Friday, July 25 – Spokane

Another day of convention sessions today. We met two interesting people from the genealogy world who are presenters here. One was Brent Mai, who authored a two volume study of the 1798 census of the Volga Germans, among many other books and articles. I found this volume very helpful in deciphering the Macht family in Köhler. The other person was La Vern Rippley, a professor of German language at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and a student of all things German, particularly history. Although he has no personal connections to Banat, he has followed our Zichydorf Village Association almost from the beginning and had expressed an interest in joining our last tour, although the timing did not work out for him. He advised me that he quite enjoys our newsletter.

We had a very good lunch at the Olive Garden today, followed by a short tour of the park that surrounds the river and waterfall. It is a very pretty setting for a city and the downtown is quite attractive with several vintage buildings. However, when we drove to Costco yesterday, the route was much less attractive and a bit run down, as are similar areas in any other city.