Day 8 - Thursday June 16 - Oberdonven, Luxembourg - Visit with Ruppert family

Charles Ruppert and his wife Marie met us at our hotel in Trier on Thursday and drove us back to Oberdonven and Niederdonven which are about about 20 km southwest of Trier. They picked us up at 9:00 AM and did not drop us off until 11:00 in the evening. Charles's great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers. He grew up in the same house as our great-grandparents. The family still owns the house but it was completely rebuilt after WWII because it was totally destroyed by a bomb that leveled it. His brother (Marcel) still lives in the house, and we stopped by to visit him and his wife. Marcel operates an agricultural supply business and is also the caretaker of the family vineyard property, although he leases the vineyards to others who actually work the land. We were able to visit both the gravesites and churches of the Ruppert family. Unlike the church in the Czech Republic, these churchs have been completely renovated since the war, even though the original sturctures had not been destroyed during the war. According to Charles, the Ruppert family would have gone to mass in both the Niederdonven church of St. Martin and its affiliated chapel in Oberdonven. Several of the stain glass windows in the Chapel in Oberdonven have notations of a priest who was Ruppert. Charles Ruppert is one of eleven children. Only one of his siblings is dead. Marcel lives in Oberdonven while Charles lives just a couple of kilometes away in a new home in Niederdonven. The rest of his brothers and sisters live elsewhere in Luxembourg. Charles is roughly my age and he and his wife have 3 children. Two daughters are studying to be doctors, while his son is a mathematician in the Luxembourg City financial community. Charles worked for an International Banking firm for 20 years during which he travelled around the world including the U.S. (he managed to fly on the Concorde on one of his trips to America). He said that he had always wondered what happened to the Luxembourg Rupperts who immigrated to America but had never taken the time to track them until we made contact. After 20 years in Int`l Banking, he took over a large Luxembourg printing house which employes 800 people. Additionally, he is the President of the Luxembourg Press Association. And finally, he has been an appointed member of the Council of State in Luxembourg which consults with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the parliament --- to put it differently, he seems to be very well connected. He is very much a promoter of Luxembourg, and he and his wife spent the day with us showing us the ancient fortifications, the old and new financial districts of the city, his office in the Council of State, etc. Among the places he took us was the American Memorial to the servicemen who died in WWII. It is a quite moving cemetery which includes General Patton`s burial place. It seems that everyone Europe has some story of how Patton and his army came through their particular part of the country, whether it be Luxembourg, or Germany, or even the Czech Republic.