Welcome to Wilhelmsdorf. After leaving Insel Mainau we drove on into the afternoon looking for this village of Wilhelmsdorf as it was one of the places Helmut lived during his childhood. It is located about twenty five miles north of Lake Constance.

In the center of village stands the church that H. attended - the roads all lead to the church.

Across the road from the church is the Kinderheim (orphanage) where Helmut and his siblings spent most of three years after their Mother passed away. (During this time their Father was rebuilding the home in Duesseldorf). You can see the back door of the home, the barn and court yard, the side of the building with the fruit trees espaliered on it just as they were years ago. You will also see Helmut standing in front of the front door of the Kinderheim. We were allowed a brief tour of the inside of the main building - not the dorms.

The brown building is another place in the center of the village.

There was a small cafe with patio tables out front, in what used to be the doctor's house back in the 1940's. The folks sitting at the table started talking to Helmut and I went on window shopping - since H. didn't follow me I went back. The folks asked us to sit and visit for a while. The man standing behind me bought us something to drink-hot tea for me and coffee for H. The woman seemed to be the proprietress of the cafe, the person I took for her husband took our picture and the other fellow who is from Togo, Africa, is an employee of the man who bought the drinks. (They of course seemed to be having beers - very common all over Germany.)

Following our visit with these folks we went over to investigate the church. A woman of about our age (Renate P.) was sweeping the sidewalks and street all around the church. She asked if we would like to see inside - Helmut wanted to see if it still looked like it used to. Renate had the key so let us in and also visited with H. for a while. Since she was born and raised right there she remembered some of the staff of the Kinderheim. Incidentally the inside of the church had been renovated and painted white so was much lighter than H. remembered.

The day was coming to the evening so we needed to find a place to stay. Helmut asked Renate if there was a place in the village - she directed us to some woman who had a room for rent. We couldn't find the place so went back to ask Renate again - so off she rode on her bike to look for the place. After several minutes R. returned with the news that the room had already been rented out to someone. She also told us that there was a guesthouse in the next village and she had called ahead and reserved their last room for us - what a kind thing to do for strangers.

Helmut was able to recognize several other places in the village that we didn't photograph. We also drove a little way out to see a small lake that he remembered but now it seems to be privately owned so we didn't stop to really look around.