The Soul of Schleswig-Holstein

"After our quick walk around the old harbor area, Yogi decided to make a brief stop at Rantrum on our way back to Flensburg. I snapped one last photo, we loaded in the car, and began the short drive to the town where Jürgen Peter Ankerson was born. As I stared through the windows of the Mercedes at the lush, green Schleswig-Holstein countryside, my thoughts returned to Iowa City and all the research I'd done there. The words of Jürgen's autobiographical sketch that had appeared in the Davenport German- language newspaper, the Iowa Reform, rattled around in my head ... 'As the youngest son of beloved and worthy parents, I was born on the first of March in the year 1824 in Rantrum.' The time was at hand; I was finally going to see the place where my great- great grandfather's life had begun."

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