It's All About the People!

August 26 – And now to the people. While it was wonderful to visit all those well-known places and buildings and see all the changes and see what had remained the same – I really wanted to see my old friends. I wanted to hear how their lives had gone since we last saw each other all those years ago.

I think I have to talk about them as I saw them first on this trip. Jean-Pierre Friedrich met me at the airport in Luxembourg. I hadn’t seen Jemp for nearly 60 years. I think the last time would have been in 1956. We “went out” together for about a year and a half during those 3 years our family lived in Luxembourg. You might recognize the urn in the Parc.

 

This is Jemp in the States in 1958 where he went to school.

 

 

He went on to become an important businessman and, as I posted earlier, did some amazing things with his life including doing a circumnavigation of the world. Jemp and his wife Lony Hansen were the absolute best hosts Holly and I could have asked for on this whole adventure. So I made two new good friends – one from years ago and one from now. We were able to share old memories and we told each other about our intervening years. I think Jemp and I agreed that we had both had very interesting lives in very different parts of the world. His life was perhaps more far flung than mine and in warmer climes but my life has been pretty neat too – just in somewhat colder climates! LOL

And here he is now in 2013.

 

And then seeing Josée again – it was just wonderful. Josée was my very first friend in Echternach. She lived on my way to school. When we first went to Echternach, Mom and Dad wanted us to go to the local school. The younger kids were OK as they had a teacher who could speak some English and eventually they spoke fluent Luxemburgish by the end of our 3-year stay. I was another matter. I would have been in Grade 9 back in Canada and that equivalent had a teacher who could not speak English. So I went to school with the young kids for a month or so and then went to the same class as Josée – Marie-Josée Prim. We had a grand time together over those years. We walked together, we laughed together, we talked about our crushes on boys, we hitchhiked to Bitburg to see the US airmen together, we went to the end of Mass on Sundays so she could say she had been to church and were good friends. Her mother was a lovely lady who sewed clothes for us. I remember the sleeveless seersucker blouses she made for us – one was blue and the other was green.

This was taken on the bridge going across the Sauer River on an excursion to Bitburg, Germany. Standing l. to r. - Emelye Knepper, Melanie Gallo, Gitta Geisen and in front is Josée.

And here is another photo of Josée and Gitta on another occasion.

And here is that photo that I am so fond of - taken in the Marktplatz in Echternach in about 1955. Melanie, unknown cousin, Anne and Emel!

While I did get to see Josée in 1996, when she and her husband Vince were able to come to Arnprior to visit when I was at my sister Louise’s place, this visit with her was just great. We shared old memories and laughed lots!

So that was then and here some of us are now in 2013 -

Mely, Emel, Josée and Anne in front of the Hotel de la Sure where Holly and I stayed for 2 nights in Echternach. We had wonderful day laughing and remembering!