Marianne Trivalos

Sadly, Marianne Trivalos, passed away on Monday November 24. I took the photo on the left this year at German Fest here in Milwaukee. I thought it was so nice to see 3 generations all actively engaged in sharing their heritage with visitors to the fest. Marianne was very proud of her daughter, Heidi, and granddaughter, Maria, and they were always at her side. They will miss her deeply, but most of all her dedicated husband, Dick, will miss her most. They were married for 51 years. You seldom saw one without the other close by. They did almost everything together. Please click here to read the death notice on line at the Journal Sentinal and sign the guestbook with your memories of Marianne.

Marianne was very involved in the German-American community for many years. She and her husband, Dick, were among the original German Fest directors when it started 28 years ago. But she had held the position of Secretary in the German-American Societies for over 25 years before that. Many of you probably remember her from the Saturday morning German classes and are greatful to her for having taught you the German language where she was both a teacher and principal. She was always there with a helping hand as a member of the Bayerischer Vergnuegungs Club.


Our family will miss seeing her out in her garden in the summer and we will no longer be able to wave to her as we drive by. But most of all we will miss her smiling face at the Bavarian Inn making sure the Pretzel booth ran smoothly. Marianne we will miss you!!!


Funeral arrangements are as follows.

Sunday November 30, 4 pm to 7 pm service

Becker Ritter, 140 W. North Ave, Brookfield, Wisconsin

Magdalena has arrived

It has almost been a week since little Magdalena Ann made her appearance on November 19. She was a healthy 8-1/2 pounds and her proud parents, Mike & Laura, are happy they could bring her home to celebrate her first holiday. This will certainly be a memorable Thanksgiving for the Wagner family. Mike's mom, Grandma Irene, is busy sewing all kinds of cute things for her first grandchild and somehow I think this lucky little girl will soon be in a dirndl. Laura's dad, Grandpa Glen, is hoping that Mike will teach her how to fix cars even though she's a girl.

Little Magdalena Ann has a whole bunch of relatives who are lining up to get a chance to babysit, but for now they will have to be happy to just hold her for a little bit while Laura gets dinner started. This lucky little girl was named after her Great-Great Grandma, who celebrated her 95th birthday this year. She was one of the few that predicted that Laura would have a girl; everyone else thought it was going to be a boy. You should have seen all the stuff she got at the shower that was blue. Luckily a girl can wear baby blue too.

Back from Hawaii

Although I have been back from Ted Hierl's cruise to Hawaii aboard the Golden Princess for a few weeks, I finally got my pictures organized. At the bottom of this posting, I have a short slideshow with a sampling of what we saw & did on the cruise. But to see all the pictures and you will go to the Hawaii Cruise page. There are 3 slideshows and instructions of how to download pictures to your computer for free.

Reiner Kirsten put on some great shows. This Schwarzwald native warmed up the audience with some old favorites and introduced them to his new hits. Reiner mingled with the people on the cruise even when he was not performing and soon when you heard him say "Hallo Freunde" there was someone else saying "Hallo Reiner".

The Elstertaler, led by Wolfgang Semmler, again provided 2 show nights of dance music. However one of the highlights was when Semmi sang to his lovely wife, Ilona. He changed the words to the song to address their 12 years together and this year they were married. The Elstertaler really had the place jumping and you can see why Ted Hierl invites them back each year. Andre is a very talented singer and knows what the crowd wants to hear. They also brought with them some of the new hits in Germany and had everyone up on their feet. One morning, Tomas, on the keyboard, joined us for breakfast with this family. Tomas also plays in the new band that accompanies Stefan Mross and it was very interesting getting some inside stories from him.

We were lucky to have a great table of 6 other people to sit with at dinner time. Our table was very mixed with each couple coming from a different state: California, Minnesota, Rhode Island and, of course, Wisconsin. It was fun to hear what everyone had done throughout the day and some of them had some interesting adventures mixing with the locals. There was a table of people from Milwaukee and it was nice to see familiar faces on the cruise as well.

Ted Hierl and his lovely wife, Hilde, deserve a great big thank you for spending countless hours putting together this cruise. There were over 360 people in our group and 88 of them came from Germany. Hilde did all the coordinating and translating that was needed to make things go smoothly. Ted announced that next year's cruise will be going to the Southern Caribbean with the Original Naabtal Duo as the star guests. I have created a new Cruise page with all the details and you can get there by pressing this button . If you want to see the Naabtal Duo in action there are a bunch of links to YouTube so you can get familiar with their music. I will be putting a direct link along the left sidebar of the webpage soon, so if you are thinking of going next year call & reserve your cabin before they are filled up. Please note that if you click on Ted & Hilde's picture you will go to Ted's Webpage where you can listen to his 2 hours Sunday Radio show all week.

Christmas Show presented by Robert Deglau of Continental Showcase

Date & Time
November 29, 2008 - Time: Doors open at: 6 pm -
Show starts: 7:00 pm

Ticket Info

Ticket Cost: $18.oo
Call: Peter Saeman 262-252-3431



Description
Get in the mood for the holidays by attending this Christmas Show featuring artists from Germany and Austria. They will perform many of your favorite old German Christmas songs and bring some great new songs from the Heimat as well. Hey Milwaukee let's come out and support this event. If we want to continue to get German artists to bring their beautiful music to our city we need to show support of these shows and our German language Radio shows. It promises to be a great evening and we will get ready for the holidays ahead.

Armin Stockl has been featured at the Lake Villa German Music Festival many times. This year he was the surprise guest at the Schlagertreff that took place at the Hotel Hagen in Haren Germany. My friend, Maria Olligies, organized this event in Germany which also featured Vincent & Fernando, who will be appearing on the Herbert Roth prize results show on December 21 on MDR 20:15 for all you Shift TV watchers. Armin Stoeckl recently received the 2008 Deutscher Rock & Pop Preis and his popularity in Germany continues to grow. You are truly in for a treat.

Max Lechner is known for his beautiful music and interpretation of old favorites written by Robert Jung, such as, La Pastarella, Rot sind die Rosen, Wir sind alle Kinder Gottes and many more. You will be sure to enjoy these great old Heimat Lieder.

Birgit Pless is from Austria and started her career at a very young age. She is well known as a schlager singer, but has recorded a Christmas CD entitled Weihnachtsrose. Perhaps she will perform her new hit Spiegelbilder.

For more info, go to the Continental Showcase's website.

Location

Elk's Lodge #46

5555 W. Good Hope Rd., Milwaukee, WI 54223-4705

Rheinischer Verein - Hoppeditz Erwachen

Date & Time
November 11, 2008 - Time: 7:00 pm

Ticket Info
Ticket Cost: (details forthcoming)
Call: Mark Semrow 262-549-6557 or Larry Domine 414-527-0962 for tickets or any other information you would like about the Rheinischer Verein.

Description
This event is basically the kick-off to the Mardi Gras season. Come help wake up the spirit of Mardi Gras.

Music: Johnny Hoffman and His Herzbuben Band

For more info, go to the Karnevals Gesellschaft Rheinischer Verein Gruen-Weiss website. http://www.mardigrasmilwaukee.com/

Location
Bavarian Inn
700 W. Lexington Blvd., Glendale, WI