Max Alfred Pueschel

I'm starting my family digging extravaganza with my great grandfather, Max Alfred.  He seems to have come from a family in Spremberg which I keep accidentally switching the r and the e so it ends up Spermberg and then I start hysterically giggling.

His family lore is fairly interesting since my opa didn't get along with him, but by most all accounts (Opa's and his mother) he seemed to do no wrong.  What I have found so far is he went to a super posh school in his day called Kreuzschule. The Kreuzschule was started in the 1300 and is the oldest school in Dresden and one of the oldest in Germany. It specialized in Latin as it was started by monks and later became a prominent Protestant school in the reformation.  This is great info as my opa describes him speaking Latin and studied Greek philosophy (know one dead language you might as well be proficient in another dead language). This is insight for me as my opa was named after the Greek hero, Achilles because his father loved all things Greek.  Daniel and I want to do something similarly wacky with our children, but not just Greek heroes, Scandinavian heroes as well. He also sang well and played the piano according to my Opa.  The school is also know for its choir, so who knows he may be in the choir.  I have to wait to get onto Ancestry because I don't have money right now, but I've already found what may be him on Dresden City records and hope to go through their  schools books and find something (course the Kreuzschule was bombed in 1945 so nothing may be left in records).

Another interesting thing I found was that he worked for the Royal Saxony Railroad, Opa said he was the secretary of finance for the company. Later he told my dad that his job was as important as the secretary of transportation in the US.  While yes I do agree he probably was a CFO for a kingdoms transport company (Saxony was its own kingdom until WWI), the kingdom had more than one railroad company.  Most interesting of all is that his wife's parents didn't want them to get married, she came from a super loaded family that had aristocracy connections. 

Remember the weeds!

Here is where it gets fuzzy.  Grammsie's dad is the one from England that I have been tracking down, I was able to find his dad's grave. I still don't know why a young man would leave his family, that ran a successful business that you would inherit, go to West Germany,learn German, marry and start a family, learn textiles (completely different skill set than farming and shopkeeping), and catch the attention of the king with your wicked textile skills and move to East Germany. Once there marry a lady twice as young as you and start a whole new family.  Yeah I'd really like to meet this guy because he was wildly successful even before he left home. Anyways Sampson (Mr. Wildly Successful) taught miners wives in the Ore Mountains how to make lace and other textiles so they could make piece meal money. He was later able to have property next to the kings in Potsdam (see loaded, and had his daughter hang out and help the crown prince with his English homework). The interesting thing is the Royal Saxony Railroad was making routes to the Ore Mountains as well during the turn of the century when Max was working for them.

His father-in-law had already past away (1892) by the time he was married (1899).  I'm sure that some serious name dropping went on in order for him to get this job. He studied Greek for crying out loud, his son describes him as an avid outdoors man, I'm not ragging on his math skills, but really he gets a desk job doing finance!?!  I hope to find out more and see how much my narrative is complete hogwash or if Max really did trade in on his father-in-law's name.

Mostly my information is from my opa's memoirs, but Wikipedia is the best to look up names of places and companies and it's amzaing the story you can piece together.

New Year, New Attempts

I’ve decided on two new resolutions and I think I will keep an old one. Since I started out so good with walking daily and then it went to crap, I think I will redo that resolution. I hope to get Daniel into the acupuncturist so that he can get his energy up and we will help each other with this one. Okay really I’m assigning him a resolution since his most favorite is to quit smoking.

One of my resolutions I stole from a friend, but it is so simple yet so worthy that I can’t let it slide…I’m going to floss every night.  Now I know myself better than to totally have a perfect record of this, so I am shooting for perfection while hoping to do it three times a week.  I’ve started, but end up doing it two weeks in a row and then nothing for two months.  I know not too exciting, but important as I’m getting old and my teeth are falling out (not really, but I’ve had some troubles).

My next resolution I think will be kind of fun reporting as I’m going to be able to keep up with the blog this way. I want to do more family history.  Even though I’m a total Anglophile and love that side my father’s family, I think I’m going to dig around with my father’s German heritage.  I’m at complete loss at how to go about this, but meh it’s part of the adventure.  My sister-in-law should be able to supply words such as birth, death, and occupation, since she is German, so that should help.  The biggest problem is I have family that goes back before census’(I should know the Latin plural for this and don’t; boo High School Latin that didn’t stick) and of course they lived in an area that was Prussian, Russian, or whatever conquering force at the time was.  Of that means burning and pillaging, so who knows what is left around. I have very little German history to go on, so this could end up being a huge shot in the dark.  Plus I’m really annoyed with all the genealogist I work with because all they ever know how to do is look up the American census and find everything they want and have no idea how to really dig, so I am stumbling for sure just to find a good starting place.  Ultimately, I hope to have another little expedition to see where some of these people lived. Maybe more grave standing in weeds will take place! I hope that I find some scandalist-scandal that will make for some good posts.  Which just shows that I really am a gossiper, I even want to know dead peoples problems and troubles.  Maybe I will find pictures!!!!

I have a backup plan if I really get stuck.   I seriously want to catch up on my scrapbook as I am now four years behind.  I no longer really take many pictures because I know it will only make the pile higher.  This means I will have to put down my knitting which rankles a bit, but I should at least set an example of marking my life while I curse my ancestors for being paranoid atheist who refused to leave some mark that they existed.

November kindness

So I think I've done so many nice things I've forgotten them. I had to go through my month to figure out some. I guess they were so simple that I forgot them. my first one I attempted to bring dinner to a single friend, but she wasn't home. I eventually brought over fresh apple pie, and just sat and talked. Ideally I wanted a meal, mostly because it is nice to come home and have food to quickly heat up. Meh you get what you get.

Then we went to Vegfest, Atlanta's Vegan festival, it was really good actually and I saw some recipes to make some good healthy eats.  I went with my neighbor to get info for my gluten free friend. I came home and made the best cupcakes for her. Unfortunately my acupuncturist stuck me to stop sugar cravings, so anytime I tasted the frosting I'd get queasy. I know they tasted good logically even if my stomach told me otherwise.

Voodoo medicine has been going well except I had a "health" crisis, and had call out of work for a cold/sinus infection/cough/sore throat/running nose mess. Doctor stuck me and up my meds and a day later was fine. Yep it's still working, but she has me rubbing Wheat Germ oil on my scars to help "heal energy holes." It's one thing I do feel is totally voodoo and am not sure that it is really doing anything. I don't know we'll see.

Family Picture Time

The last few years I've been wanting to get my picture professionally taken. Mostly because it's fun, but my mom always had a wall with all of our pictures going through school and major mile stones in our lives. In her room she had all of our family pictures.  She always liked to see how we grew and changed. I always liked that idea and decided I would do it with my family.  Fast forward to me with my family and I haven't had pictures taken since after our first year of marriage (had engagements done to match the wall, longish boring, me obsessive about uniformity story).  I did start to look for a photography when we hit the five year mark, but didn't see anything I liked or wanted to pay for.  My aunt came to visit in March and commented on our "engagement" photo and I just decided enough was enough. I deserved pictures of my family even if there was just two of us and no kids. There seems this unwritten law about people not getting professional photos unless you have kids.




I have a small confession to make: I'm obsessed with photos of people. I look and look at the detail until I've discovered all of the best and worsted parts of the picture.  If you really want to know what I think of the Royal baby christening photos, I could go off, but will leave it at they should not have paid the photography what they did for that official portrait--amateur mistakes where made.  I saw a lot of photographers work and I have to say (don't hate me because I know you have family photos of this within the last five to ten years of this) there is a crap load of families in front of barns and fields of golden wheat.  Bergh! I was so over that. Plus my family is far from the happy children as mom and dad are kissing in the background.  After many such pictures I stumbled upon a photography studio that had a section just for couples that wasn't engagement photos. I also was impressed because they had arty urban photos and generally a really different feel.  I was impressed because the people had such personality and different then just happy perfect family, but attitude and wit.  I really wanted to show off my cool city (I live in a cool part now) and capture that energy. The photographers had personality too which I know would help get Daniel out of his cheesy "I'm here because Annie has this corked brain idea, so yeah" smile.  


Dancing while trespassing.

I know I really wanted a picture of Atlanta in the background. The photographer, Kahran, suggested the West Provisional District in West Midtown.  We some pictures there, but got kicked out because they had a new copyright permission in order shoot there, so we headed out to The Goat Farm. Yep you guessed it a farm except it has turned into an artist district.  Some guy bought the old farm and then sold off the buildings to different artist for studio space.  The Walking Dead was filmed there, the Atlanta Ballet was practicing when we were taking our photos. We even broke in to one warehouse to get some  cool pictures.



Love this angle.

Now over all I am super pleased with my photos, but I have to admit Daniel had too much fun.  He forgot about the camera, so most of our photos you couldn't really see his face.  The photographer kept cracking up at us as we lead them around and Daniel was loosen up.  He even said he would hire them again and do it again.


Yep my Top Model pose.







The way all Gedge's sit, captured for posterity.



Outside an artist's studio

Hip and Cool



I think I look like my sisters in this picture. 

This is my favorite because captures a total Daniel and I conversation.



I'm a voodoo health nut

Sheesh October has been a short long month. It could have been because I had vacation.  It was an easy boring one, but I liked visiting family. Plus I got to see my sister in Reno which I haven't seen in seven years!  I started the extravaganza with my cousin visiting me in Atlanta because he had a conference. We also made it for Atlanta Pride which I thought was fun except all of the marketing vultures that came out to rob the LBGTs blind. We then flew to Salt Lake together which was amazing for me because I got onto his flight and it was the direct flight too. I was glad to get there earlier than expected because I got to see Rinehart and his kids before they went on vacation. We went to a local spook alley. It was fun with all the nieces and nephews. I haven't been to a spook alley in over 10 years. I got to visit with college friends for lunch. One day my in-laws took me to City Creek which I thought was beautiful, but Lenox mall is way more upscale. It was fun to see all of my family in one shot. Thank you Trudy and Dave for moving back to Utah!

On Friday I got up and caught a flight to Reno to visit my oldest sister. I got a great surprise when I saw my niece who had come home from boarding "troubled" school.  It was super nice to see her, but stressful as she was still pushing her parents buttons.  I got bracelets made for me (I was super picky and made them match my outfits, why waste the little jewelry I have and if I get it for free...), rich good food, a craft fair, accessory shopping and a haunted house which was pretty good for how small it was.  My sister does know how to throw a bash even if you visit for 48 hours.

My good deeds lead to my strange title.  One of my friends got hives when she moved to Atlanta, and she has been put on a gluten free diet to see if that helps. I keep coming up with all these recipes and go shopping with her to find the gluten free sign. Seriously this is a major thing as she seems completely blind to it and it could be hugely displayed on the package.  I also started walking with her as that is what she wanted. We go Saturday morning or 5 am on weekdays whatever she needs.

So I've become more conscious of what I'm eating and I had a really bad doctor's visit that left me feeling that the path of health I was taking may not be what I need. I saw my mom's alternative health doctor in Salt Lake and confirmed that maybe I should try some voodoo stuff and see what happens. I was also recommended an acupuncturist. I've been and I have to say after two days I sleep incredibly fabulous and am not sure when the last time was that I dreamed, but I've dreamed two night in a row and can breathe easier. I'm suppose to see how my nutrition is next. Now I'm totally on this alternative health stuff. I'm seeing all kinds of voodoo things.

My other good deed was helping a friend at church who didn't want to be alone. I didn't either, but I also didn't want to go to her house cause it was a long drive for me. I bucked up and went over and had lunch and entertained each other. It didn't seem much but it brighten her and my day. Plus I didn't know her that well and it took me out of my comfort zone.

No pictures this time, but I am totally going to make a diva post soon.