Biedler Covered Bridge-Tenth Legion, VA

My Biedler Family Newsletter from the 1990s

This issue was about my grandfather's only full-blood Biedler/Stover 

paternal uncle, Daniel Ulrich Biedler 

of New Market / Tenth Legion / Rockingham County, Virginia.

The Daniel Ulrich Family Bible

The Biedler/Beidler of PA and Virginia originally came from 

Oberdeisbach / Heimenschwand, Switzerland. 

Gary and I were fortunate to be sent to Switzerland 10 times on business in the 1990s and were able to visit the area many times. We were also able to take all three of our children back plus the first two grandsons when they were each less than 2 years old.  So many parts of Switzerland in this area reminded me of the views in Page Valley

Old Photos & Films Discovered!

So great to finally meet the daughter of my youngest sister, Dawn Biedler Kieper. (Dawn is the age of my only son). Her only daughter (my niece Lindsay) looks amazingly like her maternal grandmother. 

It was great to see Dawn's son Alex again, too.  I had never met Lindsay and hadn't seen Alex since 2008 when we held Dad's memorial in the Shenandoah Valley. Lindsay and Alex are both very sharp kids!  Alex patiently taught me how to play one of his video games but I moved the stick like a rank amateur and bounced along the hallways of the game like a drunken sailor slowing Alex down! Poor Alex. 

Lindsay and I sketched and swapped art and wrote a note to each other. I treasure that piece of paper! (Unfortuantely, something leaked on it before I got it safely home!) Maybe in another lifetime I will render it in needle and thread. I love to dream about stitching it in a form of embroidery we call redwork, Lindsay, but don't hold your breath!

This visit was also a great opportunity to get to know Dawn’s husband Greg as well. We had met only once before, I think (!) and that was at Dad’s memorial in March 2008.  Although he knew Dad only in his declining years, he enjoyed talking about Dad’s love for working with his hands and also his enjoyment of his small tractor that he so lovingly cared for all the years he owned it. Greg now has the tractor but it  suddenly died on him. He says he is capable of repairing it but doesn’t know if it is financially worth the effort. But again, because he knows how much this small tractor meant to Dad, he is very reluctant to sell it. 

Autographed Book

Greg also shared a book and movie with me about Homer Hickman.  The book  "October Sky" had belonged to Dad. LOVED the movie and hope to read the book! 

Dad apparently had gone to a book signing somewhere and met Hickman in the late 1990s. They were both from small towns in West Virginia, Dad from Princeton, WVA --where my grandfather was a railroad station master-- and Homer from Coalwood, WVA, where his father was a mine supervisor.

October Sky is a 1999 biographical film directed by Joe Johnston, based on the true story of Homer H. Hickam, Jr., a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes and eventually became a NASA engineer. My father-in-law (Loren J. Alexander) was probably well aware of Hickman at some point in his career since Loren worked at Boeing and supervised one of the booster stages of the Saturn program, working under Werner Von Braun in Huntsville, AL, for one year.

Talk about Memories!

Greg surprised me with a box of very old slides. This is the piece of newspaper used in packing the slides dated July 28, 1964. Six days from now this will represent the passage of 52 years! 

1964-1965 I was at Kent State University

How can 52 years have gone by since I returned from Tanzania and began attending Kent State University! (Click here to read some of that story in a post on my Quilt History Reports blog.) You can also click here to read about one of the projects I was involved in at KSU, in addition to being appointed to an empty position on the KSU Student Council when I returned from Africa because the newly elected Student Body President (Craig Stephens) saw me in the Registration line. Since Craig knew both Dad and my older sister (Mary), I guess he thought I was a safe bet to appoint me to the empty slot on the Student Senate . This was the Student Body President's responsibility if and when one of the student senators wasn't returning to college.) 

As a result of finding a small notebook from my KSU college days also in this box, I went internet surfing before I began writing this post. Here are a few photos and links I came up with about the group that I hung out with my 4 quarters at KSU.

Richard Curry (below) became a good friend while I was at KSU, as did all the members of the LUNA steering committee mentioned in this article.  Wonder where they all are today and what they are up to? I have a scrapbook somewhere of our activities. LUNA hosted a number of UN Delegates and Ambassadorial representatives from Washington D.C. as well as the CBS anchor Harry Reasoner. I was assigned to shepard the Tunisian ambassador Rachid Driss, among others, about campus and was invited by Richard Curry to have dinner with Harry Reasoner, along with two other LUNA members. Very fun times in my life!

Emmanuel Obe, Head of the Nigerian embassy in Washington, was also one of our guests. (Click on his name to go to the original article published in 1965.) It is very interesting to remind myself of the content of his talk at LUNA given all the water under the dam since 1965. Change is so incremental sometimes!

What!  Old Movie Reels Found Too!

 There are also about a dozen movie reels Greg had found among their stuff when they moved from Virginia to Indiana in March. Everything is from our years with Mom & Dad in The Philippines, plus our 1960  2 ½ month trip across Asia and Europe, and also our year with them in Tanzania in 1963-64!! (He was there teaching September 1962 thru early January 1966.)

Can’t wait to take it to a photographer friend here on the island and get some advice about how to check it all out and get it all transferred to digital disks! 

Dad's Old Zeiss

Greg also gave me the special camera Dad bought in preparation for our move to The Philippines. The camera is a  Zeis Ikon and has a Tessar 1:28F 50mm Carl Zeiss Lens on it. 

I am not sure where he bought it but it is German made. It even has a role of film still in it. 

I made an appointment with photographer Steve Horn today. Steve lives here on Lopez and is going to take a look at the slides and rolls of exposed film and advise me as to how best to view all of the many negatives so that I can determine what is worth getting digitalized.

Old Calendars Can be so Charming

The box also contained odds and ends of paper ephemera including two calendars dated 1944, my birth year, and one dated 1947, my brother John's birth year.

A wonderful old PA Dutch Cigar box, too, full of exposed film.

Here is an old print also found in the box. The black woman looks like she has a needle and thread in one hand. I am guessing she is reading the cards lying on the tray in her lap while the other two ladies look on with anticipation and expectation.  But what is she making with that needle and thread? My guess is a quilt….of course!       (GRIN)

Stay tuned! More to come!