George Schweigart was born in 1828, married Anna Reinhard, and died in 1912. He owned a grape orchard near Heidelberg, Germany. And that's all I know - and that records indicate he was my great-great-grandfather. What a shame it is to reduce a life to a few phrases. In his 84 years of life George must have had triumphs and disappointments, hates and loves, good years and bad. If I could ask him, he'd probably tell me about his Vintner of the Year award and his time on the city council, and maybe about the merchant who cheated him that time. But I don't know any of that - only those few facts. Likewise most of the other names in my family tree. They are mentioned here both to honor them and to satisfy our curiosity about our origins - providing a link from past to present that is satisfying to some.
As we get closer to the present another problem arises - too much information is available. Here we are limited by space and the reader's attention. So these pages contain some information that is an outline of the names and dates. That would serve to locate the reader in the family matrix. Also I have some family pictures which I've captioned to flesh out the outline. Also I've made copies of some files that may be interesting, old records. All this may be useful if someone wanted to dig deeper into the past.
Karl Friedrich Rimmler, universally called "Fritz," was one of seven children born in Heidelberg, Germany. Heidelberg is a cosmopolitan city. Susanna Wagerer, "Suzy" was born in a very small town in Bavaria, a rural province of Germany. In the Old Country they would have been unlikely to meet, much less marry. But both came to the US where they met; they married in 1915. Fritz died before I was born and I grew up in a house with Suzy.
Three of Fritz's siblings came to the US and were well known to me, Louise Hagner, Else Ruff, and Helen LaCava, although Helen died when I was very young. I did meet the children of his other siblings.
Fritz had some cousins, second cousins, but their father and Fritz' Father worked together and they lived near, shared a townhouse. Two of the cousins came to the US, Lana Orth (nee Rimmler) and Philipp Rimmler, and I knew both. I met their brother Heinz Rimmler in Heidelberg twice and he was very helpful to me in this research.
Suzy had a nephew, Al Wagerer, who came to the US in the 1920's and I met several times. Al did not have children.
Family Rimmler in Heidelberg
Family Tree
Heidelberg
Family Bible
In the US
Contacts
Current Addresses
Here is a pdf of almost all these pages. It is 8.7 megs.