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Heinrich Handschin: Childhood Places

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Heinrich Handschin was born on February 1, 1830, in Rickenbach in the Canton of Basel-Landschaft as the son of Anna Maria Obrist and Johannes Handschin. He was the youngest of four children and grew up in the 'Butcher House' named for the butcher line of the Handschin family from Rickenbach which has many wide-spread branches. Yet for a long time there had been no more butchers in the family, instead there were lacemakers, weavers of silk ribbons, small farmers, day-laborers and farmhands. In the 19th century other family members undertook the difficult journey to America in the hope to find …

The International Life Of A Swiss Hotelkeeper, Marianne Burkhard

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Among the papers of Ferdinand Sperl there is a

small black book in which he chronicled the stages of

his life from his childhood to the 1960s. This

chronicle is very interesting as it shows first, how the

son of a hotelier was thoroughly prepared for

following in his family's footsteps as a fourth

generation hotelier, and second, how his arrival in the

United States in 1939 and the Second World War led

him to an unexpected career in military intelligence

after which he returned to his career as hotelier.