Family Ties- A Very Special Episode

After arrving back in Chur I went to book a ticket to Sufers, the ticket agents were intrigued with my story and grabbed my paper work and started searching on the internet. They couldn’t find Margrith, but they did tell me exactly where I should go for the restaurant. I wasn’t sure if I should book the ticket back after two hours or three hours. I decided to go for three hours. When I arrived in Sufers, it was even tinier than Tamins and up much further in the mountains and filled with snow and overlooking a crystal clear glacier lake. Obviously a skiers dream, and there was even a hotel with the restaurant. It took me about 10 minutes to check out the town and I headed to the restaurant. I sat down and asked the woman if she knew Margrith. Sadly, Margrith passed some years ago. I asked if Margrith had any children that were still there and explained to her that I thought Margrith may be my family. She mentioned her daughter, Annalis, but she didn’t speak English, so she’d be no help. Um, that’s kind of not the point. There were only two other people in the restaurant, so she was not busy, so I kept asking her questions- I had three hours to kill. She finally called the daughter, Annalise, who didn’t seem too interested. Then Paula would call with another question and the more we dug, the more interseting it became. Annalis was calling with new questions and information as frequently as Paula was calling her. There was one conversation where Paula I think was telling her not to bother coming because I only spoke English (which kind of bummed me out). And one huge conversation while Paula told Annalis that Anna had gone to Africa. She was not as interested to hear that Anna had became a very wealthy and respected woman in her community in MN.

Her English was very limited, and we spoke with charades and pictionary a lot. At one point, Paual saw the incrspiction I had written down from one of the headstones and I asked her what it said. She said God, then looked frustrated, and grabbed a pen to draw a stick figure with a hat, and a sheep, to which I exclaimed, “The lord is my shepard and I shall not want”. We had a good fit of giggles over that one. The more we dug into it, the more exciting it became for both of us, and she pulled out a phone book to start calling people.

Finally Paula pantomines that Anna had been pregnant and was forced to leave Switzerland. During one of the phone calls she wrote down “Von Werdenberg”, and I immediately knew this was the name of the baby’s daddy, of course seeing the Von, I also knew what that meant. Von signifies higher class, or “Lords” of the area. Anna got knocked up by the local gentry’s son, and instead of him taking any responsibility, just let her get kicked out of the village to fend for herself. All of these years of questioning Anna’s story, we now had a reason for the unexplainable beginning.

But what surprised me even more, Annalis was not a descendent of one of Anna’s siblings, but rather Anna’s first child that was left behind in Switzerland to be raised by her mother while she was shunned. I asked Paula what they did with unwed mothers at that time, she was ashamed when she said, they were just kicked out with any money or resources. She was quick to add that they no longer did that today.
So this explains, why Anna traveled throughout Europe and Africa frequenting mining towns. She was a 16 year old girl in the 1860’s with no family, and no resources, she did what she had to do. But she never let it stop her from anything. Family stories paint her as a woman of taste, beauty, refinement, determination, culture and intellegence, she also learned eight languages. She probably didn’t have these traits in Tamins, as the daughter of a cobbler who had died when she was young and must have learned them through the trials she endured. I have to say I’m very proud to have such a strong woman in my lineage. I’m also really proud that I come from a country that no matter who you were, or what you came from you could reinvent yourself so completely with no prejudices. I’m sure if she hadn’t been kicked out she would have continued to live her life in the class she was born into, instead of becoming the amazing woman she became.

I had to run to catch my bus, Paula and I were having so much fun we lost track of time. I could have stayed hours more. I promised I would go visit the two elderly sisters that may be my relatives that are in the nursing home in Churs tomorrow. I spent the next day tracking them down, but couldn’t find them. They were a lot older than Margrith so they had probably passed on too. But if I retire I’m retiring in Switzerland, those homes are swank and the food looked amazing.
I have to admit I’m even more intrigued with this story now and can’t wait to go back with a translator to get the details.