There’s been a long gap in my blog primarily because I didn’t quite know what to write. My grandmother on my father’s side passed away a few weeks back in February. She was 93.

My brothers and I met my parents in Lincoln, NE, where my dad grew up and where my grandmother lived for the vast majority of her years. We got to see my dad’s older brother and his kids, some of which I have no memory of ever having met as the last time we’d seen them I was still in diapers. We also got the grand tour of Lincoln on special request and saw all the places that formed the background for my father’s stories from his youth. I’d done this tour once before when I was fourteen, when my dad and I went back to Lincoln when he was inducted into his high school Hall of Fame. This time is was different, though. It wasn’t just my dad’s stories I heard this time; it was the story of a group of immigrants struggling to survive in America in the mid-1900’s.

My grandmother’s people were Germans who were invited to live in Russia by Catherine the Great. They settled on the lower Volga River. As time went on, the benefits Catherine had promised the settlers eroded and these Germans, transplanted once, chose to move again. A great many settled in the “Bottoms” neighborhood of Lincoln, NE including the Bäckers, my grandmothers family.

We happened across the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia located in my dad’s old neighborhood and purchased a commerative brick in Grandma Em’s name. It’s a small gesture but an important and symbolic one. She was part of the neighborhood for most of the twentieth century; her memory will remain for centuries to come.

I plan on doing more reading on the family’s history as I find it absolutely fascinating. We loved our Grandma Em very much and she had a long, good life. I am proud to have been her grandson.