the Geppert family and associates

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 19

Here's a rare group portrait reuniting all three kids from the Dörndorf bakery (Silesia) and their mother as well. But I have no idea who the other people are. Nor where the location is:

So we recognise first from left, young Willi Geppert, then his sisters Hedwig (third from left) and Emma (5th). Their mother Martha Scholz standing between the sisters. The guy on the right occurs in a few photos with Willi (eg here) but I have no idea who he is, could be a cousin? I'm assuming that the woman next to him and the three children are his family but that's just a guess.

As I noted before, Martha in the middle was quite short (147cm) so unless they propped her up, nobody in this photo is taller than 160 cm.

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 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business
18. a lovely hat
19. the Geppert family and associates

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

stop plastic pollution

I have written a few features already about the rising tide of plastic waste engulfing our planet. What's new this time is that the microplastics have actually arrived in our bodies and are causing harm to humans not just the environment, and that a global effort is underway to do something about it. So let's hope that this will be a success story like the Montreal protocol, not a 30-year tragedy like the climate summits.

The feature is out now:

Can we end plastic pollution?

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 8, 22 April 2024, Pages R301-R303

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

Microplastics are now ubiquitous. They have entered the food chain and thus the human body, where they may increase disease risks. (Photo: The 5 Gyres Institute (CC BY 4.0 Deed).)

the art of alchemy

Alchemy is of course a fascinating subject but also a frustrating one, and I always end up dazed and confused when I try to get into the mindset of the old alchemists. The medieval imagery connected with it, showing alchemists at work, their lab glassware, or their allegorical concepts of the world, may be somewhat more accessible, so I took the opportunity to read and review the book

Art of Alchemy: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Wunderkammer)
by David Brafman

which contains equal amounts of glorious images and almost comprehensible text. Now I'm still confused, but at least I have another beautiful book on my shelf.

More about my struggles with alchemy in my long essay review now out:

Alchemy in pictures

Chemistry & Industry Volume 88, Issue 4, April 2024, Page 35

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

As always, I'm happy to send a PDF on request.

Blackwells

a lovely hat

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 18

I love the hat that Richard the young chemist is wearing in some photos from his student days (or possibly teacher in training, but we're definitely looking at his 20s here), so here comes the official hat appreciation post, first Richard on his own with the hat in question:

I'm getting the impression this is his first adult hat and he chose it half a size too large hoping he'd grow into it? Next we have a photo with his parents (Heinrich the cellist and Maria), also suitably covered:

And then a family gathering that is slightly remote. Maria's mother had died very young and when her father (Heinrich Pfersching) remarried, the new wife also brought a daughter called Maria into the family. That Maria from the other side married a man called Anton Fritz and had two daughters called Maria (again) and Ilse, both born before 1926. All of these "Fritzes" appear in this photo:

Next to Richard and his hat we have the younger Maria and Ilse in front of them. Then to the left Anton and then Maria senior and, I presume, Anna who is a half-sister to both Marias in the older generation.

Note that in 1918/19, after being evicted from Lorraine, 9-year-old Richard and his mother moved in with Heinrich Pfersching's patchwork family for half a year or so, before moving on to Elberfeld. This may explain why he remained close with his relatives in Bruchsal, even though the generations are misaligned - his aunt and uncles are not much older than him and his cousins a lot younger.

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 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business
18. a lovely hat

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

gaudeamus igitur

In last week's Every picture story I mentioned the songbook that I inherited from my great aunt Esther. I am not sure whether the Hermann Bender who signed it was the confectioner or some eponymous stranger. The confectioner's wife, Henriette Düselmann was Esther's great aunt. (Is there a technical term for my great aunt's great aunt?)

I took photos years ago and must have shared them on my tumblr book blog (deleted by the Inquisition) but forgot to put them here. So here goes (with a fresh photo of the outside of the book):

Note the biernagels (beer nails) - the book is made to be used on drunken nights in unruly taverns, so these metal bumps are there to keep it safe from drink spills. The text on the cover is from a student song and translates as "Let's have fun while we are young." The song is called De brevitate vitae (on the shortness of life) and is entirely in Latin. (Video with text). I thought it was just a quaint old German thing, but Wikipedia tells me it is today widely used as an anthem of educational institutions of all sorts.

It is the 43rd edition of Schauenburgs allgemeines Deutsches Kommersbuch. The excellent Wikipedia entry seems to suggest that it must be from 1891-1893, as these years are documented for the 42nd and the 44th edition, respectively. Wikipedia also lists the multiple subtle changes made to the frontispiece over the years, so here's my version:

the inscription on the left says somebody used it as a guest of the Tueskonia on May 2nd 1896. The closest match I can find is the Tuiskonia in Munich. I'm not clear about the signature, will have another think on that. In any case it could be a nickname. Below it says "Pension Grenzland" - today there is a B&B of that name in Bad Brambach, on the Czech border, near Hof, Bavaria. Not very close to Munich though.

And here we have the beautiful signature of Hermann Bender, who may or may not be the confectioner. He also signed in pencil on the dark paper facing the inside of the cover, but that one is hard to see and not as beautiful.

From the Wikipedia entry I also learned just now that these two mostly illegible handwritten pages shown below are not specific to my copy. (It had always confused me that this seems to be dated 1858 while the book was printed much later, it contains references to events in the 1880s.) Turns out the original authors dedicated the first edition to the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt (see the printed text above right and below left), and it's his reply that was included in later editions as a facsimile. So, phew, I don't have to decipher that.

menopausal mammals

I knew about orca females enjoying a post-reproductive lifespan (ie going through menopause), but in recent years the number of non-human mammalian species doing this has grown to five, and all of them are toothed whales, which is intriguing. So I took a new paper on the evolution of this trait in whales as an occasion to write about the menopause of whales an women. (I recently had Of elephants and men, so I'd better give poor old John Steinbeck a rest now.)

The feature is out now:

Of whales and women

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 7, 8 April 2024, Pages R261-R263

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) typically spend their lifetime in family groups led by a matriarch. (Photo: Courtesy of Dr Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR (CC BY 2.0 Deed).)

a confectioner's business

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 17

last update: 11.4.2024

Let's go back to the Krefeld Clan - the 13 children of silk weaver Wilhelm Düselmann and Elisabetha de la Strada who married in 1826 and agreed to bring up the boys protestants (like their father) and the girls catholics (like their mother).

Of the 13 children, we have seen child number 7 Karl the foreman (and father of enterprising Julius) and child number 10 August the fireman (and father of adventurous Walter).

I don't think I have any photos of any of the other 11, so if any of the hundreds of descendants out there would like to share some I'd be very grateful.

What I do have though is the husband and three children of child number 9, Henriette Düselmann, who was born in 1843.

In 1863 she married confectioner (Conditor und Zuckerbäcker) Joseph Hermann Bender (born 1840). He has a database entry here, where funnily enough only the sons are listed, whereas all the info on descendants I have concerns two of the three daughters of the couple. Anyhow, here's the confectioner in around 1895 with his son Nicolas, left, both daughters, and an employee called Nik (or possibly Josef Hermann's brother Nicolaus - I have contradictory infos on this?!):

Firstborn child Gertrud married Wilhelm Heinrich Habrich; Josefine married Wilhelm Max Holler (brother of the painter Alfred Holler), shown here:

Each had four children, so the complete set of eight born between 1902 and 1912 is here (maybe around 1915 judging by the size of the youngest standing on the bench?):

And this is a wider family gathering for Pentecost (Whitsun) 1926

Here we have the confectioner's daughters Gertrud (2nd from left) and Josefine (3rd). Far left is Gertrud's husband, Wilhelm Heinrich Habrich. Josefine's husband, Wilhelm Max Holler, is the 6th from left. On either side of him two Holler children, and on the right of the picture four Habrich children lined up.

Open questions: The woman fourth from left is unidentified according to my source, but given the symmetry of the picture with three sisters ligned up on the right, I am tempted to speculate it could be the third daughter of the confectioner, Klara Bender, see below? Trouble is we don't know much about Klara. The 8th person is named as Adolf Peters. We don't know anything about him but note that the grandmother of Gertrud and Josefine, Elisabetha de la Strada, had a brother who married a Gertraud Peters, so there could be a remote family link.

In the ancient Krefeld Clan blog entry I had two other children of Henriette and the confectioner (in addition to Gertrud and Josephine):

9.3. Nicolas Joseph Bender * 22.4.1864 Krefeld

9.4. Klara Bender * Krefeld

Digging up some old correspondence I find that Nicolas moved to Berlin and Klara was severely injured in an accident with a horse carriage.

The database entry reveals a second son I didn't know of:

Heinrich Bender * 30.10.1871

But it shows no marriage or offspring for either of the sons.

So I had the sibling order all wrong,it should be:

1. Nicolas Joseph Bender * 1864
2. Gertrud * 1870
3. Heinrich Bender * 1871
4. Josefine * 1881

And we still don't know where Klara fits in - the biggest gap to accommodate her would be before Josefine.

Another mystery that's possibly related: I have a 19th century student song book signed Hermann Bender, inherited from Esther the travelling saleswoman who came from the Krefeld clan, so it could be an heirloom linked to the old confectioner, but then again she also bought antiquarian books, so it could be a coincidence. Will have to do a separate entry on that at some point (UPDATE: done now).

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 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

a Russian winter

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 16

During the first half of World War II, Peter the customs officer was lucky in that his work was deemed essential and he wasn't called up. Also, he was 39 years old at the start of the war, so not among the first to be considered. In 1939, he had been promoted and moved to Idar-Oberstein, just after the birth of his third (and last) daughter. We saw him with all three here.

In mid-1942, however, his luck ran out and he was called up as a Feldwebel (sergeant). At the beginning of October he was sent to the northern part of the Russian front, so I assume that's where these wintry photos were taken:

In his letters he mentions that he served as an adjutant (ie doing clerical work for the commander) which seems to fit with the letters "adj" above his head in the picture above. He also mentions they built a "villa" which could be the building shown.

During that winter, the battle of Stalingrad happened further south, so I guess it was relatively lucky still to be sent to the northern part of the front where events were less dramatic and large swamps limited the mobility of the opposing armies during the warmer seasons.

I only have like half a dozen photos of him in active service - thankfully none of them feature any weapons or military activity, so might share the other three (similar but no snow!) at some point too. Which will probably be the last we see of him.

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 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

the dangers of migrating

Many of us may envy the birds that migrate to warmer climate zones in winter. We may even naively assume that their expertise in long-haul travel may enable them to get out of harm's way when they face difficulties such as habitat loss and climate change. In reality, though, they are often more vulnerable than other comparable species, as they depend not on one habitat but on two, and on a safe passage between the two. Recognising these dangers, the UN set up the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a global treaty that came into force in 1979 and holds regular COP meetings to check up on them. At the most recent meeting a global report was released that shows how the situation has become more difficult for many of the migrating species.

Starting from this report, I have prepared a feature on the conservation of migratory species which is out now:

Migratory species in danger

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 6, 25 March 2024, Pages R217-R219

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication) (ScienceDirect link as the CB website isn't working at the moment. May even be open on that site, not sure if that's the magic link speaking which also goes via science direct.)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

The Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis, Endangered) is among the globally threatened or near threatened migratory species not yet listed in the CMS Appendices. (Photo: Mike Prince/Flickr (CC BY 2.0 Deed).)

two bass recorders

Just two days after I posted about the recorder family, a long-awaited email came in telling me that the two recorders I had ordered back in September were now ready for delivery. As I love my Triebert alto, I had ordered the Triebert bass as a birthday treat and the garklein to complete the size range at the smaller end. And in February, as I was losing faith in that delivery ever arriving, I found the Thomann bass for € 70 at a fleamarket in Germany.

So now I have two bass recorders to compare, and the funny thing is they are externally identical (apart from the two-colour scheme in the Thomann while the Triebert is all matt black), clearly molded from the same cast (or whatever the process is to make plastic recorders) but a few details reveal that the Triebert may be getting a better quality control treatment.

• The keys are very flimsy and noisy on the Thomann, which Sarah Jeffery also criticised in her review, and blamed on the plastic material. Funny thing is, the keys on the Triebert are the same plastic in the same shape, and they are much firmer to the touch and consequently don't make that horrid noise when they're released. Peering underneath I notice a subtle difference in the metal spring: straight for the Thomann, kinked in the Triebert. So at some point I will take the Thomann keys apart and see if it helps if I make the springs more kinky.
• The joints are fitting perfectly in the Triebert. In the Thomann, the first joint from bottom is a bit tight, the second a bit loose, an the one near the kink (which can stay connected for packing up but is needed to access all places for cleaning) was so tight that I first believed it was glued together and didn't dare to force it open. Only after I saw that the Triebert came apart effortlessly at this joint did I manage to do the same with the Thomann.

Both are really easy to play and sound nice and breezy. You could use them for meditation like a didgeridoo just blowing the bottom F.

As Sarah has explained in her video, the tuning around B and Bb doesn't work with the standard fingering printed on the sheet that comes with the instrument (but funnily enough doesn't even mention the existence of bass recorders, it is marked for sopranino through to tenor!), but this can be compensated with clever fingering (eg no little finger for the Bb). Both come with identical accessories, only that each company had its brand name printed on the bag. Which I find hilarious as it shows each screaming "we made this" when clearly they didn't. I also note that both instruments came with a cleaning rod that is the size used for tenor recorders and concert flutes (it has the mark that you need for adjusting the cork on the flute). A slightly longer stick would be handy for the bass. Another DIY project I guess.

Oh and I could in principle assemble a vast number of hybrid instruments from the different parts, although for the aesthetic I do prefer the all black style of the Triebert.

So in summary, online shop prices are a factor 2.6 apart (£ 105 vs £ 275) and what you get for the higher price is a slightly better quality, but maybe not 2.6 times better? Note that the Yamaha YRB302II Bass Recorder is available at an intermediate price between these two, but by the looks of the photos online I guess it may also come from the same factory as these two?

And here's the updated family portrait, now including all recorders (except one ancient school soprano that has gone missing years ago but must be in the house somewhere):

Basses: Thomann, Triebert; tenor: Yamaha; altos: Triebert, Moeck; sopranos: Moeck, Schneider; sopranino: Yamaha; garklein: Triebert - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, Triebert bass and garklein from the Early Music Shop, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, except my old school recorder and the Moeck alto in German fingering.

PS When I took the Thomann bass to a session earlier this month, a folkie friend told me she currently has three bass recorders to sell - these things are like London buses ...

PPS I've now added the all instruments tags to this entry - think I'm giving up on the formal structure of that series (which portrayed the oldest 21 instruments of our household in chronological order until Covid came along) and will now add instruments if and when I feel inspired to write about them. More exciting to write about the new arrivals than about the yamaha keyboard I bought twenty years ago. I've now also added the tag to the entries about Jenny the cello and two of the rescue fiddles I adopted.

more grandchildren

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 15
(season 3 now carrying on after a break due to the 100 years of cellotude series):

We have seen Frieda the pianist as a grandmother with the first three children of her oldest daughter here, but there were more grandchildren to come. A total of six were born in her lifetime, and another three (including me) postumously. Among the six she knew I am struggling to tell the four boys apart (their fathers were also brothers, and they were very close in age), so I'm hoping that I've captured everybody with the pictures below. First a series of three with Frieda stuck on the same chair while various children crawl on and off her:

By the way I haven't figured out where this is - will report back on that.

And here's some outdoor fun by the fire, although I'm not sure Frieda is enjoying it as much as everybody else.

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 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

vintage postcards

I got a bit obsessed with vintage postcards when I researched my lost cities series, and word got out, so a generous Santa helped me build a collection of beautiful books with such postcards, covering some of the lost cities and some others too:

The books typically date from the late 1970s, but those of the two cities that are no longer part of Germany (Breslau and Königsberg) date from the 1990s. Hence they all qualify for my much-neglected antiquarian tag. I still haven't quite figured out the rules predicting which places got into the series and which didn't. Regensburg, for instance, didn't make it. There may be an element of luck in that too.