When I was growing up, my paternal grandmother, Margaret Lang Cunning (1877-1970) told me stories about her Fromholtz-Kirchner family which emigrated from the small town of Schorbach in the Moselle Department of northeast France in 1856. Her grandmother Barbe Fromholtz Kirchner was a 55-year-old widow setting off on this six-week ship's voyage with several of her children, hoping for a better life in Dearborn County, Indiana. My grandmother gave me a copy of their passport and the etched wine decanter they brought with them. These treasures were the seeds for my family explorations.

When I was growing up, my paternal grandmother, Margaret Lang Cunning (1877-1970) told me stories about her Fromholtz-Kirchner family which emigrated from the small town of Schorbach in the Moselle Department of northeast France in 1856. Her grandmother Barbe Fromholtz Kirchner was a 55-year-old widow setting off on this six-week ship's voyage with several of her children, hoping for a better life in Dearborn County, Indiana. My grandmother gave me a copy of their passport and the etched wine decanter they brought with them. These treasures were the seeds for my family explorations.