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When I was a governess there, all the castle buildings were painted yellow with white trim, as seen in the building on the right (once a barn, but now a convention center). Then it was time to repaint. Since it was a historic building, dating from the 15th century, the government was involved.

During the process, they discovered that the original paint job had been white with gray accents. All the yellow paint had to be meticulously removed to expose the original surface. Government regulations require that the new paint job be the same as the original.

This photo shows the east façade of the castle, with the entry arch to the courtyard, after the yellow paint had been completely removed. I was delighted to notice the fake window that had been painted in, to preserve the continuity. Originally, it must have been done with stencils, so they’ll have to have new ones made. The downside of that paint job is that it’s more intricate and takes meticulous application, (and therefore is much more expensive) as opposed to the plain yellow. I have to confess, I did like the cheery, sunny yellow.

I’ve stayed in close touch with the Count and his family, and you may have noticed my recent blog about my decision to return two antique pieces of my folk-dancing dirndl outfit to Bavaria; a lovely silk flowered scarf, and a gold-thread headpiece shaped like a big stiff bow. They had been given to me by his grandmother, the Countess during my stay. I let Count Carl know when I sent them, and he was delighted, and said “our whole family is still involved with that dancing group.”

Just yesterday, I got an excited email from him, telling me that they’d arrived safely. He said, (in German, of course…I’m translating) “They’ve been with you since 1961, and now they come again to us. Such a wonderful idea of yours! I’ll talk with the folk-dancing group to decide who should wear them. Perhaps they could even go to our daughter Clara.”

“Yes, yes, yes! Clara must wear them….they’ll be a gift from her great-grandmother, through me, to her,” I answered. He promised to send me a photo of her wearing them with the entire folk-dancing outfit, and I’ll post it when it arrives.

Meanwhile, here’s one of the card room in the castle. Through the window, you can see one of the arched windows of the church that’s built into one side of the courtyard.

I bought these antique chairs years ago and had them re-caned, but with three growing boys in my house, they saw rougher use than they should have, and their caned bottoms have larger holes than intended. The bentwood one is probably oak, and the other is walnut, and I love them.

But I’d like to pass them on to someone else, as I try to clear unused things out of the house. I asked a couple of antique dealers, who said they didn’t buy or sell furniture any more, and that even if the caning was intact, they weren’t interested. I put an ad on Next Door, but got no responses.

I don’t want much for them. In fact, I’d probably give them away to someone who wanted them. I know that caning has become very expensive. Maybe someone who does caning would like to have them, restore them, and then sell them! Perhaps I could donate them to an institution that trains blind people to do this beautiful craft. If anyone reading this is interested in having them, contact me via email: annsargent.author@gmail.com.

Well, I didn’t see a gator this morning, since it was barely 60 degrees, and cold-blooded reptiles move kind of slowly then. But my husband saw one earlier today, as he walked around the nearby lake. That one was lying on the surface of the water near the lily pads, soaking up the brilliant sunshine, recharging his scaly batteries.

One morning last Spring, near this sign, I heard the typical grunt that gators use to communicate with each other. Then a few weeks later, I heard a splashing, and looked over to see a very large gator thrashing his body into a spin, with something in his jaws….I think it was a duck. I’ve read that they kill prey by spinning to hold them under water. All this was going on no farther than ten feet from the walking path. And yet, I’ve never seen them up on the banks there. Which is fine with me. I hear they can run pretty fast for short distances.

During the year I lived in the castle, I danced with a local fold-dancing group, the Hinterskirchener Trachtenverein. I’d been in a group at UF and had sewed my own dancing dirndl. It didn’t look anything local the local folk costume: mine was in the style of Upper Bavaria (the Alps) and theirs was in Lower Bavarian style (the foothills). Nobody cared; they took me in as one of their own. At Christmas, the Countess surprised me with two authentic, antique pieces of the local folk costume; a beautiful fringed, flowered scarf and a gold-thread headpiece in the form of a large stiff bow, that went over my hair in its bun.

I decided that those beautiful items need to go back to the land of their origin, and I wrote to Count Carl telling him they were coming. He wrote me back (in German, of course) telling me that they were very excited about it. The whole family is involved with the dancing group, and they’ve always supported them financially as well. When the package arrives, he’ll meet with the leaders of the group to present them. They’ll let members of their group wear them at dances, and promised to send me photos. I’m really delighted about it, and can’t wait to see them. Here’s a photo of me wearing the scarf in Bavaria.

His wife, the Countess, took this photo when they received American Governess, my book about my year as a governess in their castle in 1961. Carl’s father, Christophe, was 12 years old then, the oldest of five children I helped care for and taught English to.

Before I came, the family had British governesses, but Countess Elisabet, Carl’s grandmother, wanted an American girl. She was tired of the formal reserve of British girls, and thought an American would not be so intimidated by the thought of nobility, and would be able to relax with the family. She was right. She and I felt as close as sisters by the end of the year.

Read about all my adventures in American Governess; My Year in a Bavarian Castle!

The Ecker (from a word that means ‘corner’) sticks out of the side of the castle, and overlooks the entrance arch on the right, and the large house in the center. Farther to the right is the greenery of the walled castle park. It’s possible to sit here and see anyone coming to visit. In summer it’s cozy and warm from the sun. It’s on a northwest corner, so it can be cold in wintertime, particularly since these windows aren’t like others in the castle.

In the last photo of the corridor, you could see that the walls are more than a foot thick, and there are inner and outer windows, creating an insulated area. These windows are angled, and not as deep, so it wasn’t possible to double them.

In the area where the Ecker joins the inner room, there’s a heavy floor-to-ceiling lined curtain designed to be pulled in winter and to keep the drafts from coming in. Be sure to read American Governess; My Year in a Bavarian Castle, for the full story.

Imagine you’re walking down one corridor of the castle where I was a governess. On the right, you can look out the windows to the far wing, and down to the central area in the hollow square of the building. If you unlatched the glass, you could lean out and look to your right to see the archway leading out of the castle. To the left you could see the Bavarian Baroque façade of the little church built into the castle itself.

Pulling back inside, you see the line of ancestor portraits hung between the windows. Immediately to your left is an area with a Persian carpet, leading to the Count’s apartments, and just beyond the wall with the tapestry you can catch a glimpse of the stair leading up to the attic.

This is a page from one of my great-grandmother’s letters to her fiancé, my great-grandfather. It shows how difficult it was for my mother to type out a more readable version. Here’s mine:

“Meanwhile, he must keep a good heart that perhaps Henry will send him one from Porto Rico. The donnas all smoke segars there. I often laugh at them smoking the little paper segars, so if he should get one of them, perhaps she will make him smoke. I often ask myself if I shall ever sit in the corner again……and see the dear, dear girls going around the room after the rough sounds of my old fiddle. When you write me again, do not think that a foolish letter, as you call it, is not exceptable, for if I had read my Bible as much as I have read your letter, i should be a saint, almost. I now wish you a Happy New Year, and hope that before another closes, I shall have the pleasure of signing Mrs. H instead of Miss W.”

That’s only the first half, not even tackling the cross-written part. It was thin onionn-skin paper, and written crossed on the back. A few of them had a third cross-written diagonally over the others. They did this to save paper.

Remember my great-grandmother, who was married at 18 in 1863? By 1876, her husband wrote to her while she was visiting New York City from Bermuda:

“I think, if you can get them to guarantee satisfaction, you had better get a new set of teeth, for your mouth does sink in so much with those old ones, and it would please me very much to see it look like it used to before you lost your teeth….”

In the 13 years of her marriage, she’d had 5 children by then (and within the next 5 years she’d have 2 more). Maybe nursing all those children took too much calcium from her system? Possibly dental care in an isolated island wasn’t good, or people took it for granted that they’d lose their teeth, but it shocks me that by 31, she’d apparently had a complete set of false teeth for some time.

They had an adequate income, and travel for dental care to New York or London aboard her husband’s ship would have cost her nothing, She had family and friends she could stay with in both places, as well as family at home who would have cared for the children during the weeks or months she’d have had to be away. But she didn’t do it.

The letters don’t mention whether or not she did as he suggested and got a new set of false teeth.