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Victoria's avatar

This was lovely and such a wonderful connection to your great grandfather. I love hearing people’s memories of their family members and this was really special. 🥰

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you, Victoria, I'm glad you loved it! 🥰 Memories of family members, especially when long gone, are dear to me too. As long as we remember they are not *really* gone. It's also interesting and lovely to think and feel what of them runs through my own veins, where do I come frome. And than there's the history aspect. As a teenager I got interested in genealogical research and I found it really interesting to explore where my ancestors came from, what they did for a living, how they lived. All rather small lives, of course, nothing fancy, but so interesting nontheless to put pieces together.

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Victoria's avatar

As ever, we are so similar! I agree with every word of this. I’m so interested in where we come from and what parts of me have I inherited from people I never met? It’s the thing that makes me saddest about not having kids - all of that history will die with me. Sort of an existential crisis, if you will! 😂 I come from a long line of small lives too but I agree, small does not mean they are not meaningful.

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

It's so lovely to discover how similar we are! It makes me truly happy that we've met here. ☺️ I know what you mean with "all that history will die with me", it's a strange feeling and a sad thought knowing the long line comes to an end with us. But our lives are still important, and the fact that we are here in this world is wonderful, just in itself. 💗

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Victoria's avatar

It makes me really happy too. ☺️ Completely agree; we’re so lucky to have the time we have.

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David Barton's avatar

Wonderful memories ✨ We were very privileged to have known people born pre-1900 🙏

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you for reading, David! Yes, we were, so very different times then, difficult to imagine nowadays. It gives life another perspective, I think. ✨

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Saved by Grace's avatar

What a lovely family 'story' Claudia. You were lucky to have that influence in your early life. I've collected 2 lots of elderflower recently and made elderflower cordial...it's delicious in sparking water 😋

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you, Karen! ✨ Oh, that sounds lovely, I haven't tried that before. Maybe I should ... 😇😋

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Saved by Grace's avatar

It's so easy to make Claudia. I only make a half recipe (it makes approx 1.5 litres) with 10 heads of elderflower. It's ready in 24 hours and really yummy 😋

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

That sounds manageable - even for me! 😊 Thanks, Karen!

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Lani V. Cox's avatar

You are so lucky to have known your great grandfather. What a lovely blessing and memory. Thank you for sharing it! 💖🌺🌷

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you for reading, Lani! ✨ It's a blessing to have known one pair of my great-grandparents. To see where I come from, having a connection from my own memories. My ancestors were mainly pretty much rooted in the town where I grew up and live now and the villages around. No travellers or adventure-seekers. 😄 As a young person I found it quite boring, but later in life and now living inthe same town again, walking the same streets, having so many memory connections to houses and other places because I know the people who came before me and especially my ancestors, it has become a special place and one of great bond. Maybe it's that what they say about roots.

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Hilda Scheenstra's avatar

Such a beautiful and rich memory! I can imagine you feel so connected to him ❤️

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thanks Hilda! 🩷

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Dana—The Grounding Guide's avatar

Claudia, thank you for sharing this beautiful memory. Ancestral lineage is truly special 🙏 Your great-grandfather’s deep connection to nature and the coin superstition felt so touching and full of meaning. I love how rituals like that can give us a sense of protection, continuity, even hope. And being from a different time is so precious. When I started nursing in my teens, I was honoured to care for people born in the 19th century, and their wisdom has stayed with me ever since 💖

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you for reading, Dana! I'm so glad that my post resonated with you and that you also have special memories about people born so long ago at a time young people can hardly imagine now. 💕

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Sophie S.'s avatar

What a beautiful memory. 1899 I can't even imagine just how different that time must've been for your grandfather!

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Hannah's avatar

This was lovely to read, thank you for sharing! It’s so nice and grounding to hear stories of people living close to nature, and of course it’s even more amazing when they’re your own relatives!

Also, it really made me laugh that the cow was called "König."

I never met my great-grandparents, but my grandfather had a close connection with nature as well - not because it was some kind of hobby, but because it was just normal to him, having grown up in a rural environment. I still regret that I didn’t talk to him about it more.

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thanks, Hannah! I can relate to what you are saying about regretting that you didn't talk to him about it more. But if it's similar to my own experiences, it was just normal, so you wouldn't talk about it, you wouldn't see the need at the time, it was normal life - at least for them. You wouldn't probably know that it would be special or important one day. I didn't talk to my great-grandfather (or my grandparents) about it either, it's only memories. It was their normal life, it was where they came from, but it was a rather tough life too, and rural life was nothing they wished for me or expected me to live, on the contrary. I was the first one ever in my family to visit "grammar school", pass my "A-Levels", go to university, leave it with an exam. And as you know, I didn't follow up on my earlier career aspirations on becoming a vet. ;-) For you, of course, I may be entirely different, you stayed a lot closer to nature than I did.

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Hannah's avatar

Yes, totally... I didn't realise at all that it would become important one day (and neither did the rest of my family). My grandfather sometimes did actively try to show me plants (and was kind of shocked I didn't know any), but at the time I just was not interested, even when I got into biology - I was interested in completely different aspects of it. I guess sometimes the timing just doesn't match.

But at least we both have some good memories! (And probably this conversation was also only a distant memory for you, as I am replying so slowly, haha! I am visiting family for a few weeks - quite matching the theme...)

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