Marktbreit - Home to the Mandel Family

Our ancestor, Johann Mandel, was born in the pretty little village of Marktbreit. On our visit to Germany in the summer of 2016 we visited Marktbreit and made sure to take plenty of photos as we walked around the town.

This is a photo of the entrance into the town as well as the outside of the city wall and tower.

You can see it is a beautiful little Franconian village looking through the entranceway.

This photo is looking back at the entrance tower from inside the village.

A beautiful building trimmed in yellow and the tower of the Lutheran church off to the right.

 This is S. Nikolai Lutheran Church

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The beautiful old doors into St. Nikolai

Narrow cobblestone streets lead to homes where the citizens of Marktbreit reside. Unfortunately, we do not know the home in which the Mandel family lived.

St. Ludwig Catholic Church which is most likely the church that Johann was baptized in.

The entrance doors to St. Ludwig's. We caught my cousin Sabine's husband Dieter in the photo. 

This is the tower of the Lutheran Church from a different angle.

This sign indicates that the cemetery is located behind this wall.

More beautiful old doors that lead into the walled cemetery.

 The next couple of photos are of the cemetery where our ancestors surely were buried in the past.

The village has beautiful architecture and is so clean.

Water still separates the city from the outside wall which was built to keep marauders out during the Medieval time period.

Marktbreit was a beautiful Medieval village that is well preserved. 

Johann Mandel

Johann Mandel was born on January 13, 1831 in the pretty village of Marktbreit, Germany. He was baptized in the Catholic Church on January 31, 1831.

His birth record in the Catholic Archives lists only his mother who is Dorothea Mandel, presumably of Marktbreit.

Parish records also reveal that Johann was married twice. On July 13, 1859 in Marktbreit, Johann married Maria Ursula Windfelder. We do not know if any children were born to this marriage or when Maria died. It is likely that Johann brought children with him into his second marriage.

Ten years later, Johann married a second time on October 9, 1869 to our ancestor, Anna Margaretha Kinzinger (1830 - 1910) from Huttenheim. They were married in St. Peter's Church in nearby Wurzburg. Anna was 39 years old when she married Johann, and quite possibly may have been a widow.

Franz Xaver Grunewald (Johann's grandson) spoke of him in his memoirs 'Rotlauf.' He said that Johann was a musician and a schostermeister (shoemaker). The records we were able to obtain from the Catholic Archives in Wurzburg also list his occupation as a shoemaker.

We are uncertain of what city Johann died in, but his death was in 1886 - 24 years prior to Anna's death.

Anna Margaretha Kinzinger

Anna Margaretha Kinzinger 

was born on April 2, 1830 in the Bavarian village of Huttenheim, Germany, which is about 322 kilometers southwest of Marktbreit where she lived as an adult.

Anna Margaretha was born to Andreas Kinzinger and Katharina Hannewacker. Sadly, she was only 24 years old when her father died.

Fifteen years after her father's death, she married Johann Mandel (1831 - 1886) of Marktbreit on October 9, 1869 in St. Peter's Church in nearby Wurzburg.  According to the parish records, Joseph and Andreas Wagner, custodes in the church, were their witnesses. How they met is a mystery to us since they did not live in the same area. She was 39 when she married and very likely may have been a widow with children.

One year after their marriage, Maria 'Rettel' Mandel (1870 - 1925) - our ancestor -  was born in Marktbreit. We do not know if there were any other children born after Maria.

After her husband, Johann, died, Anna moved to Frickenhausen to live with Wendel and Maria until her death in 1910.

Wendelin Grunewald (1871 - 1933)

Wendelin Grunewald 

was born on September 13, 1871 in the small village of Frickenhausen, Bavaria, Germany.

He was born to:

Wendelin Georg Grunewald (1823 - 1884) of Frickenhausen

and

Ana Margareta Apollonia Hofmann (1822 - 1895) of Frickenhausen

Wendelin was of the Catholic religion.

In 1894 he married Maria Mandel (1870 - 1925) from Marktbreit.

His son Franz Xaver goes on to tell us that his father met his mother Maria 'Rettel" geb. Mandel in the town square in Marktbreit where she was from. He teased her that "she would rather paddle downstream than marry upstream.' This was in reference to the fact that the town of Marktbreit that she was from was a nicer town than his hometown of Frickenhausen. According to Franz, they got along very well. Of his mother and father, Franz said, "They were very ambitious and hard-working people."

Their marriage produced 6 children:

Katinka (1894 - ?)

Barbara 'Barbel' (1896 - 1971)

George Johann 'Schosh' (1897 - 1917)

Franz Xaver (1903 - 1985) our ancestral line

Elizabetha 'Liesel' (1909 - 1992)

Wendelin (1913 - 1986)

From left to right first row:Elisabetha 'Liesel', Wendelin, Barbara 'Barbel'
second row: Wendelin and Franz Xaver

He and Maria geb. Mandel lived on 10th Street in Frickenhausen

Their home was located down Zehntgasse (10th Street)

This was their home that they moved in to around 1895 according to their son Franz Grunewald's memoirs 'Rotlauf.'

Per Franz Xaver's (Wendelin's son) his father Wendelin studied as a mason and later became a foreman. He also acted as the town's police chief, town clerk and mayor all rolled into one. Wendelin was in charge of ringing the town bell and then reading the town news to everyone. The census records that he took recording the towns people and the farm animals they owned eventually ended up in the basement of his son, Franz Xaver's, home. My mother and some of her siblings would play with the large books when they were kids.

He was active in the military and belonged to the 14th Infantry Regiment in Nurenberg. When he left the army his ranking was that of 'master sargeant.' According to his son's memoirs, "He was a sharp man and was loved by all the girls." 

A story from Franz Xaver's memoirs "Rotlauf" about his father is as follows:

"I can remember in 1907 when they put up a weathervane on the top of the hill in Frickenhausen. My father put me in a wagon along with his tools and up the hill we went to put up the weathervane, that he and other towns people had made. My father wrote the year they put it up (1907) in cement at the base of it. When he had finished the job it was real dark and a thunderstorm was coming. He put me in the wagon, along with his tools and off we went back to town. It started to rain real hard and by the time we got down the hill, the wagon was half full of water and lightening was striking everywhere. It looked like the world was coming to an end, but we got home safely. He took me out of the wagon and the water just ran off of me. He said, "Your mother doesn't have to give you a bath today." I remember this story every time I go by the weathervane."

Franz Xaver's wife, Rosa Grunewald geb. Schmittner always referred to Wendelin as a 'peacock' because he was always impeccably dressed and seemed to strut around.

Wendelin died in March of 1933 in Frickenhausen and was buried in the town cemetery behind these gates.

Maria Mandel

Maria Mandel 

was born on June 11, 1870 in the beautiful little village of Marktbreit, Bavaria, Germany.

Maria was known to her family and friends by the nickname of "Rettel"

She was born to:

Johann Mandel (1831 - 1886) of Marktbreit

and

Anna Margaretha Kinzinger (1830 - 1910) of Huttenheim

Her birth record indicates that she was of the Catholic religion.

In 1894 Maria married Wendelin Grunewald (1871 - 1933) of Frickenhausen. They met in the town square in Marktbreit which is north of Frickenhausen. Wendelin would tease her and say, "You'd rather paddle downstream than marry upstream." According to their son Franz Xaver, "They got along well. Both were very ambitious and hardworking people."

According to records they resided in Frickenhausen where all 6 of their children were born:

Katinka (1894 - ?)

Barbara 'Barbel' Grunewald (1896 - 1971)

Georg Johann 'Schosh' (1897 - 1917)

Franz Xaver (1903 - 1985) our ancestral line

Elizabetha 'Liesel' (1909 - 1932)

Wendelin (1913 - 1986)

This is the street that Maria and Wendelin lived on in Frickenhausen. The names translates to 10th Street in English.

This is Zehntgasse - the street that leads to their home.

 This is their home on Zehntgasse 

Most likely the  front part of the home with the balcony was not  original to the house and not there when they lived there.

 These red poppies were by the street at their house. The red poppies are a childhood memory for me when we visited my grandfather (Maria's son) in Ochsenfurt.

She died in 1925 in Frickenhausen from blood poisoning caused by the thorn of a rose. The story goes that at the time of her death, the clock in her home stopped working. These are the gates of the cemetery where she and Wendelin were buried.