Passade

Sunday morning and I’m preparing to head north to a small village called Passade. This is a small town the Shauna’s grandmother descended from.  Peter Kruetzfeld was born in 1612, He settled in Passade Prussia. This is about all I have to go on. It’s a warm beautiful partly cloudy day. I take a quick look at the map and fill up my water bottle. I’m wondering if this is worth the effort to hitch hike north. I don’t want to run out of day light and get lost.  I head down the stairs of the flat we have been staying. Its a very old building that has escaped the bombing of world war II. The streets are all made of cobble stone and have really neat patterns in some places. I head toward the inlet from the Baltic Sea in Kiel. I can’t make sense of all the street names but I can follow a shore line pretty good. I pass by these magnificent homes with beautiful gardens (flowers and trees). The tulips and daffodils are in full tilt. The cherry trees are just finishing their blossoms but still smell so sweet.  I make it to the water and am amazed by the size of the big ships coming and going. I found this wooden ship tied up to the dock. It’s an old single mast ship that I think they take tours on. I walked and walk and finely was at the end of the inlet. Now back up the other side I went. After about 2 or 3 hours of brisk walking I was beat. The road was too narrow for a car to pull over and pick anyone up. I saw a bus coming and noticed it to be the one headed north. I ran to the stop that happens to be just 50 yard or so away. I showed the driver my hand drawn map with Passade as my destination. 4 euro it would cost me and I gladly paid it. 30min later I was getting off the bus in Passade. Passade is set off the road just a little bit so I headed down in the direction of the lake. Passade is smaller than a village. I counted 25 or so houses. As I was walking the cobblestone approaching the center plaza, I saw a couple on bikes coming in from the other direction. “Guten tag”, I called out. They slowed down and I asked in English, “where is the church?”  They told me there was no church here and I then asked where the cemetery is. Well this had them interested. An American gets off a bus, walks into a very small town and wants to go to a church and cemetery. (sounds like the beginning of a joke, eh). I open my small koa book that Cameron made for me and show them the info I have on Peter Krutzfeldt. “OK”, they said. “We know a farmer who has lived here a long time”. In 60 seconds we are knocking on the old wooden door of a very old stone house. The farmer is stout and tall his face has sharply cut features, yet his cheeks are soft and show off his bright eyes. He does not speak English so the two that were riding bikes fill him in on my quest. They talk back and forth and I just smile and listen. Turns out that the church and cemetery in the area lies in Probsteierhagen (about 3k back the way I had come). But he tells us that there is an historian just up the road left of the giant sycamore tree. “dankah”, and off I go, led by my interpreters. The farmer called the historian and gives him a heads up. When we got there he was waiting. He led us out to the back patio and has spritzer water and apple juice. They don’t drink apple juice straight. It’s always mixed with the sparkling water. There on the table he has 3 books. One has a date on it 1380(something), with the town name. He peers into my hand made book and smiles. He opens a smaller book and shows me the history of Peter Krutzfeldt. They were blacksmiths and owned 10 hex of land. He opened another book and showed me the black and white photos of the home they lived in and the blacksmith shop. In my hands I was holding the genealogy of the Krutzfeldt clan. Right up to when they immigrated to the USA. In the book, in place of a death date is just says, “usa”.  After his wife served me a delicious dark cake with hazelnuts, we went down to the lake and they showed me how they collected the reeds to use as the roofs for the old homes. He took me to the home and shop that are still standing today. We then went to the cemetery in Probsteierhagen. He showed me where the graves of all the people from Passade would be. Mr Lamp also told me that his wife came from the Mundt line (Peter’s wife) making her a distant cousin to Shauna. It was amazing to have just walked into a sleepy little village and had such great success in my quest. I took photos of the church and inside too. I was just wishing Shauna was here to see and experience this. I don’t know why I have such a strong desire to connect with the past.  But it is something that has driven me for years now and I’m happy that I’m in motion closing some of those loops.