Letters from the Old Country

How fun to receive last week a tube full of documents pertaining to Herman Thaden and his family.  There was a patent for the airship and a brochure explaining the wonders of this airship for potential shareholders.  There was also a news clipping featuring the airship in an Atlanta German-language newspaper.  Many letters accompanied these documents, written by Bernard Thaden to relatives back home.  All are written in German with the exception of some written to his sister's family.  Curiously, his sister also lived in Ostfriesland but must have had no trouble with the English language.  Incidentally, Bernard's English was better than most Americans'.  The translation of these letters will be a challenge, especially since the script is Old German and more especially since they are most likely written in the plat Deutsch of Ostfriesland.  These papers were discovered  in an old trunk, by a Strenge cousin, in the attic of the Thaden home in Dornum before it was torn down. Thanks to Cousins Christoph and Lenchen for securing such nice scans of the documents and then sending them to me.  They truly know the value of good family history research!