St. Anthony's: Little Church on the Prairie Part II

 

My dad, Tony Schlachter, takes a familiar drive in the area where he grew up and lived for most of his life.

If you have travelled south of the Crowsnest Highway on the #885 past St. Anthony’s church, you have been to “God’s Country”, as many people refer to it. More than five generations of Schlachters have lived in or near this area, including mine.

This wide-open space is about 25 miles southeast of Bow Island, Alberta and was called Windy Ridge, Pleasant View, Granlea or Nine-Nine (after the land description). St. Anthony’s church is located at NE 2-9-9-4. Anton and Margaret Schlachter lived across the road at NW 1-9-9-4. Anton’s parents, Martin and Justina, lived in a tiny house in the yard as well as one on their homestead land at NW 5-8-8-4. Martin and Justina are buried in the cemetery at St. Anthony’s among other relatives such as Margaret's sister Rosa and her husband Kasimir Heitrich (watch a video at the bottom of this post about Kasimir's funeral).

Justina and Martin Schlachter's graves at St. Anthony's Cemetery.

Anton and Margaret had a large sitting room in their home and often hosted prayers and funeral receptions, as they were very near to the church and there was room for both casket and guests. In winter, the casket would be moved outside on the porch (a relative remained with it at all times). Dad remembers that when his infant cousin Frank Schlachter died, his body lay in a small coffin in the bedroom. Among the graves in the St. Anthony’s Cemetery is a separate section for the babies, somewhat uncommon in other local cemeteries. Joseph Schlachter, Dad’s older brother is in this section.

Anton would often lead the rosary for the evening prayers that are part of Catholic funeral rites. A very large wooden cross was kept in their home, perhaps used as part of these events. The cross was later donated to St. Joseph’s Home in Medicine Hat and you can see it there in the chapel (it was still there in 2019). 

Anton’s son Joseph Schlachter married Catherine Schile in 1932 at St. Anthony’s. They lived in a relatively large house next to the church at S 2-9-9-4 and that is where my dad and his siblings grew up. 

A clipping from the 40-Mile County Commentator features St. Anthony's Church and the Schlachter home as they were in the 1990s.

Living in such close proximity to the church, my dad recalls that his first job as a kid was lighting the fire to warm the church before mass. Being an altar boy was not something he was interested in, however. You can hear his amusing story in a video linked at the bottom of this post.

My dad and his siblings received the sacraments of baptism, first communion and confirmation at St. Anthony’s.

The number of community members in Windy Ridge declined in the 1930s, when the economic depression forced some families to leave the land in this area and make their living another way. The area rebounded but, over time, smaller farms were consolidated into larger ones and more of the younger generations went to the city for education and jobs. Church-goers began to worship at the larger Catholic churches in Bow Island and Foremost. Our family and our Doran cousins, part of the fifth generation of Schlachters in the area, still occasionally came to St. Anthony’s church in the country for mass into the 1970s and ‘80s. The pews were filled with second cousins! My dad had bought and was farming Joseph and Catherine’s land by then and we continued to visit the cemetery to pay our respects to the ancestors who brought us here.

By 1991, St. Anthony’s Church at Granlea was closed and the building purchased by a local woman. My dad was able to buy the iron church bell and, in 2014, he worked with his sister Jacqueline and her husband Terry Doran to get permission to relocate the bell to the cemetery. Dad hired a mason to create a cairn from local field stone and placed a plaque on it with a dedication to the pioneers. The plaque was designed by Tony’s grandson Jordan Schlachter. A great-grandson, two-year-old Maxwell Schlachter, was the first person to ring the bell at an official ceremony to unveil the cairn.

If you have an opportunity to visit the cemetery and ring this bell, know that you are one of many who have done so over the 100 years in the history of St. Anthony’s church.

Three generations gather at the cairn in 2015 - note the cane and stick for scattering rattlesnakes.

Videos from the Tony Schlachter Oral History Project 2020

Watch a video of Tony ringing the bell!

Tony escapes being an altar boy

The Heitrich funeral at St. Anthony's

More Photos

Interior of the church after 1951 renovation from collection of Jacquie Doran

St. Anthony’s in 1984 by Steve Schlachter

The church and cemetery from Judy and Tony’s Magical Family History Tour 2020

Timelapse photography of the church by Alan Dyer, 2015

Find a Grave - St. Anthony’s Cemetery

Acknowledgements

As always, I am building on the hard work of others who have gone before me. Thank you to Tony Schlachter, Jacquie and Terry Doran, David Schlachter and many others for the research, photos and family history they have shared. Thanks to Richard Schlachter for his help with the oral history project videos! Below are some of the references I used for this blog post.

References

Conquerville: A Growing Community- published by the Conquerville Women's Institute, 1963

History of St. Anthony’s Church - compiled by Anthony Stappler with Elizabeth Hammel

From the Buffalo to the Cross - M. B. Benini Byrne

Winds of Change: A History of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary since 1968 - Norman Knowles

40-Mile County Commentator newspaper

St. Anthony's: Little Church on the Prairie Part I

St. Anthony's Church at Granlea, Alberta, is pictured here in 2020. (Photo: J. Chrystal)

The German Catholic families who settled in the Windy Ridge area of southeast Alberta beginning in 1908 had already faced many challenges establishing homesteads. By 1911 they needed to address another. One of their number had died and they needed a sacred place to bury him. Among the approximately 45 families of this community at the time were Anton and Margaret Schlachter, my 2x grandparents. Religious faith was strong among the Germans from Russia. It undoubtedly held the community together and supported individuals through unthinkable hardship. In 1905, Anton and Margaret had arrived at Ellis Island, New York from a German-Russian community in Romania with children Raphael and Anna. They made their way north through the Dakotas (son Joseph, my grandfather, was born there) and Saskatchewan (son Jacob was born there) before settling on a homestead in Windy Ridge in 1909. In the years before a church could be built, the Schlachters and others would open their homes to the Catholics in the area and a priest from Medicine Hat would come to provide services. That was a fine temporary measure for mass and baptisms, but a burial was a different matter. One of the local families donated five acres of land to get started on the immediate need, and planning began for a church. Anton Schlachter was one of three men elected to a board of directors and, by February 13, 1912, ambitious plans were made to construct a building 26’ X 40’ X 12’ with a 42’ tower. Board and community members raised $159 to begin, $98 of which came from Anton and Margaret. The board decided to name the church after the person who raised the most money and so the first phase of the building, completed in 1912, was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.

The church building was completed in 1912 with sacristy, vestibule, and steeple added in 1916. (Photo: Conquerville A Growing Community 1963)

Information about the planning, fundraising and naming of the church is passed down as oral history and documented in a letter from one of the parishioners to the larger Germans-from-Russia community in the U.S. and even Russia, via a widely-read North Dakota German-language newspaper.

In addition to being written in the German language, the font commonly used was Fractur and it can be tricky to decipher some of the letters. There is a link to the English translation of the full clipping at the bottom of this post.

And then there is the time capsule...

A large crucifix was erected on a concrete base on the east side of the churchyard. My dad, Tony Schlachter, says that his father Joseph had told him the story about a note encased in the base, naming the people involved in erecting it.

Anton Schlachter was a founding member of the church board in 1912 although, because he is not pictured here, may have no longer been a member by 1914. In this picture, the church building did not have the vestibule or steeple yet and a post with the bell stands in the background. Notice the crucifix mounted on a large base directly behind the men. (Photo: Conquerville A Growing Community 1963).

In the 1990s, after the church was no longer in use, the large crucifix was taken down and the concrete base smashed open - to reveal a container with a piece of paper in it! The note was written in German and confirms that Anton Schlachter donated the cross erected in the churchyard in 1915 (there is a discrepancy in the date in the above photo and when the note says the crucifix was erected - perhaps the photo of the board was taken in 1915 or later).  

This note was written in German. See a link a the bottom of this post to read the translation. (Photo from the collection of Jacquie Doran.)

(After the church was closed, the crucifix was re-mounted with an iron cross and relocated to the cemetery. (Photo: J. Chrystal)

Further Reading

Try reading the German-language newspaper clipping!

Read the German-language newspaper clipping English translation

Read the time capsule English translation

READ MORE: St. Anthony's: Little Church on the Prairie Part II!

The Schmidts of Hartfeld, Galicia

Here are my great grandmother Elizabeth Eberwein Schmidt and great grandfather Wilhelm Schmidt standing in front of their house on Bridge Street in Medicine Hat. This little house has been pointed out to me many times while growing up. It is easily recognizable by the distinctive white clapboard and location adjacent to an automobile repair shop.

So, when I was touring family history sites with my Dad this summer, imagine our surprise when we could not find the house. We navigated by urban rockpile, of course, not thinking about the name of the street but not concerned at all that we would not be able to easily reach our destination. "I just saw it last year," I say, remembering the drive past the house after a family trip to the Medalta site. After driving up and down the street several times without success, we were left scratching our heads (as dad would say). Where the heck did it go?

Then we realized it was there - but now clad in beige stucco! I guess it's considered an upgrade?

Four generations in Hartfeld, Galicia

The scant family history I had written down about the Schmidts indicated that Wilhelm was born in "Limbruck, Poland". But when Wilhelm immigrated to Canada with Elizabeth and their eight daughters, he listed his place of birth as Hartfeld. Schmidt is such a common name, I honestly didn't think I would get anywhere with searching for this family history.  

But, thanks to researcher Manfred Daum (again!), I believe Wilhelm's birth may have been registered in Lemberg, aka Lviv, the capital city in a territory known as Galicia (part of which is present-day Ukraine). This would be consistent with Daum's research that places Wilhelm and the previous four generations of our Schmidt family in the nearby German Protestant colony of Hartfeld, Galicia. 

Johan Schmidt and Barbara Huber

Wilhelm's parents were Johann Schmidt and Barbara Huber. I have an amazing original photo of these two. The back of it reads, "1928", the year Wilhelm left for Canada.

Johann was born in 1852 and Barbara in 1859, both in Hartfeld. They married and lived in house number 114 there. 

Four children were born between 1879 and 1885. Shockingly, in the span of 10 days in August, 1886 three of the four children were dead. The cause of death is listed as "Braune" which translates literally to "tan" or "brown". It means diphtheria, a bacterial infection that spreads much the same way that COVID-19 does today. Diphtheria was once one of the major causes of death of children but, yay for vaccines, immunization has virtually eliminated the disease in countries like Canada that began to immunize for this in the 1930s.

Wilhelm was born the year after this, in 1887. At least three siblings were born after that, including Johann (John) who came to Manyberries, Alberta and married Wilhelm's sister-in-law Maria Eberwein.

Other Schmidt family in Canada?

While I don't believe that Johann and Barbara emigrated to Canada, at least one of Johan's brothers (Adam, his wife Christina Klee and their baby Wilhelm) appears to have come in 1892 and settled in Winnipeg. I had not heard anything before about this branch of the family.

I also have seen a photo of someone my mom labelled as "Leopold Schmidt", supposedly a brother to our Wilhelm. Leopold is said to have lived in Germany and so he may have been part of resettlement from Russia after World War II.

Back up the line of Schmidts in Hartfeld is Johann's father Jakob (b. 1823) and his mother Helena Magadalena Vetter (b. 1826); and,  Jakob Sr. (b. 1791-ish) and his wife Maria Margaretha Katharina Johanna Anna Rollauer (b. 1791-ish). Jakob Sr. wins the prize for longevity, dying of "old age" at about 86 years! Wow!  His wife Maria wins the prize for most given names... Maybe she was royalty, ha, ha.

Schmidts in Czech Republic

The furthest back the Daum research from Hartfeld goes is Jakob Sr.'s parents, Kaspar Schmidt (b. 1753-ish) and Elisabetha Margaretha Schwenk (b. 1753-ish).  Kaspar was born in the Bohemian area of Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic (known as Frauenberg in German) and moved to Hartfeld by 1791. Kaspar's birth place is the site of the famous 11-tower Hluboká nad Vltavou Chateau, whose history dates from the 13th century.

And so, I will leave this high-level tour of the Schmidt family for now. I have more information, many more questions, and much more work ahead of me!

Further Reading:

Diphtheria immunization in Canada

Lemberg/Lviv

German Protestant colony of Hartfeld, Galicia

Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic

Hluboká nad Vltavou Chateau

Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma! - Catherine Anne Schile

Holidays are traditional times for families to gather and see one another. My dad explains that as he and his siblings grew up, married and had families of their own, getting together for all the holidays got tricky with travel and in-laws pulling people in different directions. So, each year for at least a couple of decades, grandma Catherine (Schile) hosted Thanksgiving as her time to see all of us together. 

Since this weekend is Thanksgiving, this blog post is for you, Grandma! 

Catherine Anne (Schile) Schlachter

Catherine Schile was the fifth child of nine, born April 22, 1913 to Andrew and Elizabeth (Roth) Schile. She was born on the family homestead north of Foremost. I grew up on a farm south of Bow Island not that far from Foremost but, amazingly, I did not know that Grandma's house was standing there all that time. In fact, it's still there, and this year I went to see it.

Andreas and Elizabeth Schile Homestead NW-18-7-11-W4

I was able to spend a few days with my Dad this past summer, to focus specifically on family history, and we took a full day to drive around in the country. We visited lots of places that are very familiar to me, because it is "home". But then he showed me the house that his mother was born and grew up in. I took this picture from the road, but I wanted to get closer. It was a super hot day on the prairie and, though I was wearing my high rubber boots to guard against rattlesnakes, both Dad and I thought that it would be unwise to walk that far through the rustling wheat. So I will come back another day to get a better feel for the place. I'm still gob smacked that I didn't know this house was there.

Remainder School SE-6-7-11-W4

Catherine attended Remainder School, so-named because it was the last school district in the area to be organized. It was, literally, the remainder. There is Grandma, third from the left, in the second row. Her older brother Paul is sitting in the front row, second from the right. The photo caption indicates it was 1922 and so Catherine would have been eight or nine years old when this was taken. She completed grade eight and, at age 15, her school days were done.

St. Joseph's Cemetery

Directly east of the homestead is St. Joseph's Cemetery. There used to be a church there but that is long gone. The cemetery itself is in the middle of a field because the road allowance is now farmed over with lentils. Fortunately, the day Dad and I visited, the lentils had been harvested low and so we were able to drive closer to the cemetery without risk of starting a fire from the hot car. The cemetery itself was surrounded by tall wheat. I mentioned the rubber boots and the rattle snakes, right? In this case, I was determined to get into that cemetery so I grabbed Dad's cane and swished it ahead of me as I walked, trying very hard to believe that all the rattles I heard were only the ripe wheat.  I made it to the short prairie grass and then, at least, I felt I would have a chance to hear any snake's advance warning.

In this cemetery is the grave of Elizabeth (Roth) Schile, Catherine's mother, who died in 1931 at age 50.

Iron grave markers are common among Germans from Russia and can be found in the Dakotas, as well as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Each maker, usually a local blacksmith, had their own style and level of expertise. Some of these markers are elaborate and some of them are quite simple.

Marriage

Catherine married our Grandpa, Joseph Schlachter, February 9, 1932 in the church of St. Anthony at Granlea. Our family has a long history with this church, and I will be writing an upcoming blog post just about St. Anthony's.

Catherine and Joseph farmed two quarters of land at Granlea and raised seven children there. An infant son, Joseph, is buried at St. Anthony's cemetery.

Catherine and Joseph semi-retired to Bow Island in 1966, the year I was born. So I only remember them living there. Grandma would always welcome me to her round kitchen table with a cold glass of apple juice and the Serenity Prayer looming down from the wall. She was an avid reader and a homebody. I can still taste her apple pie, the crust so flaky. Grandpa would be tinkering with something in the garage or sitting in his easy chair listening to honky tonk piano with headphones on (he was deaf but, if the volume was up way-loud, he could hear the beat). When I slept overnight there in the living room, they would wrap the family clock in a blanket to dull the ticking.

Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa's

The Schlachter families gathered en masse once a year, for Thanksgiving, at that little house in Bow Island. 

This tradition carried on as the extended family grew larger and the house, mysteriously, still seemed to hold everyone. Part of the reason why it held everyone is that all of us kids, the cousins, were outside playing "kick the can" and drinking the case of multi-flavoured Pic-a-Pop that Grandpa bought for us each year. Later on, we'd go down in the basement and listen to the older cousins tell ghost stories or hover around the uncles while they played "smear". The women, of course, were in the kitchen. Every cousin has their own version of what went on at Thanksgiving and I have very fond memories of those times together at Grandpa and Grandma's.

Grandpa passed away in 1984 and Grandma moved to Medicine Hat, living there until her passing in 2010 at 97 years of age.

Family history and photos are collected from various sources, including:

• Jackie Doran scanned collection
• Shortgrass Country - A History of Foremost and Nemiskam
• Ancestry.ca homestead records

Elizabeth Eberwein (Schmidt) was our original Spa Lady

Truskavets, Ukraine, has been known for therapeutic water since the late 1500s and has been an official spa resort since the early 1800s. People still come there for the spas and Google search indicates it is one of the "7 Best Wellness Spots in Ukraine", and very good value :)

This is where the baptism of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein (Schmidt|) was recorded in 1893. In another blog post with a Google Earth map of the Eberwein journey from Germany to Canada, I was not sure if the family had actually lived in Truskavets (Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Galizien, Austria).

But now I am more sure that they lived there, as the family migrated from the German village of Neu Kupnowitz, Galizien, to the German village of Vranovac, Bosnia.

For those tracing family history, finding actual documents to verify information is ideal. I was given the clues to find the baptism record of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein. 

Call me a history nerd, but it was quite a thrill to find see her name written in script on a document.

The headings are written in Latin, so there are clues to figure out what they say, and there are lots of online translator apps. The rest of the document was a bit harder to read, as the written script was not so easy to decipher, and I wanted experts to help. I turned to a Facebook volunteer genealogy translation group for assistance and literally overnight I had the confirmation I was looking for! What a generous community of people online.

Below is the translation and transcription from 09/26/2020 by Carla Ratcliff and Valerie Baginski (Facebook Genealogical Translations group).

Greek Catholic Church records (births, marriages, deaths) for Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Galizien, Austria; later Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Lwów, Poland; now Truskavet︠s︡′, Drohobych, L′viv, Ukraine.

(Note that the baptism is recorded in a Greek Catholic Church, but her religion was Evangelical. Perhaps the Greek Catholic was the only game in town, at the time.)

GreekRecord #593
Year	1893
Month and Day born	26 December 1892
Month and Day baptized	1 January 1893, Evangelical
House Number	#7
Name	Elisabetha
Religion	Evangelical
Illegitimate/legitimate	Legitimate
Confirmation	-
Number of House	7
Name of the Father and Mother	Father: Mathaeus Eberwein, son of Joannes Eberwein and Catharina nee Bisantz Mother: Catharina daughter of Georgius Beszttof? and Maria nee Huget
Condition of the Father and Mother (usually what occupation they had)	Father’s Occupation: peasant _____? In Truskawiec
Name and Condition of the Godparents	Godparents: Ludovicus Issel, blacksmith in Truskawiec, and Theresia Laska, wife of Joannes, resident in Truskawiec

Further reading:

Historical background of Truskavets, with photos 

7 Best Wellness Spots in Ukraine

Elisabetha Eberwein birth and baptism record in FamilySearch

Google Earth: Eberwein Emigration from Germany to Canada

This project traces my grandmother's maternal ancestors, the Eberwein family, from Germany in the 1600s to Canada in 1928.

Google Earth is a pretty cool way to see the world. You can view the whole globe from space or zoom in and feel like you are walking in a forest or down a street.

This is my first Google Earth project and it is a little rough, but it was fun to do and I hope it gives you an overview of one part of our family's emigration journey over time. In time, I hope to add more detail and historical/geographical accuracy. It is a work in progress!

Click to go to the Google Earth Project

Below are a few tips on using Google Earth - note that it can take some time to load:

1. The presentation is like a slide show and you click the right arrow to move to the next part of the presentation.

2. Click the minus sign to zoom out and the plus sign to zoom in.

3. Change the view by clicking on the little person or 3D.

4. Scroll down to read more of the story that goes with the location.

Finding Vranovac, birthplace of Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber

It is Mother's Day 2020 when I write this post, and fitting that I have been able to put together another piece of my mother's family history puzzle. 

My grandmother, Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber pictured above at age 14, was born in "Vranovac, Yugoslavia" in 1914. This location name appears on the ship passenger list and in obituaries of Elizabeth and her sisters, but is elusive on any map I had seen. This is a place that I now have discovered no longer exists as a settlement, but that I have found on a map at last. 

Oral History

Along the way to this discovery I have been guided by clues in oral history. My grandmother always said it was "near Sarajevo"; a Google maps search near Sarajevo shows a mountain named Vranovac; our neighbour Joe Benolich used to say he and Grandma were born in the same country, as Italian borders shifted over time; I find a Vranova in Croatia and a Vranovac in Serbia that are strong contenders.

Germans from Russia

My mother's ancestors were Germans from Russia, so-called Volga Germans that emigrated from Germany to settle around the Volga river. These groups arrived in Russia prior to other groups, like my father's German ancestors that settled near closer to the Black Sea. There is a lot of information about these groups of people and I feel that I have already the basics in hand, learning by osmosis from my father and others over the years. And so I search the internet and find endless lists of German colonies in Russia, spelling variations, census documents, plat maps and photos - but no colonies in the former Yugoslavia and only the most basic clues that a German colony spelled "Vranovac" may have even existed. 

The Search

I dive in to Ancestry.com and pore over FamilySearch online, continually distracted by clues for this topic and others, rabbit holes too numerous and deep to allow a determined focus. I am quickly realizing that there is so much more to learn. 

I purchase memberships to two of the many Germans from Russia historical societies to gain access to their vast holdings. I attend local meetings run with German precision and witness a tense and passionate "bun fight" over the number of book shelves allotted to the society's library by a rival group. I read snippets of history and try to follow the complicated changes in borders as countries won or lost in conflict. I join Facebook groups and search for keywords, monitor posts and learn from others. I am too afraid to post my questions in the groups, as these people are serious genealogists and historians that don't appear to tolerate dabblers. 

And then I see the Daum lists. "The Germany Minority in Former Galicia 1750-1940" includes mention of the colony of Vranovac, and I find my way to sending German researcher Manfred Daum an email to order a custom package of information for the Eberwein surname. Eberwein is my great grandmother Elizabeth Eberwein Schmidt's maiden name. His response and the PDF arrive almost immediately. So many Eberweins were born or lived in a place called Vranovac!  

But, still, where is Vranovac?

A Breakthrough

My big breakthrough comes in the form of another stranger, a man in Germany. Uwe has a large Eberwein family tree online with names and dates going back to the 1600s. One branch of the tree shows promise and includes names that match my ancestors on other family trees I have seen. The tree ends abruptly with the name of my great grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein...  She is the matriarch pictured above looking particularly weary, with her youngest child on her lap. The German family tree shows Elizabeth's birth information but nothing else. The rest of the tree is rich with information, documenting Eberweins back into the 1600s. I am thinking that Uwe knows what she is doing in genealogy and send him an email.

It is months before I receive a reply, and I smile at Uwe's guarded yet direct German phrasing in English, grateful that he has taken the time to respond to a stranger's offer of further information about the Canadian family of Elizabeth Eberwein. He does not seem particularly interested in receiving my information in return but, over the course of several more weeks, Uwe provides me with tantalizing bits to help me, three or four sentences at a time. It is as if he is testing my level of commitment and worthiness to receive the information.

Uwe reveals that he has been to Vranovac in the 1980s in his own search for the Eberwein ancestral village! It is a real place, although no longer a settlement with people in it. He tells me that he saw only a forgotten cemetery with just a few neglected gravestones and he does not send me any photos. Eventually, he provides me with an old map and I see the dot on it that makes everything else fall into place for me. And then she gives me directions for finding the present-day area on Google Earth.

Vranovac

Vranovac was a government-sponsored German colony established in 1895 in a heavily forested area. There were 20 founding families, among them three Eberwein families that include my great grandmother's. My grandmother, Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber was born there.  

Vranovac was situated between Johova and Tukljucani, by the Una river in present-day Bosnia. The location is nearly on the country's northern border with Croatia and is actually quite far from Sarajevo, although I can see why my grandmother would use that large city's reference as a close-enough landmark for us to visualize. 

The administrative centre for Vranovac was, and still is, Banja Luka where the Eberwein-Schmidt family obtained their passport in 1928. The photo of the family above is, in fact, their passport photo and you can see the outlines of two official stamps on each of the bottom corners.

Below is part of the old map, provided to me by Uwe from Germany. The dot of Vranovac is highlighted in yellow:

Below is a 2011 map, from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, showing the area where Vranovac was located, highlighted in yellow:

Next Up on the Blog... Google Earth

My next post in this family history blog will feature my Google Earth project showing more detail about the landscape around Vranovac. The Google Earth project link will show other areas as well, tracing the Eberwein family emigration over generations: from Germany in the 1600s to Russia by the late 1700s, Yugoslavia/Bosnia by the early 1900s and Canada by 1928.