Ann Laemmlen Lewis

Iseltwald on Lake Brienz, where Crash Landing on You was filmed

Our next destination for visiting friends was Interlaken, John’s first missionary area 50 years ago. While we had daylight, we decided to drive first to Iseltwalt, the little town on the Brienzer See (beyond Interlaken) to where Crash Landing on You was filmed (the scene with the piano on the pier on the lake).

There were a couple of buses of Asian tourists coming and going. The sun was low in the sky and it was beautiful. We walked a bit along the waterway. You could walk out onto the pier for 5 francs. We were fine seeing it without paying to walk on it. It was really a beautiful sleepy little town.

We walked through town a bit, and along the lake shore.

Then we took an old road along the lake to drive back to Interlaken. Almost all the traffic takes the freeway up above, so we had the little road to ourselves. There were quaint little Alpen Hüte along the way and older homes and the road wasn’t quite wide enough for 2 cars to pass. The views from the lake were spectacular.

Along the Thunersee

Next we drove from Basel to Interlaken, along the Thuner See. It is so beautiful. We stopped once or twice (Hiltersfingen) to get out and walk along the water a bit. We could see the Alps in the distance, covered in snow. The drive was about 1.5 hours through this beautiful lake country.

We had fun watching these fellows with their water gadgets!

Our Week of Visiting Swiss Friends Begins

Our last day of missionary service was Friday 21 February. LAST times weigh heavily on the soul as you move through them. Everyone has been so kind, with so many hugs and tears and kind words.

We left the office in the early afternoon, went home and finished packing for a one week trip to Switzerland to say goodbye to friends there. By 2:30 we were on our way south.

The drive was fairly uneventful. Freeway all the way, through woods and fields and towns off on either side. We drove straight to Basel and to Peter and Carla Huber’s home near there in a town called Nuglar, arriving at about 6:30. Carla welcomed us. Peter is in Bangladesh for Church work. He’s the District President, traveling 2-3 weekends/month, mostly in Turkiye. We had a nice visit with Carla. They are such wonderful people.

In the morning we got up and went to visit John’s dear friend, Rosemarie Meyer near Basel. We found her there with her son and daughter-in-law. Rosemarie was John’s neighbor and a recent convert to the church 50 years ago in Reinach.

We walked to a nearby pizza parlor for lunch together.

This is a dear woman, who will soon turn 90!

Spending time with her today was a gift. We were all much happier after the visit!

Office Farewells

Today we had a large department (CCD and PSD) weekly devotional with a breakfast potluck/farewell for the two of us. Here we are at the end, finishing up.

They had us speak to the group, sharing something about us. John and I decided to take this group to Bamako and give them a peek at our last mission there. Something new, and something completely different from what we’ve been doing on this mission. We put together a slide show of photos and share lessons learned there. You can read the original version of this presentation here:

Lessons from Bamako

Some of our favorite co-workers:

We’ve spent every work day in these places. It’s really hard to imagine leaving.

Organizing and packing up our offices. Sad.

On 21 Feb, we walked out this door one last time.

Temple Work in Frankfurt

Last night we said our farewells to friends at the Frankfurt Temple. The workers there have been my angels for the last 18 months. I have loved being there, being with them. I am also so grateful for our many missionary friends who have helped me to bless my ancestors.

In the time that we’ve been in Germany, I’ve spent every spare minute doing family history research. I’ve learned how to really use FamilySearch records to find my ancestors. Having the Frankfurt Temple near has been a wonderful blessing.

In the last 18 months, we’ve completed 3,000 ordinances for my family. I’ve shared 4,300 names with the temple, and I’ve added 52,480 sources and 3,500 new people to FamilySearch. I also have 17,000 digitized civil registry pages from my ancestral hometown, Leingarten, going home with me, so the work will continue!

This is my happy pile, with my Dad’s name on top:

The Städel Art Museum in Frankfurt

On Tuesday afternoons, the Städel Art Museum in Frankfurt is half price. This was the last place on our Frankfurt bucket list to visit. We left work a little bit early to take the train into town for our museum visit.

After weeks of cloudy days, we saw sun today! It was glorious!

From Wikipedia:

The Städel Museum owns 3,100 paintings, 660 sculptures, more than 4,600 photographs and more than 100,000 drawings and prints. It has around 7,000 m² (75,000 sq ft) of display and a library of 115,000 books.

The Städel was founded in 1817, and is one of the oldest museums in Frankfurt. The founding followed a bequest by the Frankfurt banker and art patron Johann Friedrich Städel (1728–1816), who left his house, art collection and fortune with the request in his will that the institute be set up. In the early years, Städel’s former living quarters at Frankfurt’s Roßmarkt were used to present his collection. The collection received its first exhibition building at the Neue Mainzer Straße in 1833.

19th century building

In 1878, a new museum building, in the Neo-Renaissance style, was erected by Oskar Sommer on Schaumainkai, a street along the south side of the river Main.

Floor plan, 1894

20th century

In 1937, 77 paintings and 700 prints were confiscated from the museum when the National Socialists declared them “degenerate art.”

In 1939, the collection of the Städel Museum was removed to avoid destruction from the Allied bombings, and the collection was stored in the Schloss Rossbach, a castle owned by the Baron Thüngen near Bad Brückenau in Bavaria. There, the museum’s paintings and library were discovered by Lt. Thomas Carr Howe, USN, of the American Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program.^[24]

Renovations and extension

The gallery was substantially damaged by air raids in World War II, it was rebuilt in 1966 following a design by the Frankfurt architect Johannes Krahn. An expansion building for the display of 20th-century work and special exhibits was erected in 1990, designed by the Austrian architect Gustav Peichl. Small structural changes and renovations took place from 1997 to 1999.

I focused my attention today on art representing Mary and Jesus, and enjoyed taking these photos. Sorry for not including all of the artists and credits. Just the art here.

Here are a few other pieces I really liked:

This room was filled with small sketches by Rembrandt of random street people. They were about 2-4″. It was unusual for famous painters to sketch or paint normal street people.

Turn’s out “Rembrandt’s Amsterdam” wasn’t a display of Rembrandt’s work, but art (mostly of people) by Amsterdam’s artists who lived during Rembrandt’s lifetime.