i recently acquired elke maria hansen’s travel journal.
it’s from a 1950 trip to sylt, a german island in the frisian archipelago in the north sea. based on the photos, i presume she took the trip with a group of other girls. schoolmates? family? friends?
she has carefully lettered each page, probably with a dip pen judging from the way the navy ink fades and darkens regularly throughout.
so charming!
i only wish i could read german.
the writing is so neat and lovely that i imagine she must have put everything together once the trip was over.
in my mind’s eye i can see her at a sturdy wood table laboring over each page.
perhaps sipping tea as she diligently recorded each event of her stay on the island.
in total, the book is 30-40 pages all single-sided.
where’d ya go elke-maria? and why oh why did your sweet travel journal get left behind?
i’ll just keep it for you, with the other lost books i’m tending. safe and sound among my own sketchbooks and journals.
Thanks for the pleasure of being able to enjoy and read these pages! On the book cover the KL refers to ‘Klasse’ – classroom/year. School taught writing and a special part of this was called Schönschrift -schön = beautiful and schrift= script .The handwriting practice was called ‘Schönschreiben” and was done with a ‘Schönschreibfüller”- a fountain pen. https://www.pelikan.com/pulse/Pulsar/de_DE.CMS.displayCMS.209812./praxis-schreiben-schoenschrift-lehrer-aktion-winter-2002
As little thank you, here the translation of the last page with the seagull
..White seagulls floated on silver wings up high into the blue ether , only to plummet down quick as an arrow.
A single big silver gull rocked on the waves. The sea shone in the sunlight like pure silver. Far in the distance a solitary sailor passed by. Slowly I let the warm sand drift through my fingers and thought of long ago ancestors with foreign languages and precious foreign costumes. Maybe where now the silver gull rocked, long ago a proud Viking boat traversed.
Mary Ann,
Did you ever read Shadow of the Wind about an antiquarian bookstore the contains books that have been lost or forgotten? If not, I think you might enjoy it!
Glad to see you are a fan of Susan Branch, too!
no but it sounds good!!!
Wondering where she went after this 1950 trip? Just think how few years it was after WWII officially ended in 1945. Much of Europe was still in ruins and seeing that train is rather ironic considering how trains were used. I suspect young Elke-Maria moved somewhere and if she was in East Germany her life was not so good. But these young teens look healthy and well dressed so I suspect they were from West Germany. Perhaps she continued her botanical interest and drawing skills and became an illustrator or art teacher. She would be in her late 70s now so I imagine she would enjoy seeing this again. It’s a mystery to be solved!
How lovely! If you’d like, I’d gladly translate the journals for you, just send me a mail 🙂
squeal!!!!!!!!!!!! emailing you. i’m happy with just a page or 2. THANK YOU!!
We had an elderly neighbor who moved a few years ago. The move was rather quick, and the relatives who came to help left boxes of photo albums on the porch to be thrown away. They belonged to neighbor’s roommate (who had died) and roommate’s girlfriend (also dead). I felt just terrible that they were left like that. We took them into our house. One I may donate to a historical society. Not sure what to do with them–they’ve just been in a chest now for a while.
well you could sell the lot of photos on ebay and someone who LOVES and CHERISHES old photos like me will rescue them. if they can’t make their way back to the family i think this is a pretty darn good alternative.
I love seeing the rounded, girlish letters in another language. My rusty high school German got a good workout with this. While I’m sorry she didn’t have a family to treasure this work of love, so glad it found its way to you.
they probably did treasure it for a time, and then it drifted off as things are wont to do. would be interesting to follow the life of an object like this. see where they end up…
How wonderful you are preserving this treasure. Several years ago I found a journal/scrap book of an unidentified woman made in the 1950’s. It had her notes, recipes, clippings from the local paper, cards, project ideas, and all the miscellaneous odds and ends that were important to her. What a picture of the life of a woman in those days! I found it at a used book sale and wondered how her family (if there were any left) could have let it go. I plan to give it to the local community college for their women’s history archives. I hope others will enjoy perusing it.
This is a wonderful find! And a shame that you can’t read it. It’s very well written for a girl at her age, and she’s a good observer! I wish I could read all of it, especially since I love to travel to the northfrisian archipelago!
I’m curious…where was it left behind and how did you acquire it???? i love the photos and illustrations!
etsy!
My mom grew up in Germany and went on just this kind of group vacation trip as a child. They were class trips to healthy country settings for the city children. Lots of song singing and day trips from what I recall. The writing is very clear and easily translated. Much time and practice were given to writing skills!
She calls the sea urchin an sea hedgehog..!
Yes, that’s how we call them in Germany!
these trips must’ve been common in the 1950’s … really lovely
I had a German pen pal in high school, her handwriting was gorgeous! This journal is quite the find!!
a german pen pal…what fun gwen!
What a wonderful treasure! Get a translation?? Find Elke?!?!
Such wonderful drawings ~
I was hoping some of my german readers might translate a line or 2…might need to carry it with me to the alps in june and find a translator there…
I might try to translate it, but it’s hard to reproduce her charming and a little bit old-fashioned style!
You’re going to the Alps next summer?!?
What an awesome find! I left Germany when I was 12 years old in 1972. I can still read, write and speak it. If you ever want to part with this lovely find, please let me know. It’s absolutely wonderful and brings back memories from when I was a child. 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing.