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Translation of the news item from the Westfälische Nachrichten dated 19 July 2000:
NOTE:(name misspellings, misquotes, and factual errors have not been corrected)
(under the left picture: ) According to the Cappelners, is similar to the municipal church in Westerkappeln: the St. John's Church in their home state of Missouri
(under the right picture:) Westerkappeln has visitors from Cappeln: Ten Americans, whose forebears emigrated to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, are currently exploring their roots.
Headline quote: "Here we have gotten to know the real Germany"
Secondary headline: Cappelners are again visiting in Westerkappeln
As they drove with the bus through Westerkappeln about a week ago, so much seemed familiar. That, despite the fact that for many of them it was their first trip to the homeland of their forebears. Since last Thursday visitors from Cappeln in the state of Missouri have been guests in our community.
Above all, the landscape and the protestant church reminded the ten German-Americans of their one hundred member community near St. Louis.
To be sure, their St. John's Church is much smaller than the municipal church here, but the architecture and building materials remind them of their structure that was started in the year 1856. "Our church would fit four times in yours", said Karen and Lyle Rosburg, who, with their parents, traveled over the Atlantic.
Also that the landscape here has a great similarity to that in their American home community was expressed by Raymond Freese. "And that is no accident", commented the mathematics professor. As their forebears emigrated to America in the mid-nineteenth century, they deliberately chose to settle down in what became the Cappeln area. "It felt and looked like home."
In the course of the following 150 years, the development of the two communities on the two sides of the Atlantic was quite different. Cappeln is now comparable to one of the rural communities around Westerkappeln explained Lyle Rosburg. The community is composed of farms averaging 240 acres. There is the church and a gas station.
"Cappeln has remained a German community", observed Mable Busdieker who, like many others, first learned English when starting school, and who speaks the Low German spoken by Westerkappelners for the past 100 years. Until the beginning of the 1940's, worship services were conducted in German.
"Here in Westerkappeln we have gotten to know the real Germany", said Lyle Rosburg, as opposed to the tourist centers the group had visited. During the one-week tour, the American group visited, among others, Munich, Heidelberg, Oberammergau, Frankfurt, Lübeck, and The Netherlands.
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