Although “Cousin” Nicole and her husband, Thaddeus, didn’t know
us from Adam and Eve, they met us at the Strasbourg station and drove us to
their borrowed flat. We will stay
with them for three or four days while we are pinch-hitting for Connie’s
brother Ron, the Lintz family genealogist. We had planned on meeting him and Bonnie here for a quick
hello, but they had to cancel their entire trip and left us to carry on.
Ron located Nicole in cyberspace when their genealogy searches
intersected. Somewhere back in
Napoleonic times a Lintz (Ron’s line) married a Mallow (Nicole’s family) and
they moved to America from Griesbach, France. Ron and Nicole kept in touch, shared information and finally
decided to meet in France so she could show him the places where the families
once lived. He and Bonnie couldn’t
make it, we are here, and now it’s up to us to climb the family tree in a
manner of speaking.
There is a bit of a problem. Nicole insists she isn’t comfortable speaking English. Thaddeus has a great ear for music but
not languages and doesn’t understand a bit of English. They both speak German but that is of
little comfort with our “ein bischen Deutsch.” Connie “ne parle pas Français, aussi.” So it’s up to me with my terrible
French and Nicole to communicate and pass on the story. Luckily, though Nicole slips back into
French when she gets excited or tired, she speaks much better English than she
lets on. And, surprise! 45 years
after high school, I understand more French than I thought. This might work after all.
