Frankenmuth, Michigan

We met up with my brother Wayne and his wife Mary Jo last Wednesday at a trailer park in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  My sister Linda drove in from Missouri on Friday.  John and I have been busy visiting with them and catching up with their latest news.  We have also experienced the heat which the rest of the country has been suffering under for some time now.  Friday was our worse day when the temperature came close to one hundred degrees.  That day we could only occasionally venture outside, the rest of the time we stayed inside our motor home with the air conditioning running constantly.  Saturday we spent canoeing on the Rifle River with our nephew Andy and his family.  The skies were a bit overcast then, which kept the temperature down.  It would have been very pleasant on the water had it not been for the large groups of rafters on the water.  In all of our canoe trips in Missouri we had never experienced anything like it.   Many of  the people on the river were young adults who were partying hardy with alcohol and loud music.  At one spot in the river there was even a live band playing high up on a river bluff.   However, that day we did stay cool.  On Sunday we attended the Hensler Family Reunion, which was the main reason we are staying in the area. The site of the reunion is at the church grounds of Amelith Lutheran Church.  It has a parochial school where my grandfather, Waldemar Lohrmann,  taught for 38 years.  He and his wife Anna are buried in the church cemetery.   I always enjoy attending the Hensler reunion, not only to see aunts, uncles and cousins again, but also to see sites related to family history.  After the reunion my sister and brother, as well as myself,  continued our usual tradition of visiting the Hensler family home and farm.  The home has had many changes to it since my mother lived in it about 100 years ago

 The farmstead has the distinction of being a Michigan Centennial Farm, as it is over 100 years old and owned by the same family.  It has been owned and operated by the family of my mother's brother Jack after their Dad died.

I have written before on this blog site about the town of Frankenmuth.  Just as a matter of review, it is a town which has kept its Bavarian heritage.  It is a very picturesque town with the presence of the Cass River and a covered bridge over the river. Another famous feature of the town is a 35 automatic carillon in the Bavarian Inn's Glockenspiel Tower which plays selected melodies followed by a presentation of carved wooden figures depicting the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  Sunday evening we enjoyed a stroll through the town and along the Cass River.  Pictured below is the Bavarian Inn, one of many places in the town which has kept the Old World atmosphere.  Frankenmuth is one of the top tourist destinations  in Michigan.