Johnson family home in Germany,
Gerhard & Zwaantje Johnson,
center of photo
Memory box, peacock feather
memories from trip to Germany
This is the home about which great granddaughter Ruth Hey would write years later, "Who would paint word pictures for the little grandchildren of their great, great, great grandmother's gardens in Germany with peacocks strutting on the well-kept paths? There's a story about the feathers lying in their great grandmother's memory box." My great, grandmother (Zwaantje Johnson Holtzman) returned to Germany to see her grandparents in 1898. This photo is from that time, as is the star inlaid memory box and the peacock feather. Passage to Germany was via the ship, Nordd Lloyd D. Lahn. Great grandma told us repeatedly of getting seasick and "feeding the fishes."