MY GRANDAD'S MEMOIR - DISCOVERY, REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

This post first appeared on 28th April, 2011. Since then the Edward Beckmann Blog has been renovated in order to make the reading of Grandad's original text easy, and to enhance the presentation.

My Maternal Grandparents, Louisa and Edward Beckmann

In early March I received from my long" lost "cousin Faye Beckmann, Email copies of an 81 page Memoir typed by my Grandfather Edward Beckmann in the early to mid 1950s. It had lain among the family papers of a deceased employer/friend of my Grandfather for over forty years after it was given to this gentleman to read. My Grandfather then died, and his former employer /friend died also and there it rested. The gentleman's son started examining the family documents some three years ago . Reading this substantial typescript , he quickly realised how greatly it would  be valued by my Grandfather's descendants. He succeeded in tracking down my cousin.She, through the much - maligned FACEBOOK found me, and through my Blogs "CONRAD BECKMANN"and "CARL DOPMEYER" ( respectively my Great Grandfather , a famous artist and my Great Great Grandfather a renowned sculptor and carver in his day) she realised my keen interest in family history.The Memoir is full of interest covering Grandad's early years in Germany, his adventurous youth in Germany, Poland, Hungary and back to Germany, his migration to Australia , the voyage, his Australian initiation in Melbourne , his settling down in Sydney , his marriage to the fair Louisa, the Bride with Orange blossom in her hair a la Queen Victoria ( who also married a German), his commercial disasters, his long but event filled service as a Railway Signalman and his reflections on his life and times.

To-day , after nearly two months of living with the Memoir and reading and re-reading it and researching leads it contained, I have completed reviewing the 81 pages, page by page in my Blog "EDWARD BECKMANN" : http://edwardbeckmann.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/an-innocent-abroad-my-memoir_22.html

. It has been a labor of love, but no less demanding a task for all that. It has been even more demanding , because various family members , noting the passing of the years, have urged me to "do something similar regarding my own life". . And that is how this present Blog came to be.I am loving the task of preparing and publishing it.

I had always regretted not being able to ask Grandad many things about his life, particularly in Germany. His Memoir answers many of those questions but raises many more - he does not give a thorough background or analysis of the family structure in Germany, but is content to refer to "Grandmother", "my relatives"etc as if presuming the readers' familiarity with everyone, or perhaps their disinterest. He says little about his Father's fame, nothing about his maternal Grandfather's ( my Great Grandfather's) fame. The whole is very rich in other detail nevertheless, even making it clear why he chose to come to Australia when most Germans and others were heading for the United States.

He goes into some detail about his life here, filling out detail of stories my Mother had told me about their persecution as "Germans"during the First World War, even though he had already been an Australian and "a British Subject"for ten years before the War started.There is in the whole work a great deal for anyone to reflect upon - about life itself, our treatment of each other and God's working in our lives for our greater good.

There are still research trails to be followed up from the Memoir and a Summary to be written for the Blog .

For me, the exercise has been a rich experience, and doubly so because I am now just a few years short of the age  which Grandad had reached when he was writing. So, in a lifetime sense, we have a similar point for viewing and reviewing. I only hope that my writing in my own Blog here, which may in time find its final form in a E - Book, will find as enthusiastic reader or readers in my descendants, as Grandad Beckmann has found in my Cousin Faye, her younger Brother Michael and me.

EDWARD BECKMANN is well worth a read I commend it to you. It also provides a great tribute to fidelity, love and respect in Marriage. 

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