Having followed the early history of the German Family Bumer, the narrative of Frank Bumer continues:

Youth Age

In Spring 1872 our oldest sister, Karoline, got married to Aston Hutzel of Berg. Sad, however, after eleven months she died, only being sick three days.

In 1874 I finished the Public School and was confirmed by Rev. Heinrick Frank. For two years thereafter I worked with my father in the field. In Winter I attended Night-School; in Summer, Sunday-School, as I always desired to get an education for a School-teacher or like occupation. No women ever taught school in Germany. Read More»

Watched Ken Burns’ “The War” last week, and when I picked up the document below, I was struck by the similarities between the epic of World War II and the brief WWI history a dear friend lent me.

I am always touched to read of the courage and eagerness to work that our forebears exhibited on first arriving in the New World, and then surviving rough times to establish a new American family. A dear friend in Peachtree City shares part of his family history.

No doubt every new family forms with similar effort. It’s an old, old story. Read More»

It must be the only time-honored bit of travel advice everybody agrees with: Keep a list of your current medications when you roam, and store supply bottles separately.

In Europe this spring, roughly April 15 through June 15. I faithfully did what I was supposed to do. My demon requires I take more than 12 pills per day, every day, and to be sure I don’t miss one or double up, I distribute them in cases, each of which holds a week’s allotment. Read More»

Why, when we were little, did we believe we had to have favorites? A favorite flower, a favorite dress, a favorite friend, a favorite color.

I suppose it was our way of defining who we are. If I can describe the things I like, perhaps I am seeing my own self.

Much was made of my blue eyes, when I was small, and my mother often dressed me in blue. Old pictures, now sepia-brown, show me as a serious-looking child with a huge floppy bow on the top of my blonde head. I can’t tell, but I think it was blue. Read More»

Several years ago we were on another long-distance trek, when we heard a traveler’s ghost story on a two-day train ride from the Canadian west coast to Jasper, Alberta.

After the first 10 hours or so, not even the spectacle of the Rockies’ snowcapped peaks could keep us entertained. We struck up a conversation with a slender lad across the aisle, who had been hunched over the little tray-table, catching up his delinquent journal.   Read More»

Montserrat, Barcelona, Spain

We debarked from our cruise ship eagerly, glad to be back on dry land and to see what Barcelona was all about. We met Mary there; she had flown in from her home in Germany to spend a few days with us before we all flew on to our next stop.

Barcelona is the best example we’ve seen of an Olympic city that got it right. Outdoor statuary, foot bridges, green parks – they’ve maintained most of the more interesting Olympic legacies. Read More»

What do you do for 14 days in the middle of a really big ocean? You eat and sleep, read and sleep, eat and go to shows you’d never bother with at home. You unwind, you chat with other travelers, you stroll the decks, buffeted by wind and sometimes rain. Read More»

Today I come to you with apologies in hand, for both my colleagues and my readers. Before we went out of town, I thought I’d get a few columns ahead by alternating “oldies” and new pieces from the road.

That didn’t work, of course, and by the time I realized that I had to put fingers to keyboard or at least call Mike-my-editor with apologies, I couldn’t even get up the gumption to explain. Read More»

When I was about 8, we moved from city to country because life in the city was becoming crowded and unpleasant. Every morning we had to sweep the porch clear of soot from the coal-powered railroad two blocks away, and some days my mom couldn’t hang sheets out to dry.

Both of my parents had country childhoods, and they wanted me and my younger brother to have the same memories, to cook their home-grown fruits and veggies, and to let us kids ride bikes on the little-trafficked asphalt roads. Read More»

Change. I hate it.

I know, I’ve groused about change before, but it sure is getting worse with old age.

Do you know what the U.S. Postal Service has went and done to the simple task of holding mail? You may have heard that they’ll keep your mail safe for only 30 days before you have to come claim it or they deliver it all at once. Read More»