1930's - Johann Bärnreuther, Miller and Burgermeister of Mengersdorf, lived to be 85. (The "Mein Vater" is in Margaret's hand.)

Ah, fact correction for my memory. The mayor was on the Meyer/Bärnreuther side of relationships. I have been confused who was the mayor in the family tree and now I have my answer!

Also now I see in AC comments a reference to the repaired steps! The wider picture including the downspouts seems logical. It answers my question as to why the building took such prominence in the photo.

Looks like the windows may ready for some flower boxes : - ). Like mom made in Glashütten.

As long as it's remembered my musings above are conjecture and liberally sprinkled with "ifs", "maybes", and so on. ;) I do see flower boxes on the second floor, don't know why there aren't any on the first.

After a closer look at the picture, I see that the front of the house was finished but the side still needs work. :oD At first I thought that maybe there weren't any flower boxes on the first floor because they're casement windows but then I looked at the 2nd floor and some windows are open so the casements must open to the inside. Ah, detective work - sometimes there are answers and sometimes there are none.

For what it's worth, just had another thought pop into my head. Another way, Peter, to look at that particular finishing job is to compare it to pointing the bricks on a house. Most people don't point/repoint the bricks on their house every year and, if they did find some minor crumbling, they'd probably wait a few years until the bother was worth it. Things like that people usually let go until either the condition gets bad enough or until eventually they get around it. I'm pretty sure this falls into that category, but I understand how it might seem to younger generations removed by distance and time.

From what little history and stories I remember, also, in those days, small towns, villages really, of say a couple or three hundred people or so, except for a handful of tradespeople (like millers, bakers, carpenters, butchers, etc.), were subsistence farmers. Sometimes there was only a collection of a few farms and these were called a "Bauernschaft". Life in the country, where people walked for hours and sometimes half a day to go visit relatives, was quite different from life in the big city. It wasn't easy on anyone, but city folks had it even harder living through the hyper-inflation and unemployment of those decades. At least subsistence farmers had food to eat - *if* the weather was good! ;) You knew the economy was getting better when city folks stopped going "hamstern" (foraging) in the countryside. City people, unemployed, looking for food, would walk from town to town, maybe picking at fields (I don't think so much) or more likely stopping at a farmers house and begging for an egg. Sometimes someone would get lucky and find some work to do for a meal. That's like it was here in the States after the dust bowl exodus.

As an aside, mother told me of someone she used to visit once a year or so. I took her a day's walk to get there. I wish I could remember who and where! Times change, eh?

I think I'll send Walter an eMail with this link, maybe he has corrections or additions.

After a zoom in on the photo the second floor has flowers as you point out and the rectangular blocks beneath the 1st floor windows looks like the flower boxes on the 2nd floor, just without the flowers.