Visit by Dr. Otto-G Richter to Costa Mesa
In November 2000 Richard and Emiko were surprised and greatly pleased by a visit to California by their relative and Chief Genealogist for the Bernbeck Family, Dr. Otto Richter, who just happened to be attending a conference in their town of Costa Mesa, of all places in the world! This was a great but short visit; see the link below for a few select photos.
Emiko and Richard S. had a wonderful vacation in June 2000; they visited England for the first time and were met by a lovely Masonic couple, Douglas and Ann Black, who were their hosts for a visit to the Grand Lodge of England and showed them around London where Emiko and Ann enjoyed the play “Cats” while Douglas and Richard attended lodge. Richard was initiated into the English “Table Lodge” procedure with an excellent dinner and a series of “toasts” following a Third Degree. In spite of confusion with the “round-a-bouts” or “traffic circles” as we would call them, Richard and Emiko still managed to drive from the London area to Portchester, Winchester, and Windsor Castle where they traced the paths of some of their royal ancestors on the Strack-Bernbeck side of the family, mostly the early Anglo-Saxon kings. Then they drove to Dover where they saw the the famous White Cliffs and took a high speed ferry boat to Ostende, Belgium. They picked up another car there and drove to Utrecht, Holland, where they stayed while visiting Amsterdam and Den Haag. Then they drove on to Kattenvenne, Germany, for a reunion with Anna and Gerhard Schowengerd, Wilhelm and Inge Hilgedieck, and others in the Kattenvene area. Finally they left for Bad Neuenahr where they visited with Otto Richter and family and on to the Bernbeck Reunion near Giessen; Joseph & Gisela Lischka were their hosts for this reunion and provided a beautiful golf course and restaurant facility in Winnerod for this event. Everyone Richard and Emiko met along the way provided them with the most gracious hospitality and they will always cherish the memory of this glorious trip. It was a great vacation and they have a treasure trove of photos and documents to share with the family members. However, because of limited space on this website and the fact that they no longer have access to storage on other websites, they are unable to provide a direct link from this site but if you send them an email they will be pleased to send you any of these documents and photos. Richard and Emiko would also be very remiss if they failed to mention the hospitality of Alex & Ingrid Rabenau who invited them to their home in Frankfurt and gave them a tour of Frankfurt Am Main. Dr. Otto Richter has provided his page with German text and some very nice photos of the reunion shown on the link below: