This is my great-great-great grandfather. Most of the family thinks he was a blacksmith in Germany. I’m not so sure about the blacksmith idea — his arms don’t look big enough. He looks very much like my uncle and alot like my dad.
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Category: Genealogy
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More Early Opderbecks
Here’s another picture from the “Opderbeck” book. This is Hermann Op der Becke, born in 1786 and died in 1885. This picture proves that the Opderbeck body type — which is not, shall we say, tall and lithe — lies deep in our family genes.
I’ve also been trying to use a web-based translator to figure out some of the text. Here’s what I have so far (anyone know German?).
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The Early Opderbecks
I have an old book that traces my family name in Germany back to the 1600’s. I’ve always wanted to digitize it and have it translated (it’s in old-style German). Here is one of the pictures, of Jan Opderbeck, Reidemeister in Ultena in the 1700’s (I thought “Reidemeister” was a term for some sort of government official, but apparently it’s a generic term for a “wholesaler” or “trader”):
Any resemblance?
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Schiavo and Judicial Activism
I was listening to the Sean Hannity show on my way into the office this afternoon. He was discussing the Florida District Court’s ruling denying the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order under the federal statute passed by Congress (the “Schiavo Act”). Hannity stated that he believed the court’s opinion did not even reference the Schiavo Act. He was hammering the federal court’s decision as symptomatic of the arrogance of the judiciary. Senator Rick Santorum came on the Hannity show and claimed the Schiavo Act required the federal court to order the reinsertion of nutrition and hydration tubes pending a full hearing on the merits. Santorum also decried the ruling as an abuse of judicial power. This seems to be the Christian Right’s theme: a National Right to Life Committee spokesman referred to the federal court’s decision as a “gross abuse of judicial power”; Christian Defense Coalition Director Pat Mahoney, quoted in a Focus on the Family article, attributed the federal court’s decision to “an arrogant and activist federal judiciary.”
Unfortunately, all of these comments about judicial activism are wrong.