Tracing the past

In Trossingen, people of all ages ride bicycles to the butcher and the baker, preferring to pick up their fresh food every day.

“They’d never stock their freezers, or buy in bulk like we do,” said Michelle Amador. The little town in Southern Germany is near the Black Forest. To Amador, it’s a second home.

“When we go there, everyone knows who we are,” she said. “I think we’re probably related to just about everyone.”

Amador, a broker for Coldwell Banker in Greensboro, N.C., loves the tidy homes, the cobblestones, the window boxes overflowing with flowers, the music and good food.

“It’s not like here, where people go, go, go,” she said. “Everyone takes the time to stop and enjoy their meals and to spend time with their family.” The shops still close from noon to 2 p.m. so people can eat the main meal of the day; and in late afternoon, everyone stops for coffee and a pastry, or a glass of beer, she said.

Amador’s mother, Doris Burgbacher Kerber, of Waynesboro, also loves to return to Trossingen, the town where she grew up.

“When I was a teenager, my thought was ‘get me out of here!’ ” she said. Kerber was 20 when she left Trossingen for Waynesboro. As a young girl, she was an accomplished fencer and accordion player and had grown impatient with the old-fashioned ways of her home.

Kerber has now retired from a series of administrative jobs and works as a consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics. She also plays accordion for the Edelweiss band at the popular restaurant of the same name in Greenville.

The accordion was widely played by friends and neighbors in Trossingen, Kerber said.

“We were the home of Hohner, the accordion makers. If you didn’t play the accordion in Trossingen, you probably played the harmonica.”

Although Kerber has returned often, sometimes with Amador and her other daughter, Simone Alley, of Charlottesville, last year’s July trip was particularly memorable. Kerber, her daughters and three of her grandchildren arrived in Trossingen to celebrate the birthday of Anneliese Burgbacher, Kerber’s only sister.
Celebrating the 60th birthday in a big way is customary in Germany, the sister, Anneliese Burgbacher, explained via Skype Internet phone service from Trossingen. Burgbacher planned some sightseeing, some hikes and a lot of good German music and food for the American branch of her family, just as they expected, but she also had a few surprises in store for them.

Burgbacher worked with the Trossingen historian to trace the family’s roots back to the 16th century, when Hans and Leonhard Burgbacher lived in the Black Forest at a place called Purpen. Rather than using Internet genealogy sources available today, she researched their history the old-fashioned way: from existing municipal and family records. (Many Burgbacher relatives live in Trossingen; in fact, she said, the man who traced the family tree was married to a Burgbacher relation.)

A surprise was in store for the family: a trip to site of the old homestead.

“The building had burned in 1800,” Kerber said; “but we could see where it had stood.” The town, called Tennenbron, is known to tourists because of an ancient ruin above, the “Ruine Falkenstein,” probably named for a bird, Kerber said.

“It was so moving to see where our people had lived centuries ago,” Amador said.

The rolling landscape was peaceful and beautiful, and cows grazed in the fields.

Anneliese Burgbacher had another surprise: she’d made T-shirts for her visiting American relatives with the family tree dating back to 1491. She also planned a hike up to the ruin and a visit to a family who made bread in an outdoor oven just like people in the Black Forest might have done centuries ago.

Kerber’s grandchildren – Bryson and Madison Alley, 7-year-old twins, of Charlottesville, and Nicolas Amador, 18, of Greensboro, were not forgotten in Burgbacher’s planning: a visit to a “monkey forest” where the animals swung and chattered among the trees and scooped up kernels of popcorn from their visitors.

Everyone enjoyed the festive atmosphere, especially Anneliese Burgbacher’s elaborate 60th birthday party at the Hotel Hofgut Hohenkarpfen at nearby Hausen ob Verena.

“It started out with a champagne toast on the veranda. Then we went inside for a delicious dinner,” Burgbacher said.

The five-course dinner had salmon, three different meats and various vegetables, as well as a traditional regional wedding soup and desserts of ice cream, fruit and chocolate mousse.

As the afternoon wore on, more guests came by for cake and coffee, she said. Once again, Burgbacher had a surprise.

“When the musicians came, they brought an extra accordion, just for me,” Kerber said.

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