Her road took her from Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, to Wittenberg, Mo., where the Degenhardts lived. It was one long traveled by Germans. The American Wittenberg was founded in 1839 by about 700 Lutherans who sailed to the United States after leaving the town where Martin Luther nailed his explosive theses to the church door. Wittenberg, on the banks of the Mississippi, is now a ghost town, destroyed in the flood of 1993. But in Altenburg, a parish founded at the same time on higher ground, all is neatly ordered around the Lutheran church.
Boxes contain pretty floral arrangements and American-flag pennants.
In this area, in a tightknit, church-dominated community, Heidi quickly felt at home. What struck her was the absence of fences, the unlocked doors, the friendliness, the positiveness. A place free of the shadow of bad German history. Soon she met Albert Boettcher, known as Junior, president of the Lutheran youth association, descendant of Germans who had moved to the area in the 1920's, proud owner of a 1960 Chevy. They were married in 1963.