This bible was given to my great-grandfather, John G. Lempke (23 February 1880 - 14 February 1961), on the day of his confirmation in 1895, at age 15, in Buffalo, New York. It is written entirely in German, and it has several names and dates written on the Family Chronicles pages at the front of the book.
For 115 years old, I'd say it's still in pretty good shape. The outer spine looks pretty bad, but no pages are missing or loose. I need to find a proper place to store it though. I'd like it to look as nice 115 years from now. DearMYRTLE has a wonderful post about caring for old family bibles here. I will definitely put that information to good use as this is one of three family bibles I am lucky enough to have.
I know how honored you are to be in charge of such a wonderful treasure. We have a Bible from my husband's family.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you mentioned DearMYRTLE's article. I plan to research it soon.
What a treasure. The main things are to keep it in a dry dark area, like a box, and to store it on it's back, never upright. Putting an old book upright on a shelf in the sunlight are the two worst things that can happen to an old book. Do treasure it. I only wished I were so lucky to have such treasures.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Geneabloggers.
Beautiful! I have been lucky enough to have become the custodian of my grandmother's German Bible. I thought we almost had duplicates!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.familyimmortal.com/page23/page80/page108/page108.html
Wonderful blog you have here.
I found a book exactly like this one!!! But there's 2 more from 1800,s there's only one name in the book but its signed 1880
ReplyDelete