More about the visit to Hannover...

As it's a rainy day today, we're going to do rainy-day things like: make cookies; go through all of Grandma's clothes; the guys are out in the shop; and I have a little time to post now. I thought I'd share some more pictures from our time in Hannover...

This was my Dad's church until he and his family moved to Eureka, SD on his 21st birthday.

Here are the three stooges, in age order--or is that 2 stooges and 1 stoogess? :)

This is the inside of the Lutheran church, looking down from the balcony...

My family and I had gone up there to look at the pipe organ. We couldn't find the light-switch, so it was really dark up there until Andrew got out his flashlight...
Here are the wooden pipes--used to make the really low notes...

After our tour of the church, with my dad as guide, we went back to the fellowship hall and visited. This is my mom with my dad's aunt Lyla (my grandma's sister)...

...And here she is again with my dad's aunt Donna (also one of my grandma's sisters)...

After visiting and snacking, we children went out for a self-guided tour of Hannover. We visited the cemetery first, to try to find where some our ancestors were buried.

This is the tombstone of our great grandparents, Henry and Emma--my grandpa Earl's parents...

And this one, I believe, was of Henry's parents--which would make them our great, great grandparents...

We looked at all of the tombstones in the cemetery and, as we walked, we came upon this one. As I don't know German though, I'm in the dark as to what it says! Does anyone know how to read this?

This water pump was in the cemetery too and Andrew was curious if it worked or not. It didn't, but even if it had, he wouldn't really have drunk the water! I asked him to hold his glass under the spout just so I could get this picture...

Then we headed to the old school-ground play area. We weren't sure at first if the swings would hold us...

...but Andrew looked closer and saw that there was metal under the cracked rubber, so he declared that it should be safe. It was neat to swing where our dad surely swung when he was a little tike.

After swinging for a few minutes, we headed back to the church, as it was about time for the party there to be over. I guess we had missed out on the family pictures they took, so Mom asked the photographer to take our family picture then. I gave my camera to a relative and she took this picture for me:

I realized then that I didn't have a good picture of the birthday girl (Elvera) yet, so I got her here, visiting with family...
At 5:30, the party moved over to Elvera's daughter's place for supper. We headed for Center by way of the scenic route and went past the places where my dad had grown up on. As Grandma was along with us, she pointed out this place as being where my dad was born. The house isn't there any more, but the trees are...

I didn't get a good picture of the farm they lived on, as there were a lot of trees around it, so I won't post them here.

We drove by many wind generators on our way to Center and Mom got this picture for me...

Then we passed this field of Canola and I thought it looked so pretty. It was more yellow in real life than what the picture shows, as I took the picture through our tinted van windows!

I didn't get any pictures at Elvera's daughter's house, as we were in a hurry to eat and get home. Grandma rode home with us, and her sister Lyla did too, as Lyla went home with Grandma to help her prepare for Grandpa's party. I guess they got home around midnight and then peeled potatoes for potato salad yet, so they had a short night's rest! I can't imagine that they did any talking during that time though, can you? :)