the four from the farm

Every picture tells a story, season 2, picture 36:

We've seen Hedwig and her siblings as children and reunited as young adults, but I don't think we have any such pictures of her husband Paul Gellrich and his siblings who grew up on the Gellrich farm in Olbersdorf (which later became Groß-Olbersdorf). The closest we have is the group photo of Maria Gellrich's wedding which shows three of the four.

So let's introduce them separately in order of birth:

Josef (Seffe) born 1905

Seffe had a learning disability and could never live independently, but by keeping a low profile on his parents' farm he managed to get through the Nazi era without coming to harm. The photo above is cut out of the group photo taken at Maria's wedding. We don't have any other photos of him from the time in Silesia.

Here's a snap from his later life when he lived in an institution in Western Germany:

Dated 1981, this one is really outside the time range I normally consider for this series and I took the colours out of it, but along with a second snap of the same occasion it's all we have. He does look in good form for a 76 year old though.

Paul born 1910

He was the one missing on Maria's wedding photo (although present at that other wedding), but we have seen him previously on the occasion of his own wedding to Hedwig. Not many other photos of him apart from the wartime ones in uniform.

Maria (Mike) born 1914

Not many photos of her either, but I like the garden setting here.

Hedwig born 1917

We've seen her with her daughter Waltraud as the third Hedwig here (because she shared the name with both her mother and her sister-in-law).

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 2 so far:

1. could be a cousin
2. two weddings in Silesia
3. off to Canada
4. off to Australia
5. a very romantic poet
6. fireman August
7. 50 hundredweight of coffee
8. mysterious Minden people
9. horses for Hedwig
10. guessing the great-grandmothers
11. cousin Charlotte
12. three sisters
13. travelling saleswoman
14. family portrait
15. dancing chemist
16. games time
17. desperately searching Wilhelm
18. the third Hedwig
19. patchwork portraits
20. missing brothers
21. the oberlehrer's family
22. a double wedding
23. mystery solved
24. young Frieda
25. old aunts and young children
26. a semi-mysterious aunt
27. a gathering at Gellrichs
28. farm work at Bad Landeck
29. meet the Weitze family
30. a post-war wedding
31. the joy of chemistry
32. the joy of botany
33. becoming Frieda
34. becoming Peter
35. bakery kids united
36. the four from the farm

I started a twitter thread for season 2 here. However, as the bird site seems to be turning into an evil empire, I have now switched to logging the entries in a similar thread on Mastodon.

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. It only loads 30 tweets at first, so you have to click "show more" a couple of times to get all 40 entries. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

I'm also adding all photos from this series to my family history album on flickr.