The Train Journey-Part II - To Catch a Ship

A century ago this summer, my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, was heading to America to meet and marry my grandfather, Josef Gartz. Her diary of the trip is often confusing because she intermixes train schedules, recipes, addresses, and meals. (See The Train Journey-Part I), but the important thing to me is that she actually recorded enough details,  that I can follow along on her journey.

Here's an overview map of the route she took, all noted in her diary: through the Austro-Hungarian towns of Budapest, Galanta, Trencin, Cadca; into Oderberg and Ratibor, the border town between Poland and Germany. She chugs along, noting the German towns of Breslau, Berlin, Hannover and finally to Bremen.

Lisi's approximate route from Hermannstadt/Sibiu in today's Romania
to Bremen. From there she'll take a train to the port.

Handwritten note from  Mrs. Jickeli's  on the back of her
 business card. See date at the end: 14/9 1911-
 Sept. 14, 1911, a clue Lisi had this note when she left.

Lisi jots down the times she arrives and departs many of the cities as she wends her way to the port of Bremen. The dates she lists indicate that she personally left on the train several weeks after dropping off her luggage on August 22nd. (See that first entry at Farewell, My Homeland).


The first date she lists of the actual train trip is September 15th, departing from Budapest at 6:50 pm.

It's about 267 miles from her home town to Budapest. I believe she started her trip on September 14th,  because she brought along with her a business card from her boss, Mrs. Jickeli, dated September 14, 1911.  (see photo) That date jives with the length of time it would have taken her to get to  Budapest.  I'll reveal what I discovered on that card in a future post,

On the right, the border town between Germany and
Poland is large and clearly written:  Ratibor

9/15, Friday: 6:50 pm depart from Budapest

9/16 Saturday: 1:00 a.m. arrive Cadca

9/16 Saturday: 2 a.m. arrive Oderberg; 2:30 a.m. 
Change trains to a “fast train” on the
Preussische Staatsbahn (The German State Train)

9/16 Saturday 4 a.m. Depart Oderberg (track #3)

9/16 [Saturday] 11:20 am arrive Berlin (at the Friedrich Street Train Station, where the porter takes her to the “Cashier” to exchange her Kroner (Austro-Hungarian money) for German Marks

[9/16 Saturday] 11:52 a.m. onward [from Berlin]

[9/16 Saturday] 5:55 pm arrive Bremen

9/16-9/19 [Sat. - Tues.] overnight in Bremen

Before changing trains in the “German area” (perhaps Oderberg), she writes:

Our tickets are checked and we each receive a little piece of paper, giving us our seat number [on the next train].

Of course Lisi must keep track of expenditures, so she records payments:

-Her tips to every porter at each train station.
-a cup of coffee cost 25 Pfennig (like “pennies”)
-the cost of her room and the money she pays each worker at the "B and B" where she overnights in Bremen.

The room: 15 Taler [coins-of indeterminate worth today]
Waiter 4 taler
Valet 6 taler
Chambermaid 2 taler
Total cost: 27 taler and 15 Pfennig

In Bremen, she records both what she eats and at what time:

1:00 pm -- a coffee
5:00 pm -- 1 soup and 1 schnitzel, 1 compote, 2 glasses of water, and 2 rolls
9:00 am -- 2 coffees, 3 rolls with butter 3 cups of coffee

September 16th - 18th were the last three days she would ever again spend in Europe.

9/19 Tuesday depart from Bremen at 8:00 am

This is it! The final leg of her train journey that will take her from the city of Bremen to the port--and to the ship that will carry her to America.

At some time in these last few days, she learns of the ship on which she'll cross the Atlantic. She enters its name and her cabin number--on the facing page of her diary’s first entry, which she had created on August 22, 1911. It's too important to be buried within.

Her ship name and cabin number, noted left - added to
the facing page, blank when she made her first entry,
the "22nd of August" right.

Elise Ebner
Cabin 731
Bremen
Kaiser Wilhelm II

Coming up: Lisi starts a second diary--of her voyage across the Atlantic to America--closer to  Josef’s waiting arms.

Searching for Home

Travel Tuesday

When we took a brief visit to Sibiu (Hermannstadt to the Germans), we marveled at the massive wall surrounding the city, its combination of thirty-nine towers and four bastions a bulwark against invading Ottoman Turks.

But while Sibiu defended the city in the past against those bent on its destruction, it is now dedicated to protect its Saxon German heritage for future generations. Although few ethnic Germans still live in Sibiu (a combination of mass deportations after World War II, brutalization under Ceausescu’s rule, the 1989 Revolution, and other factors, coupled with Germany's generous immigration policy for ethnic Germans), it is still a major cultural center and home to a wealth of Siebenbürgen German history. (Click to get an overview).

 Siebenbürgen German history. Researcher at Teutschhaus, Herr Rehner,
shows brother Bill (far left), cousin Maria, and me (standing)
my great-grandfather's name with his house number

After visiting Grandpa Josef Gärtz’s church in Neppendorf, we drive a scant two miles to Hermannstadt/Sibiu to visit the Friedrich Teutschhaus, a repository of Saxon German history. It’s aptly named for a long-time Evangelische Lutheran bishop, Friedrich Teutsch, who worked tirelessly to preserve Transylvania’s German culture. At Teutschhaus we hope to track down the home in which Grandma Lisi Ebner was raised, called the “Ebner Hof.” The Ebner family lived in the nearby town of Grosspold, about 15 miles from Hermannstadt/Sibiu.

Grosspold, Romania
Archival Records

Cousin Maria had arranged for us to meet the venerable Teutschhaus researcher, Herr Rehner, to help us with our quest to find the Ebner Hof. Over six feet tall, with a shock of white hair and gentle gaze, Herr Rehner leads us to a back room where ancient Saxon records line the shelves.

Using my great grandfather’s name, research assistants efficiently stride to a back room and within ten minutes bring out a worn ledger of former Grosspold residents. Herr Rehner turns the pages to “E” and finds my great grandfather’s house number. “Ebner, Samuel—365.” The town was small enough so that every house had its own number, rather than a number and street name as we’re accustomed to.

Siebenbürgen German history: Detail of Samuel Ebner's name
in book of house numbers.

Family History- Pastor Meitert
shows my brothers, Bill, center, &
Paul, right the Grosspold Church's
 Family Records

Next stop—Grosspold. We meet Pfarrer Meitert, present pastor of my grandmother’s church. Using the house number, he pages through a two-hundred-year old “Familien Buch” in which the birth, death, and marriage dates of each family member are recorded. I initially wrote about this discovery in more detail in an earlier post: Life and Death Abbreviated and the sad truth the Family Book revealed: three of my grandmother’s siblings had died as mere babies. The book recorded the exact death date of my grandmother’s mother, also named Elisabetha Ebner, born Eder. She had died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-four, when my grandmother, (nicknamed) Lisi, was only ten years old.

Family History Book: columns l-r: "Family Member,"
Birth, Marriage, Death (dates: day, month, year)
Maria Eder's maiden name was Feyri

But the book took us even further back into the past. Cross-referencing, we found the page recording the information for my grandmother’s mother’s siblings and parents: the Eders. Johann Eder and his wife, Maria (born and 1835 and 1841, respectively, and married in 1859) were my great-great grandparents. They had seven children, all of whom survived the most vulnerable infant and childhood years, but still, death came relatively early for two of the children: Elisabetha at thirty-four and Samuel, the second youngest, died at eighteen.

After gathering this information, what happens next is extraordinary. Pastor Meitert carefully removes the Ebner pages from the centuries-old Family Book, folds them under his arm, and declares we’re going door-to-door in Grosspold until someone can tell us just where House Number 365, the Ebner Hof, is located!

In my next Travel Tuesday Post, we’ll find out what we discovered in our quest, and the century-old connection this visit made to my grandfather’s objection to naming me “Linda.”