This post is a collaboration of Anne and Holly. This one afternoon in our adventures needs to be told from both of our perspectives.
Mely (Melanie), Anne, Giuseppe, Lucien, Germaine, Josee, Holly, Lony, Emelye and Jemp gathered together at Mely and Giuseppe's beautiful home in Echternach to share champagne, appetizers and memories for the afternoon. To set the scene...
Mely and Giuseppe own the lovely property, Chateau Lauterborn built in 1784 by Emmanuel Limpach, the last Abbot of Echternach. This quaint and historic chateau is located on the outskirts of Echternach. There were some very notable people who lived and stayed at Lauterborn. One of the most colorful was Thyra Seillier.
Thyra was the illegitmate daughter of an English Baron and a Polish woman. She was raised in a French convent and eventually became an opera singer. She had three husbands though her lifetime - chocolate maker Henri Menier, a Bellorussian Elisseief Stone, and an actor and theatre critic Richard-Pierre Bodin. Henri and Elisseief died and the marriage to Richard-Pierre ended in divorce in 1929. Thyra then moved to Morocco to live with an Estonian harpest, Marcel-Felix.
In 1935, Thyra purchased a 'summer home', Chateau Lauterborn and began the process of rebuilding some of the structures destroyed during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. She attempted to make this home a French-speaking writers' place, however, due to finances it was unsuccessful.
Thyra did publish three written works herself. One of them, "Yes, I loved..." recounts memories of her youth up to 1929. Guiseppe and Mely were kind enough to give everyone a copy of this book, which is published in French.
Mely and Giuseppe had owned this property in the late 1970's and had begun the process of restoration. Years later, they sold it and only just recently they purchased it again to complete Mely's dream to fully restore it.
The property was significantly damaged during the Battle of the Bulge. Bullet holes can been seen and have been left intentionally on the structures' exteriors.
We were warmly welcomed by Mely, Guiseppe and Sandro, their personal butler, at the front gate. After a relaxed stroll around the property and through the main house, we sat outdoors under a massive Copper Beech tree to enjoy glasses of champagne and share memories.
As everyone, with the exception of Holly, Anne and Guiseppe, is from Luxembourg the conversation flowed naturally in Luxembourgish (sounds like Lutseboyish). Anne had learned and was pretty fluent in Luxembourgish when she was a teen. Immersed back into this language, she could pick up familiar words and phrases, enough to understand the flow of the conversations. Out of respect, once in a while someone would say, "Could we speak in English for our guests here?" The flow would change to English (with kind apologies) and Holly would try to catch up with what was being said. Guiseppe, an Italian, is fluent in French and often the conversation would switch to French to include him.
Holly here: An afternoon of sitting with 9 people, speaking Luxembourgish with splashes of English and French was certainly fascinating and an adventure in "What did she say?" By the end of this afternoon visit my brain was on overload trying to understand and keep up. I have a small knowledge of French and the teensy bit of Luxembourgish I do know is only because Mom is re-exploring the language. It is much like a hybrid of French, German and Flemish. At the end of the day back at our host, Germaine's I had to ask that we continue our evening in English. I just couldn't work through the languages anymore! My brain was tired! The gals were lovely and English became the predominant language for the remainder of our evening. Back to the afternoon at Lauterborn.
What a lovely visit! The champagne glasses were never empty and the hors d'oeuvres were scrumptious. Everyone was laughing, sharing stories and getting to know each other, again.
Here is where I hand the writing baton over to Mother as she understood much more than I!
Anne here: What an afternoon it was! I felt like I had moved back to the 1920s with writers and artists telling stories around a lovely table with old friends and a couple of new ones. The setting was ideal. We discussed politics (I use the word "we" loosely here as I mostly listened), history, days gone by, and our lives since then. We also chatted about past love lives - it became a very funny series of remarks about who was with who when! We laughed so much! I will cherish this memory forever.
Holly insert here: You discussed politics? That topic went completely over my head or it was discussed while I was touring the chapel with Sandro. What else did I miss? Back to Mom...
Fortunately, we had Sandro, who loved taking pictures, recording the best part of the afternoon. Below is a series of photos taken by Sandro. The people in the photos are Lony Hansen, Jean-Pierre Friedrich's wife; Emelye Knepper, Jean-Pierre's former girlfriend; Jean-Pierre Friedrich; Melanie Gallo, Jean-Pierre's former girlfriend; and me, Jean-Pierre's former girlfriend. Let's see if you can reconstruct the conversation -
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