Travel Log: October 4th, Part 2, Eger/Cheb

Cheb: At The Town Square

". . . We drove today to Eger (that's the old German name - now it's called Cheb) in the Czech Republic, where Karl Spohr & Ludmilla Breinl lived, you can tell the boys those are their 4th great grandparents. We quickly saw the cemetery where they have cleared out all the old German headstones and there is just one row of the old stones laying out on the ground, and then further away in a field the remaining headstones that were removed are piled in a huge cross shape laying on the ground and covered in dirt with grass growing over it. So our ancestors who were buried in that cemetery, assuming they had headstones, their stones would be buried there. Too bad.  Mom said the first time they came to the Czech Republic it was a normal cemetery with all the old headstones up, and the next time they came the old stones had all been removed.

And we got into the church just before it closed.  That is the church where Karl worked as a choir master and music teacher, and where Ludwig Spohr was baptized.

Inside the church in Cheb

The Baptismal Font

I LOVED the intricate old doors and doorknobs on the buildings in the Czech Republic!

Then we saw house number 193, where they lived just across from the church, where most of their kids were born (including the boys' 3rd great grandpa, Ludwig, who came to America alone when he was just 14 after his parents and most of his siblings had died).  Mom and Dad had found that church and house before.

House No. 193 on the left, across the cobblestone street from the church on the right.

The old house numbers are posted in blue, with the new numbers in red.

Then we looked for house No. 505, where the family lived when Ludwig's older sister Anna Elisabetha was born, and we found it. It was also across the street from the church, on another side of the circular street that wraps around the church. That was something that hadn't been found before.  And it has offices in it now, so we went in and explored the halls. It looked like maybe it was an apartment building (unless it has changed a lot since back then), and we wondered if maybe the people working for the church back then possibly lived there because it’s directly across from the main church doors. 

House No. 505 on the right.

A stairway inside No. 505.

House No. 505 on the right, with the church across the street in the background.

Then we walked all over the town looking for the house the family lived in when they had their oldest child, Karl Christof, house No. 517, but we didn't find it. The closest we found were 514 & 519, in different parts of town (the houses were originally numbered by the order they were built, not their order on a street, plus some are missing numbers and some of the buildings could possibly not exist anymore). . . ."