Wilkommen! . . .
to the John Henry Stall Family Home on the World Wide Web!

• Haus, our Home page, is a place for contemplating what it means to be German-American and Family.
  
  
• Gendenkstatte is an online spiritual Memorial to family members who have passed from death to New LIfe.
  
  
• Historie contains a summary to date of what is known about the family and Germanic peoples.
  
  
• Genealogie pages form a complete family tree with photos for learning to know family members of all generations, past and present.
  
  
• Festlichkeit features family Festitivities centering on a Calendar of family Feast Days ... Birthdays, Baptisms, Confirmations, Wedding Anniversaries and Burials become reasons for maintaining contact with family members and celebrating family throughout the year. Heritage Family Photos, as well as contemporary ones, are shared online here through Google Picasa web albums. Links to Food and Activities pages assist in planning Reunion meals and activities.
  
  
• Bindungen are Links to resources for related topics, as well as to references made within this site, and to sources for forthcoming articles.

Click link for complete Site Map.

Genießen! Enjoy!

Roots, Trees and Family History
D.Stall

Those who are ignorant of history are destined to repeat it. - Anonymous

History was probably my all time least favorite subject. It wasn't until the early '70s in High School that I discovered an angle on history I enjoyed through the newly published Time-Life series, "This Fabulous Century". Each book in the series features a different decade told through popular culture, such as design, fashions and product advertising. These were subjects that previously had captivated my interest.

Now, I took an avid interest in my family's German heritage for the first time in my life. Before, that heritage was something I tried to hide, especially when I'd play "war" with other neighborhood boys as was popular then. No one wanted to be the "Gerrys", so I didn't dare let on that my grandparents and other older family members spoke German, or that my dad hadn't known a lick of English on his first day of school.

But when I reached teen age, that changed. I suppose everyone seeks some sense of personal identity as a right of passage, even more so during those troubled times of the mid to late '60s when there was so much talk of identity 'crisis'. "Who am I?", after all, has been a major philosophical question plaguing mankind since the dawn of time.

When my older sister and only sibling left home for college and I inherited her room, the first thing I insisted on doing was painting over the lavendar walls, and replacing her wedding ring, lavendar and white cotton chenille bedspread. Then, I discovered the "Pennsylvania Dutch", otherwise known as the Amish, through a Book of the Month Club purchase and that they were, of all things, German.

That led to curiousity about my grandparents "old things", or "antiques" as I heard they were called by "collectors". Eventually, I asked my grandmother for an old iron bed she wasn't using, a flat iron for a bookend, an iron Singer treadle sewing machine base for an aquarium stand, and a few other decorative items that might grace the abode of a respectable Amish home. To my surprise, she said "yes"". Looking back, I think it pleased her that someone took an interest in her life and past, which wasn't typical of younger generations.

For years, I poured over my folks old photos, asking lots of questions, mostly about who this person was and that one, and what it was like growing up with multiple siblings, when I only had one. The War, World War II that is, had been the main event of their lives and my dad had lots of personal memorabilia from the "European Campaign". The Time-Life books seemed to renew my interest in family history and I seized the opportunity to pick my grandmother's memory about family members of previous generations before time was lost.