From The Dubois County Daily Herald
Friday, December 10, 1954

HARK THE HERALD

Wagshurst , Ancestral Home, And Strassbourg
By A. T. Rumbach

Robert and Mechtilde ( Goelz) had a farewell lunch for us after our return from Stuttgart, and with all our Karlsruhe friends, we sang “Auf Wiedersehn” for we were leaving the next morning for Wagshurst, the ancestral home of more Dubois County citizens than any other single community.   Mechtilde’s folks came from there also, so she accompanied us in the little bus which a Mr. Buehler furnished for the trip.   We had a Dubois County telephone directory which was of great interest to Alois and the Goelz’s.   They undertook to check the names against the names of Wagshurst, Oberkirch and Rente communities; the result left few names unchecked.

On the way we passed a convent for which the late Arnold J. Berger had a collection and where a requiem mass was sung when news of his death reached them.   We paused briefly at the convent and parish church in memory of Mr. Berger.

We reached Wagshurst just as the inhabitants were leaving for their fields after the noon lunch and siesta.   We were fortunate in reaching the Berger homestead before they had taken off.   Here again we received a warm welcome.   Their home, which was very ancient, had stone steps well rounded at the treads from centuries of entries and exists by the Berger generations and their friends.   We were all asked to sit at the oaken kitchen table which was soon covered with a checkered table cloth and a large crisp loaf of rye bread and a pitcher of sweet cider was place on it for our benefit.   It tasted very good.

The house was occupied by Landolin Berger (brother of A.J.) until his death a few years ago, when it became property of Bernhard and his wife (nee Lampert, a direct descendant of Melchoir Lampert who served in Napoleon’s army as a young man later lead the migration of Wagshurst families to the States, settling in Indiana, Jasper to be exact.)   Mrs. Berger was familiar with the Berger and Lampert family trees, reaching back several generations and down to the present generation in Wagshurst and Jasper.   The Lampert family in Jasper included the son of Melchoir, Felix, who died here in 1925 at the age of 90.   William, his son, who died here in 1946, was the father of Godfrey and Cletus Lampert of Jasper. We have previously mentioned the descendants of the Berger line in Jasper.  

Wagshurst is also the place of origin of the Sermersheim and Hurst families, from which our travel companion, Alphonse is a direct descendant.   We saw the Sermersheim home, one of the newest homes in the village, but the family was not at home.

It is only a skip and a jump from Wagshurst to Strassbourg, the metropolis of Alsace, France – a skip to the Rhine and a jump across it.   We had no difficulty making the skip, but it took us quite a while to make the jump across the Rhine because the way was barred   by the custom station of Germany and France and quite a few vehicles were in line waiting to cross over the border.

It was worth waiting for, however, Strassbourg, being an ancient and picturesque city, the setting for one of the finest cathedrals in Europe.   The steeple on one side of the front reaches high into the sky and is to be seen on a clear day from the Black Forest hills in Baden as well as the Vosges mountains on the Alsacian side; a wide expanse of level land on both sides of the Rhine stretches between the two ridges.   The tower on the other side ends in a stub; the steeple, intended to match the other side, has never been and probably never will be built.

We entered the cathedral at 2:45 pm after viewing the very ornate exterior, and just in time to hear a recital on the large and melodious organ.   At 3 o’clock the canons assigned to the cathedral filed into the choir stall in the sanctuary to chant Vespers.   We then took a close-up view at the altars and painting and at the big mechanical clock in the south transope, which shows not only the time of day but also the day of the week, and of the month, the season of the year and the signs of the zodiac.  

I shall describe the wonderful clock tomorrow, before taking you to Oberkirch, the destination of the day’s journey.