Vern Blumhagen & Lester Siebold's Korner
Cousins Lester Seibold and Vern Blumhagen
Lester and Vern are country boys, and members of GRHS. Lester was raised in central North Dakota near Cathay; Vern was raised in Montana near Ronan in a rural community known as Round Butte.
Their first meeting was for a day or two in 1936 when they were about seven years old at their grandfather's farm near Drake, North Dakota. They met again in 1941 when the families decided Vern should stay with Lester's family. After finishing seventh grade at a one-room school, Vern left for Oregon.
Vern went to high school in Drake; and Lester in Fessenden. They visited seldom largely because of the press of farm work, but did compete against one-another in some sports.
Military service and college days went by before they met again at a family reunion in Drake in 1979. Their paths crossed about every ten years because of Vern's returning to ND for high school reunions.
In spite of the separation in miles, Lester and Vern kept in touch. This was particularly so when Vern retired and began using the internet. He and Lester then began communicating quite often regarding genealogy. Lester researched the Seibold history, while Vern was interested in the Blumhagen clan, and based his file initially on much of Lester's and his mother's prior data gathering activities.
The fast-friends relationship ended prematurely with Lester's death in November of 2006. These men had great respect for one another's talents and initiative.
For a more complete background, see the GRHS Heritage Review for March of 2007.
Shared Research Data
Black Sea Germans from the Rumanian Dobrudja - Part I
(By Lester - HR 21, September 1978)
Black Sea Germans from the Rumanian Dobrudja - Part II
(By Lester - HR 22, December 1978)
