News of Marietta

We visited Marietta this June and saw Tom's son, Adam, graduate from Marietta College. Adam later visited us in St. Louis. His sister, Heidi, and husband, Shannon, now have a two + year old, Ariana, and a toddler, Anastaja.

Not to be outdone, Vicki and Jerry are now grandparents 2 1/2 times over. This summer oldest son, Jeff and wife, Gee, had a girl, Audrey. A month later, while we were in Europe, 2nd son, Joe, and wife, Corby had a son, Justin. They live in North Carolina. TJ is attending Ohio State.

Jeff was seriously hurt in a car accident, and will take a long time to recover. We ask your prayers for him.

Mom is still living at the family home and gets out for a drive occasionally with Tom or Vicki. Steve and I will let her beat us at Scrabble once again when we go back to Marietta for a visit between Christmas and New Years Day.

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Andris Clan Travels to Europe

On August 10, sister, Vicki Smith, and brothers, Jim and Tom Andris went to stay in Vicki's traded timeshare in Gemünd, Germany for 10 days. We had much fun, driving down the Rhine River, drinking Rhine wine, visiting huge old castles, enjoying the scenic and spotlessly clean countryside. We had our fill of Pilsner beer and bratwurst, not to mention apple strudel. We also had a kind guide in Heinrich Becker, who helped us find a hitherto unknown fifth cousin, Manfred Harth, the mayor of Selchenbach, Rhineland-Pfalz. Heinrich, his wife and a couple of friends spent a whole day helping us visit many small villages where our great grandparents were born. Like Andreas Noe, a great great grandfather, born at Niederbexbach, named in our picture on the right. We also got to visit several of our second cousins in Binche, Belgium. They were so kind to us! Although Tom had been there a couple of times before, once even with dad and Uncle Alphonse, this was the first visit for Vicki and me. Read about our trip at http://www.siue.edu/~jandris/Europe/europe.htm