A Special Visit

On 18 April 2009 our son, Mark Howlett, flew into Frankfurt, Germany on his way home to Dallas/Ft. Worth Texas. He had been in India giving some Microsoft training classes to contract employees for the Microsoft company and he was able to schedule a two day layover in Frankfurt for a visit with us.
When he arrived at 8:oo A.M. we were able to meet him and whisk him off to join with us on a walking tour of historical downtown Frankfurt. We met with the group of about 16 senior missionaries, and our tour guide was a local sister, Lucia Gross, who worked in the Europe Area Presidencies office of the L.D.S.Church here in Frankfurt, Germany.
Lucia first explained some things about the history of Frankfurt before we all took off on the U-Bahn-the local electric street car, for downtown. She told us that Frankfurt dated back to before Roman occupation which began before Christ was born. The Romans had outposts and garrisons of their army stationed here.
The first place we visited was at Roemerplatz, called that because of the previous Roman occupation. Frankfurt was later one of the city-states of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations.
This picture is of the Roemerhof or city hall. This had been a city hall since 1405. There were 52 emperors crowned in this city. The stair step gables were very characterist of that time period.

To the right is a picture of the Fountain of Justice, which usually has water flowing out of it Spring, Summer and Autumn. At the crowning of a new emperor all the common people were overjoyed to find that fountain flowed with wine and the people could smell the tantillizing aroma of roasting ox. It was a time of feasting, singing, dancing and celebrating.

As you can see here, Mark is keeping up with the walking tour. It was sometimes fast paced but it was fun to enjoy it together. Mark enjoyed getting to know the many senior missionaries that went with us on the tour, and they enjoyed getting to know him.
Lucia took us up on the iron walk bridge across the River Main. From there we could see many parts of the city on both sides of the river. If you remember in our blog entry just before Christmas 2008 we told of standing on this bridge and listening to the bells of 10 churches ring all around the city center of Frankfurt.
As we looked just back to the north of us we could see a tour boat moored by the edge of the river and just behind it is the Customs building which was built before 1456 where a clerk used to sit in the corner tower and collect harbor fees from all traffic traveling on the river.

When we came down off the iron bridge Lucia pointed out to us the plaques on the wall by the stairs telling of the different levels of the River, comparing them with the present day level. All these levels were very high, during floods.

This picture shows an old German-style building called the "Wertheim haus". It is the only original wood-frame style house that survived the bombing and subseqent burning of all the old city of Frankfurt in March 1944 towards the end of World War II. Since most of the buildings were made of timber, the old part of the city was virtually destroyed and over 5,500 people were killed. Several of the historic buildings were restored between 1976 to 1989.

This statue is of Kaiser Karl Der Grosse, better known as Charlemagne. He was the first emperor since the Roman rulers to successfully unite Germany and Central Europe and stop the in-fighting. He ruled from 742-814 A.D. His statue is standing in the front of a historical museum which houses many interesting things. One of the displays is a complete model of what the old city of Frankfurt looked like before the 1944 destruction and a model next to it is of what the rubble of the city looked like after the bombing and burning. It was completely destroyed with only a few brick walls here and there standing. A side note our guide gave us, however, was that the old houses were built so close together and sewage everywhere, that people, including children, did not get any fresh air. Tuberculosis and many other diseases were rampent in the old city. When it was rebuilt it was planned and constructed in a much better way which made for a healthier habitat.

Here you can see a picture of a map of the old city that was hanging on a wall. Notice a white geometric line circumferencing the city. It represents a thick wall that used to encircle the city with the river completing the circle. This kind of city wall became obsolete in Napoleon's time when they started using canons that could shoot over the walls.

The Frankfurt Cathedral, or "Dom" as it is called in German, was also a very historic church. It was also mostly destroyed but is still in the process of being rebuilt. Ten emperors were crowned in this building that dates back to the year 852A.D. This picture is taken inside the cathedral and shows an ancient crucifix.

Next we went to see this house. It is the house where the famous writer, poet, lawyer, artist, scientist and theorist Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born. His most famous work was a two part drama called "Faust". This house has been restored to have everything inside look like it was when he was born in 1768 A.D.

In this picture Mark, Pat and Grant are standing in front of a statue of Goethe. This man is much revered here, though he lived a very free-spirited and sometimes undisciplined life. But this statue was a great place to take a picture and share this time with a member of our family.

Next Lucia took us to the Old Opera House (Alte Oper). It was built between 1783-1880 and the decor was to rival even the opera houses in Paris and Dresden. It was also destroyed in WWII but was restored in 1976. Well, these were the pictures we took on our walking tour of Frankfurt.
That same week-end we had a stake conference for our church. The adult meeting was held in downtown Frankfurt in a new chapel there, but the next morning we traveled north to a city called Friedberg where we met in a huge city hall called a "Stadt halle." Friedberg is part of our stake, but not as big a city and therefore not as expensive to rent a large hall, which our stake needed to gather us all together. It was great for Mark to meet many of our ward and stake members. On the way back Mark got to see some of the agricultural fields. Here you can see a yellow field of plants called "Rapps". In Germany they make a cooking oil out of the seeds of this plant. One can see many yellow fields dotted all over the agricultural landscapes of Germany.
After dinner on Sunday we took Mark over to the town of Bad Vilbel where we used to live. As we told in a previous blog, Bad Bilbel was one of the original Roman settlements in the area because of the healing mineral waters present.

Here you can see Mark and Grant standing on a pedestrian road through the Bad Vilbel Kurpark (healing park). It is a beautiful little park and it was located about 100 yards from our old apartment in this city.

As we were walking through the kurpark we happened to find a historic Roman mosaic bathing pool open for free public viewing. In all the time we lived there in Bad Vilbel it was never open, but we lucked out and found it open this day. It was origionally discovered down by the train station in Bad Vilbel, but they relocated it up here in the Kurpark when they restored it. Notice the head of Neptune pictured in the mosaic design.

This covered walk bridge across the Nidda River, that Mark and Grant are standing in front of, was recently built to accomodate the citizens crossing the river from the kurpark to the downtown Shopping area of the little city.

From another pedestrian bridge across the Nidda river we tried to take a picture of ducks floating on the river. But just as Pat was taking the picture the ducks decided to fly away.
That evening was a special fireside for the senior missionaries and we were able to take Mark to it. The fireside was given by an attorney named John Zackrison who works for the Europe area of our church based here in Frankfurt. He told of several legal battles and miracles that have made it possible for the church to accomplish things. Two major things he talked about was how the Lord directed him and others to open doors and make it possible to purchase land for a temple to be built in Rome, Italy. He also talked of how Slovakia was able to get the L.D.S. Church recognized in their country. But we could fill another blog entry on that because it was very interesting.

Pat and two other sisters prepared refreshments for after the fireside. Everyone enjoyed them and we all enjoyed being together. It was such a special week-end to have our son Mark here with us. We did so many things in the two and a half days that he was here and it seemed we had lived a week during that week-end. We were exhausted after he left, but it was worth it, just to have someone from our family come and visit. We'd love to entertain anyone else who could come. Thank you, Mark for bringing family a little closer to us, if even for one week-end.