GB Halliday Home Page      
German Roots Trip 2003 - Contents

SEEKING OUR GERMAN ROOTS

Chapter III    
May 16 - 20, 2003

MECKLENBURG
Von Pressentin Family History - Prestin

Friday Afternoon, May 16

Now out on the open highway, Karen, the driver, could relax and it was an easy drive through beautiful countryside. A Shell gas station appeared along the highway, so we seized the opportunity to gas up the car. The car rental agency had warned us that if we did not return the car with a full tank, there would be a penalty charge of 125 Euros! That sounded awfully severe, until we got the bill for a half tank of Shell gasoline--35 Euros!! Gulp! Translating liters to gallons, we estimated that gas cost us over three dollars a gallon.

We were headed for the little village of "Prestin" where my mother’s von Pressentin family originated. (Identified with red star on map below.)

Unlike at Schoenberg, we would not have to do onsite research to learn about our von Pressentin ancestors. The German members of the family have been keeping excellent family genealogical records for centuries, and in the 1800’s and 1900’s three volumes of the family history were written by family historians. For the USA von Pressentin descendants, all the information in these three volumes was essentially "locked up" as the books are written in German. As a labor of love, Karen undertook to translate these books and so we arrived in Prestin with our English translations and lots of background information.

The family history books for the von Pressentins indicate that the family probably lived in this area long before written records were kept. The family is most likely of Slavic origin, part of the "Wendish" Slavic tribes who moved west to this part of Germany about 700 A.D. The oldest document to mention the von Pressentin family dates from 1270 and is now in a museum in Schwerin.

The family is proud of the fact that they are part of the oldest nobility in Mecklenburg and that their surname comes from the Slavonic word "parstin" which in the Wendish language refers to the griffin’s claw in the von Pressentin coat of arms. [The "griffin" is a mythical creature, having a head and wings like an eagle, and the body and tail of a lion.] This version of the family crest dates to 1358.

The current family historian is Friedrich-Franz von Pressentin and in a family newsletter published in the 1960’s, he gave an account of how this very ancient family survived the plague of the Middle Ages:

"In the years 1638-1640 the pestilence raged in Germany and only one male member and some young maidens of the family survived. The young boy, Bernd (born 1639) who was very sickly in his youth, married his niece Anna-Dorothea von Pressentin in 1665. The property of the entire family was united through this marriage. All von Pressentins who live in the world today, are descendants of this couple, who had many sons and daughters."

 

We arrived at this very historic Prestin in late afternoon. We found Friedrich-Franz and Chris had already arrived in their rental car and were hard at work mowing the lawn around the little von Pressentin chapel and doing other chores. The chapel is close by the lovely, simple manor church made of stone and brick.

The original church on this site was probably made of wood. This present church dates back to the Middle Ages and was built by the von Pressentin family. A crypt under the church floor holds the remains of von Pressentins who died prior to 1760. At that point, the crypt was full. The adjacent chapel was built in 1808 to serve as a place of prayer and with a large crypt to hold the coffins of succeeding generations of von Pressentins.

In 1872, the widow of Adolph von Pressentin had to sell the Prestin Estate, including the church, but she kept the little chapel in the family. Apparently both chapel and church were lovingly maintained through the centuries, but in 1944 Russian forces invaded this area. The chapel was broken into, and the coffins in the crypt were broken open and vandalized. With the formation of East Germany the entire village of Prestin became a collective farm and the chapel served as a workshop until 1990. It was badly neglected, with a leaking roof, and huge trees had been allowed to take root and grow up through the foundation.

In 1997, after the reunification of Germany, the chapel was once again placed under the care of the von Pressentin family. Friedrich-Franz accepted the challenge of restoring the ruined building and crypt. What a disheartening task he faced! Parts of the ceiling had fallen in, and the beautiful fresco paintings of Biblical texts, the coat of arms and other paintings were covered over with ugly green paint or ruined by water damage.

In October, 1990, shortly after the Reunification of Western and Eastern Germany, my son, Mark, was in Germany on business. He took a side trip to Prestin to see the ancestral home of the von Pressentins. All appeared deserted, but he found a local workman who opened the church. Mark could view the interior and photograph the altar and baptismal font which were all in good condition. The workman did not have a key for the chapel, but Mark did take pictures of its exterior. Quite a contrast to what Karen and I saw in 2003!

When Karen and I walked up to the chapel today, we didn’t see that sad ruin; instead we saw a lovely building, with the exterior nicely painted and the family coat of arms and inscription once again carefully added.

All the restoration work had to be done on frequent car trips to Prestin. Winter is severe in Mecklenburg, so work could only proceed in the warmer months. Supplies often had to be brought with Friedrich-Franz from his home in Hamburg--two hours drive to the west. Friedrich-Franz’ good friend, Chris Wallis of Cornwall, England, also has enthusiastically adopted the restoration of the chapel. Through thousands of hours of their own very hard labor and at considerable cost, these two men have accomplished a minor miracle in only five years.

While Chris finished up the lawn mowing, we walked down the road about a block to the site of the former von Pressentin manor house, which was burned by Russian occupation troops in 1945 and has not been replaced. Today, little evidence remains of the handsome Prestin manor house and beautiful park-like grounds portrayed in this 1857 drawing by Luise von Pressentin.

Friedrich-Franz gestured with his hands to show us which way the manor entrance faced. Some huge lilac bushes which would have grown at the rear of the manor are the only hint of what once stood here.

In the Middle Ages a castle occupied the grounds, and even before the castle, a Wendish fortress stood on this very historic ground. Back in the Middle Ages, the manor house had a moat around it, which could be flooded for protection. (This fact puzzled Karen and me. Apparently the little rivulet that runs just north of the manor property was diverted into the moat. As far as we could tell, the manor property sits well above the stream--we never did figure out how they got the water to run uphill!)

After the von Pressentin estate left the family in 1872, it changed hands several times through the decades. Then, in 1944, during World War II, the invading Russians occupied the property. The attraction to the Russians was a distillery, and that building still stands, just opposite the manor site. Today the most interesting feature of the distillery building is the huge stork’s nest sitting atop the chimney! And, yes, the stork was once again in residence there, after its long spring migratory flight from Africa.

We walked past a building that is near the manor site which once housed workers for the estate. Now, it is now getting some much-needed repairs, such as new windows. Apparently the interior is in disrepair. We walked past some of the other village buildings: a community hall that was used by the East German political parties.

We saw this former elementary schoolhouse where both the von Pressentin children and the village children studied together. For their advanced education, the von Pressentins had to go to Schwerin. The schoolhouse is now occupied by a family.

Near the church, we passed a former parsonage/hospital, and its storage building, built around 1740. This looked almost beyond restoration--but new owners from western Germany are presently turning the large house and the storage building into their home.

As we came back into the church yard, Friedrich-Franz pointed out that the cemetery surrounding the church was divided into four sections: one for each of the three nearby villages. The fourth section was reserved for the Catholics and it contained only one grave--Catholics were obviously in very short supply in Lutheran Prestin!

GB Halliday Home Page      
German Roots Trip 2003 - Contents