Author: Ann Laemmlen Lewis

Thank you for visiting! I hope you enjoy the things shared here.

Visiting Hanau, Birthplace of the Grimm Brothers

On weekends we are free to travel and go sightseeing.  What fun that will be!  Our friends, Dave and Kathi Irving (from Wenatchee) invited us to join them today on an outing to Hanau, about 30 minutes from our place.

Here’s a bit about Hanau:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Population 101,364
Hanau is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its station is a major railway junction and it has a port on the river Main, making it an important transport centre. The city is known for being the birthplace of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and Franciscus Sylvius. Since the 16th century it was a centre of precious metal working with many goldsmiths. It is home to Heraeus, one of the largest family-owned companies in Germany.
Hanau, once the seat of the Counts of Hanau, lost much of its architectural heritage in World War II. A British air raid in 1945 created a firestorm, killing one sixth of the remaining population and destroying 98 percent of the old city and 80 percent of the city overall.

We spent some time walking through the Schloss (castle) where the city rulers lived.  There was beautiful artwork and lots of history displayed in each room.

It’s fun to imagine people living like this.  It’s hard to imagine this town was almost completely destroyed at the end of the war, then rebuilt.

This large blue and white tile fireplace is how they heated the rooms:

We learned about the Grimm brothers who were born here.

They had some fun activities for children with a fairytale dress up room and a display of books.

There were also many rooms filled with Playmobil displays of everyday life in Germany.

We spent the day wandering around the town, visiting the old churches and the Goldsmith House.

This is where the town’s famous goldsmiths worked.  After the war it was rebuilt as a museum for jewelry and nice items.

Here are the Brothers Grimm in the town square:

This is the Dutch Church as it was rebuilt after the war.

We had a lovely dinner in this Biergarten:

The weather here is Summer leaning into Fall, perfectly delightful.  We had a great day with our good friends.

The Phoenix Haus

Today we went to the new offices at the Phoenix Haus, about a 15 minute drive from our apartment.  We are grateful to have our own car provided here.

Here is my desk, ready to receive me!

This is our Communications office area where we work with the Garbers and our  Director Dinis (pronounced Dineesh) Adriano and his assistants, Ralf Grünke and Daniel Kopischke.  They are going to be really fun to work with.  We have a lot to learn and we’re excited to contribute.

These first few evenings, dinner is provided for us by other couples who volunteer to feed us (until we get our feet under us).  Tonight we had dinner with Brent and Ella Romney, good friends of ours from the BYU Alumni Association.  Brent serves here as an In Field Representative (IFR) to several mission presidents (that means he’s their lifeline if they have any questions about anything).  It was really fun to spend the evening with them.

Frankfurt Hauptfriedhof–The Main Cemetery

Our apartment looks south towards the main cemetery in Frankfurt.  I’ve heard about this wonderful cemetery from many friends who have served in this area.  They’ve told me it’s a perfect place to wander and feel peace.

Wikipedia says: The Frankfurt Main Cemetery (German: Hauptfriedhof) is the largest cemetery in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was opened in 1828. The cemetery is located directly adjacent to two Jewish cemeteries—the Old Jewish Cemetery (opened together with the Main Cemetery in 1828) and the New Jewish Cemetery, Frankfurt [de] (opened in 1928)—and together they form one of the largest cemetery areas in Germany. The cemetery is noted for its many monumental graves, its garden architecture and as the site of the graves of many notable individuals.

Our apartment is where the red dot is below, just north of the cemetery.

I love German cemeteries.  The families are in charge of keeping up the burial plots.  Each is like its own garden.

There are watering cans, and green waste receptacles throughout the cemetery for family members to use when the come.

We enjoyed our wander, taking in this new place where we live.  We feel comfortable here, at home.  We both love the German language and the people here.

We stopped in at a local grocery store on this outing.  While I checked out the produce, John quickly found his favorite aisle:  the chocolates.  German stores have chocolate aisles like Americans have cold cereal aisles!  He is in his element!

Our Departure and Arrival in Frankfurt

We were up early after a very short night. John started packing last night after the last of our visitors and phone calls ended (after 10:30 p.m.). I said farewell to my clean office and waved at the rogue pumpkin as we drove away from our beloved home for the next 18 months. Aaron will take good care of things here.


When we were finally on the plane, we heaved a huge sigh of relief. Now we go forward without looking back.


We were in the air until Tuesday morning, with a stop over at JFK in NY.  The flight was fine.  I didn’t do much but sit.

Elder Gregg Garber and his wife, Cheryl met us.  They are our Zone Leaders who take care of all the senior missionaries.  We will also be working with them in Communication office.  They were great and drove us to our new home.

Our apartment is on the south (right) side of this 11 floor apartment block, on the 6th floor overlooking a huge and very old cemetery.  We loved our new home the minute we walked in.  It will be just right–comfortable and cozy.  I can get from one end to the other in 14 or 15 steps.  It’s just what we need.

This apartment building is located on Porthstrasse 11, right next to what has been the Area Offices for many years.  This month everyone in these offices is busy relocating to a new office building about 15 minutes away called the Phoenix Haus.  Every week a different department moves.  Communications moved 2 weeks ago.  It will be good to have everyone under the same roof soon.  We visited these offices and said hello to those still here.

The Frankfurt Stake Center is next to these Area Offices.  This stake was organized in 1976.  The Frankfurt 1st Ward and the 2nd Ward (International, English) meet here each week.  The Frankfurt Mission missionaries use this building for many of their meetings and we hear pickleball is often played here on Friday evenings by the senior couples!

We are give the choice of deciding where we want to attend church on Sundays.  There are also some wards and branches in the area we will visit before deciding.  Many of the missionary couples attend the English-speaking ward that meets here.

We had the afternoon to settle in, unpack our things and get acquainted with the neighborhood and our new home.  We are happy and excited to be here.  Really happy!

Our Frankfurt Apartment– Home Sweet Home

Here is our wonderful apartment!  It’s just perfect.  We have a sitting room with a small eating table, a desk in one corner and bookshelves in the other.

Here is the kitchen.  We were lucky to get an apartment with a double wide kitchen, most are half this size.  The washer and dryer are here in the kitchen.

Here’s our bedroom.  We keep things cool with fans and open windows.  There is no air conditioning.

And here is our bathroom.

Everything is as comfortable as can be and we are going to love coming home here!