July 5 - Saturday
Our breakfast was served family-style: eggs, lunch meats, cheese, rolls, butter and choice of beverage.

We went for a walking tour of "downtown" Ostrzeszów (known as Schildberg when it was part of Prussia). The church where Mike's family worshipped in the 19th Century (now called Chrystusa Króla) was only a block from the hotel, so we went there first. It was set up for a wedding later in the day. Mike inspected the pipe organ in the balcony at the back. As we left, we met the priest - Łukasz introduced us.

Next, we walked to the 14th Century castle and made plans to tour it on Sunday when it would be open. We also saw City Hall and another church. The town is a maze of narrow streets punctuated by larger plazas. We came across a bookstore where I found a Polish-language copy of Hobbit (the edition with illustrations by Alan Lee). We also bought a road map of Poland and a couple of postcards, showing old drawings of the castle and Chrystusa Króla. Further walking took us to another church - a tiny wooden one that was almost in ruins - the on to yet another church, larger than Chrystusa Króla. A tree-lined roadway led to a convent, where the nuns were busily cleaning the altar. A young nun opened the iron gate to let us into the sanctuary. She told us about a painting on the wall, depicting some nuns being killed by German soldiers during WWII as exchange for imprisoned townsmen who had families. Circling back to the hotel, we then went the opposite direction through a city park with a large, modern fountain, to the Lutheran cemetery. Mike found some headstones with family names he recognized but will need to do more research to confirm any relationships. Along the path outside the cemetery, Łukasz found some raspberry bushes with delicious ripe berries. On the way back, we bought the local paper at a newsstand [with press release Mike had sent, telling about our visit].

After a stop at the hotel, we drove to Niedźwiedź (Bärwalde), 7 km away, to visit the cemetery there. Like the Lutheran cemetery in Ostrzeszów, this one had raised plots, surrounded by dressed stones in a neat rectangle, with the headstone at the end. I had mentioned that this was very different from cemeteries in the US. Łukasz said the Catholic cemeteries in Poland were more like what we see in America. Niedźwiedź is the Polish name for the former Prussian town of Bärwalde, both of which refer to bears: honey-eater (Polish) and bear forest (German).

For lunch, we stopped at a small, local grocery store. We bought rolls and ham for sandwiches, which the clerk very kindly made for us. I bought a can of orange soda with the brand name Mirika (or maybe Mirinda) - a Pepsi product. As we were paying for the food, Łukasz noticed the local paper by the cash register and told the clerk that the story at the bottom of the front page was about us (the headline was "Help us find this family.") The clerk pointed across the street and told Łukasz to check with the old schoolteacher because she might remember some of the families. After we ate, we knocked on the door. She came to the door on crutches but she stood and talked to Łukasz for a good 15 minutes. On our way back to the car, a customer from the store walked us down the street to talk to another elderly man who had some other leads for us. We visited 2 Marek families, neither of whom were related but one man had a son named Michael, so I took a picture of Michael Marek and Michael Marek. We also visited the former Mayor of Szklarka Przygodzicka who had the old village records at his house. There were some of the same family names that Mike is researching but none of Mike's relatives were known to live in that village. We also visited property that had belonged to the Zahn family (Mike's great-grandmother, Michael Marek's mother). We seemed to go back and forth several times between Niedźwiedź and Marydół (formerly Marianthal).

After a long day, we ate supper at the pizzeria. Mike had Hawaiian pizza and a beer; I had some sort of gyro in a tortilla wrap, which was delicious, along with Lipton iced tea. Łukasz told us Lipton is considered to be an exotic brand in Poland. I commented on the number "1627" on the outdoor-cafe umbrellas. He confirmed that was the year the brewery advertised on the umbrella was established but it wasn't even the oldest one. After supper, we decided to call it a night - around 7:30 p.m.