France

George Lindel Harris, Casualty of War – Part 1

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When the United States entered the Great War on April 6, 1917, the countries of Europe had already been fighting for four long years. By the summer of 1918, the US had drafted 2.8 million men and was sending 10,000 soldiers to France every day. The human toll of the war would be tremendous and would not be limited to those killed, but would also include the multitude of wounded and traumatized, as well as those who would suffer long-term health issues, like the ones that would plague my uncle George Harris for the rest of his life.

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Family Charts – Taeuffers in Alsace

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The Taeuffer line goes back several generations in the Region of Alsace, Department of Bas-Rhin in France. Or sometimes in Germany. It all depended upon which country happened to have possession of the region at the time. The patriarch from each generation of the family going back at least 250 years has served as Mayor of the small town of Frohmuhl. Or sometimes they were Burgermeister, if Germany happened to be in charge.

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Taeuffers in Frohmuhl 1700 – 1900

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The Taeuffer family roots extend deep into the Bas-Rhin (Lower Rhine) region of France and can be traced back to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The family was, for many generations, a fixture in the small farming community of Frohmuhl. The village is located about 60 kilometers (around 40 miles) northwest of Strasbourg, in the canton de la Petite Pierre in the Vosges forest, in Alsace.

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The Day the Taeuffers Returned to Frohmuhl

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On September 5, 1995, Judi and Jean Taeuffer, along with their husbands, Michael Scott and Ron Hoopes, left their hotel in the small hamlet of la Petite Pierre in the French Department of Bas-Rhin. They drove out to the West and turned North onto a small paved road towards the village of Frohmuhl which Ernest Taeuffer had left over 120 years earlier on his way to America. The road was marked by the Alsatian hiking club as 1 hour 45 minutes to Frohmuhl (walking, of course). They did not know what they would find there. This is the first person account of that day as remembered by Jean.

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