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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Jul 30, 2009 - 12:58pm PT
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Time for a bump on this great thread. This week I was visiting the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and remarked to my colleagues there that I did not know the main building was named after Lyman Spitzer Jr.
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/about/spitzer.shtml
I knew about him because he founded the lab and the original project was called "Matterhorn".
But he was also a climber and funded a grant:
http://www.americanalpineclub.org/grant/lymanspitzer
As I told this story my colleague asked if knew of Frank. I said yes I know of him and mentioned this discussion. My colleague, a plasma physicist met Frank many years ago when he was out in California.
It is quite remarkable when you know/learn of people from different sides of what is your normal world.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I just finished doing the history of Frank's mother's paternal family which really took on a life of its own. Not only did a g-g-g uncle die at the Alamo, but some of his ancestors explored and hunted with Daniel Boone in the early settlement of Kentucky, and then moved to Missouri with Boone.
During the American Revolution, Kentucky was a bloody battleground as the British paid their Native American allies for American scalps. Two teenage ancestors of Frank were held captive by Mingo Indians in Indiana for over 3 years. One escaped and fled across Indiana and Ohio to Pennsylvania undetected, and then built a raft and floated back to Kentucky via the Ohio river, while the other was eventually ransomed. As captives they were also adopted by a native family who after the Revolution would come and visit them for some weeks every winter.
My own paternal family shares a great deal of this history and Frank and I share two common ancestors 7-8 generations back through both the Bondurant and Callaway families. My Baker family tended to intermarry with Native Americans during this period as did the Callaways. The Callaways then intermarried with the Boone family. Frank's ancestors were also related to Rebecca Bryan who was Boone's wife.
Obviously sports like rock climbing help modern men and women still carrying adventurous genes to cope with urban life, whereas that love of adventure was used for sheer survival in the past.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Several well-known Canadian climbers are in part or wholly of First Peoples ancestry, although they're not always known as such. An interesting tangent to the thread. Another way of looking at it is if your ancestors have been in North America more than 150 years, there's a pretty good chance some were from the First Peoples - there was lots of interbreeding. Those who protest the 'purity' of their ancestry might be surprised by DNA analysis. For example, most people from Quebec and New Brunswick, whose ancestors mostly arrived by 1756, probably have some native blood. Maybe even someone like Chouinard?
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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A little off topic but in response to Jan's post about American Indians and her and Frank's background, and the follow up post by Mighty Hiker - I'm seven eights Irish, one eighth Comanche Indian. I gotta watch the firewater with that ethnicity, but I sort of like being "mixed."
JL
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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It's rather off topic, but New France (Quebec, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi Valley) was settled by the French in the 17th and 18th centuries. There were a variety of economic and other motives, including farming and fur trading. Naturally many of the immigrants were one step ahead of creditors, the taxman, or the law. And male. Settlement began in 1609 (400 years, now), but by 1666, there were twice as many men as women. So the king decided to export a lot of single women to make up the gap - les filles du roi, as they were called.
Raising the question of who all those young men were marrying in the meantime. My guess is that more than a few Indian maidens were baptized one day as "Marie LeClair" or some such, and married the next to one of the settlers.
Relations between the French and Indians were in any case generally more positive than those with the English, and there was extensive intermarriage, leading to a large Metis population.
Modern DNA testing is showing some interesting things about the ancestries of individuals and peoples.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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While we're off topic, I would note that in the 1600's in Virginia, when there was a similar proportion of European men to women, intermarriage was not a problem even for English speakers. Only when there were roughly equal numbers of English speaking females, did the prohibitions against inter-racial marriages go up. Particularly along the south east coast there was much mixture - one of the reasons perhaps that southerners are so concerned with bloodlines.
The female descendants of one of my own supposed 100% native ancestors (g-g-g-g-g grandmother) who married a Callaway, have tested as having 100% European mitochondrial DNA. Best guess is that these female ancestors were saved from starvation by Natives or were kidnapped by them in the early days. Their male lineage was Native and their culture also of course, but not their female DNA. Currently there is a large DNA project in Virginia among Native tribes there with the specific object of trying to relate them to the known British relatives of the lost colony of Roanoke and others.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Meanwhile, I would note that I first got into genealogy when a woman with the maiden name of Sacherer emailed me out of the blue from Germany saying that her great grandmother had two brothers who went to America and were never heard from again. She had seen my name on the internet and wondered if maybe we were related. When I wrote back I told her that Frank's father had always maintained that he had no idea where the Sacherer family originated, and she replied that was probably because they were Jewish, that Sacherer like Sacher, is a Yiddish name. I then started checking Ancestry.com for Sacherers and eventually wrote a history of all Sacherer families in the U.S. (about 75 people altogether). Her own bloodline died out or had only daughters so we could not trace them beyond the turn of the century. Many Sacherers dropped the double er and disappeared into the larger Sacher group as well. Every last one of them seems to have dropped their Jewish identity as soon as they arrived if they had not converted before that.Frank's own great grandfather came to the U.S. in 1872 and Frank's father always claimed to be Protestant.
The name Sacherer has a really interesting history as it comes from India and is the word for cane sugar there as the Indians were the first in the world to make sugar from sugar cane. Their sugar was transmitted from India to Europe by Arab and Jewish traders. In Yiddish Sarkar became Sacher and a Sacherer was a person who worked with sugar as a merchant, confectioner, wine blender etc.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Fascinating. And of course sacher more or less means sweet in German, as in sachertorte.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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The sachertorte was invented in Vienna and statistically most Sacherers still live in Austria. However, Frank's great grandfather came from the southern German province of Baden Wurtenburg.
Frank and I made a point of having a sachertorte at the fanciest pastry shop in Vienna when we were tourists there, and then decided there were at least a dozen other Vienese pastries that we liked better.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Sep 23, 2009 - 01:24pm PT
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Thank you all who have shared your stories and fantastic pictures for the record. To me, it sounds like Jan has had quite an amazing life, and I have really appreciated her views and posts in this process of bringing things to light in helping to flesh out who Frank Sacherer was. Its been equally nice and a very interesting eye opener to have learned a bit about Jan as well, who appears to be no less remarkable of a person than Frank.
Regards and thanks again to all for the wonderment you have all brought to the rest of us. I apologize for not being able to add anything other than some deep gratitude.
Retro edit so as not to intrude again:
John, your pictures of the last climb vis a vis those who knew the man....I'm speechless. Thank you doesn't but start to convey it.
Tom, I read your comments above and below the great designer Ray Olsen's comments below me (Ray-J)...same. In fact...to all...same. This conversation is a stunner.
-Bill Coe
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Ray-J
Social climber
socal
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Sep 23, 2009 - 02:41pm PT
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I'm blown away.
Profound reading.
Amazing thread.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Sep 23, 2009 - 07:13pm PT
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Very wonderful how the supertopo venue has made for such an honoring, outpouring and reflecting, including a kind of vicarious animation of Frank’s last climb down to the condition of the sky and ice and the look on those fated faces, and earlier including a haunting picture window from our hard plastic and glass computers all the way to a hovering point just above Frank’s grave, obscured to us until recently, and all thanks to the internet. While a book could organize and capture what has transpired thus far, it could never compete with this electronic forum for the continuous connection around respective memories, nor tease out a spontaneous stream of reflection upon reflection, a living, breathing story in and of itself, collectively written as we go.
There are many lessons here for how to remember the dead and honor the living through supertopo, not the least of which centers upon the dedication of all to participate fully and honestly, eyes wide open but tone consistently thoughtful and respectful. Note too the importance of Jan encouraging and participating in the entire uncovering through every shade of thought and emotion, from the mundane to momentous to humorous and painful. We must thank her for leading the way and call her brave to allow us to range across any and all memories and reflections, and to allow herself to awaken what sometimes had to be an anguished path. Let this thread be a model for the future.
Finally, how could such a vital story evolve in any more profound and consequential way than with the return of Frank’s ashes to the U.S., perhaps brought about in some measure by the powerful coming together within the story thread itself. Truly, there is life in the cyberspace of minds and hearts, feeding, generating life inside and outside the internet, a lesson to me and maybe others who stand back in wonder at what has transpired through our electronic interactions. Praises to cyberspace and supertopo. Praises to all coming together to make a living and loving commemoration.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 15, 2009 - 04:52am PT
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Frank and Joe Weiss were exhumed after 30 years and cremated on September 10 according to the demands of French law. Their own grave exists no more. Having been restored to its original state, it awaits its next unfortunate occupant.
Negotiations have been interminable and everything that could be complicated has been, first in French and then in English. Contracts have taken weeks to travel by airmail from Seattle to Chamonix, wire transfers have been mysteriously rejected by French banks and so on. All parties involved are exhausted.
Meanwhile, my university has granted me leave for the spring quarter to take care of this, so Frank's ashes will scattered in Yosemite sometime between April 10 and the end of May. Any suggestions about timing or format for a memorial are most welcome.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 15, 2009 - 12:13pm PT
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Thanks, Jan - it's nice to hear that something this important has been taken care of, though it sounds like it was fairly stressful. Frank was active well before I started climbing, but I'd be pleased to help with your plans in any way I can.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Oct 15, 2009 - 12:22pm PT
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I should also point out that I believe it is no longer 'legal' to spread ashes on land in California. How this works in a NP is beyond me but I suspect you don't want to open that can of worms (sorry, poor choice of words) after what you've been through. Probably best to just keep it on the QT.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 15, 2009 - 12:54pm PT
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apparently it's no problem to do it in Yosemite, which is Federal jurisdiction...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 15, 2009 - 01:09pm PT
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Thanks Mighty Hiker.
Reilly and Ed-
I've already checked and although it is illegal to spread ashes in California, the web page of the Park notes that it's legal on federal land.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 15, 2009 - 01:28pm PT
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Perhaps a pinch on Sacherer Cracker? and perhaps some on the appropriate longer routes; including, I believe, the Steck/Salathe? I'm 'in' on either of those....
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Oct 15, 2009 - 01:30pm PT
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Jan, Friend, are you not coming out in the fall for a Memorial during the FaceLift ??? lynnie
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