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Offwiller, pronounced (Off-vee-ler) in french and (Off-vi-ler) in german, is located in the Alsace (Al-sayce) region of France. Alsase is located in the southeastern part of France along the border of Deustchland (Germany). Offwiller is situated on the south piedmont of the Offwiller National Forest. The land can be classified somewhere between high hills to low mountains. The scenery is outstanding! Most of the buildings in Offwiller are made from local stone (Sandstone). It is of good quality. The sandstone has been requested and shipped to Hagenau, France to build their church.
The population is about 1800 people. Most of the residents of Offwiller work in Hagenau, which is about 23 kilometers (15 miles) to the southeast. During the 1930s, the occupation that most Offwillers worked in was in iron works. Of course, during the time that our Briesachers lived there, the main occupation was "cultervitor", french for farmer. Our Johannes Briesacher was a tailor while he lived in Offwiller.
According to Phil Brachet and Phil Hauss of the Les Amis du Musée d'Offwiller, one of the oldest building still existing was built during the 1500 hundreds (16th century). It exist in part of of a larger building.
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16th century building. |
During the time that our Briesacher's lived there, the main language was Alsacian a German dilect in France. Today the streets of Offwiller have two names. One in Alascian and the other in French. According to Les Amis du Musée d'Offwiller, it wasn't until recently that France allowed them to start using Alascian names. The light blue signs are French and the dark blue sign are in Alsacian. The ancestral Briesacher home(s) is located at the intersection of Rue des Tilleuls and Rue des Mineurs in Offwiller.
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See a street sign with both languages. |
Offwiller is small and charming. One of it's traditions is taking a clay tile that is used on the roofs and painting it to hang on the outside of your door with your address on it. Sorry that there are not any pictures of these clay painted address tiles. We are going to try to do this tradition on our home here at the Briesacher-Hayes Farm. There are some very pretty painted clay tiles in Offwiller.
The religion history of Offwiller is that of Protestant. The only church in Offwiller is Protestant and it is located on the Rue de Liberation. It is unusal for a town to have only one church because there is usually a Catholic church and a Protestant church but Offwiller maintain it's Protestant faith therefore only one church exist. Our Briesacher ancestors were of protestant faith according to some writtings. According to our records Johannes Briesacher , his wife, his sons and their wives attended and where buried behind the Union Hill Methodist Church, a protestant church, that was located between Belleville and Millstadt in St. Clair County, Illinois.
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See the only church in Offwiller. |
One of the most interesting buildings in Offwiller is the laundry house. Residents would come here to wash there clothes. the water was pumped down to the laundry house via a pump station. Offwiller's water comes from the hills on the North side of Offwiller.
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Laundry House |
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Pumphouse |
If you have some time take a look at our Offwiller Gallery. The gallery is from our trip to Offwiller on 2 December 2007. You'll find its link on the right. I think you'll find Offwiller as charming as we did. (Coming soon.)
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