HARD TO EXPLAIN TALES...2 - Dopplegangers

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HARD TO EXPLAIN TALES 2

Dopplegangers?

My mother comes from Germany and has relations here in the US and back home. One brother has lived in Colorado since about 1975. In approx. 1980 I flew out there with my mother to visit him and his wife. They lived in a apartment then, and spent their days running their tool and die shop. They told us an odd story while we were there. About a month before my trip, a neighbor in the building had approached them to inform them that my uncle's "niece" from Germany had been in the building looking for him. He had only one niece from Germany, my cousin "G.", who was the daughter of my mother's OTHER brother, who lived in Munich.

My uncle and his wife were utterly perplexed over this, as they had no contact whatsoever with G. Now, G. was older than me, a businesswoman, who traveled, so we assumed that perhaps she made a sudden trip to the US and somehow found my uncle's address and popped in. How, remained a mystery.

But that was not the case. Eventually my mother spoke to G., about a year later. She had never been to America. Unfortunately I haven't a description of the visiting "niece", so we don't know if this "person" resembled G. And we won't ever know, it was too long ago.

B--Another odd one involving my mother's family. My mother is one of four children, the two aforementioned brothers along with a half-sister. This half-sister and her mother (my grandmother) became completely estranged. This girl was somewhat older than my mother, and about the time my mother was born, she left home. In effect she vanished and wasn't heard from for years. My mother comes from south Germany and this sister eventually settled in Hamburg, in the north. There was only one person in the family who had any contact with her, and that was my mother's cousin M, who lived out in the country. Through M the rest of the family heard of the sister. But not much; to this day I don't know the sister's name!

I traveled with my mother several times to Germany when I was a child and teenager. When I was 15 (1979) we flew over and upon arrival my mother phoned her cousin M to arrange a visit. The cousin told a strange story:

Cousin M had very recently received a phone call from the Hamburg sister. Hamburg sister was a bit upset over a visit her husband, who was disabled and stayed home all day, received. Apparently a young couple knocked on the door one day. They claimed to be friends of my mother and I, and based on that, they wanted to know if they could stay a few days. Naturally the husband told them to get lost. They didn't push it, but before they left they mentioned that instead of staying, they would push on to the "east zone"...meaning East Germany.

This was so strange my mother called her long lost sister to hear the story herself. She hadn't spoken to her in about 30 years, had no knowledge of her address, her married name, or any other information that would lead anyone we knew to their home. Not to mention we hadn't the slightest clue who this young couple was, why they were in Germany, or why on earth they would want to go to East Germany.

I wish I knew more, but that's all I have. Very, very strange.

-Alan.