry Meyers was a teacher - theirs was a student-teacher relationship.

They lived on 80 acres on Mud Pike, South of Decatur.

John Henry Meyers died of tuberculosis

More Notes on William Borns

Bill Borns moved to Decatur when just a couple of years old - his mother's mother was ailing, and his family bought a farm next to the 80 acres on Mud Pike, South of Decatur owned by John Henry Meyers and Mary E. (or Elizabeth?) Voglewede.