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Dahlem, a Village with Tradition (cont.)

The misery caused by marauding Spanish field-armies with their extortions and despotic confiscations amplified the weather catastrophe. There was nobody from "Neckels" present when some residents from Dippach and Dahlem recorded in front of notary Degen in Monnerich their material losses caused by marauding soldiers of the King of Spain during the week July 4-9, 1708

On February 27, 1718 "Neckels" celebrated a wedding and almost the whole village attended the wedding celebration, recorded the priest in the matrimonial register. Michel Nickels, son of Michel Nickels, brought home Maria Franck, daughter of Wilhelm Franck from Holtzem as his bride. From the baptismal record we see that the couple had an imposing number of children, most of them died in infancy. On December 21, 1718 Michel was born, he died already 3 weeks later. Katharina followed on June 16, 1720 and Maria on January 12, 1722. Nikolaus was born on August 26, 1723. His godfather was Niklaus Aresdorf from Holtzem and his godmother was Margareta Nickels from Dahlem. He married at the age of 26 years and perpetuated the generations. On February 2, 1725 Cäcilia was born and later married in Zolver. Magdalena followed her on March 10, 1728, Johann on April 28, 1730 and on June 4, 1732 Katharina. This last child seems to have died already on June 28.

When Maria Franck died on October 18, 1736 the troubled widower found in Elisabeth Rick from Schweich a stepmother for his two under-age children. They married on January 6, 1737. Two more children were born from this marriage. Michel who was born March 23, 1743, married Margareta Clemens, the daughter of Andreas Clemens, and Susanna Erpelding, from "Kempes", Schouweiler. The second son, Peter, born February 9, 1747, was ordained a priest and till the French revolution resided in the Capuchin cloister in Toul. On June 15, 1795, only one week after the capitulation of the Luxembourg fortress, father Cölestin witnessed the marriage between Johann Landman "from Guntz in the earldom of Eisenburg, Hungary" and the widow of Johann Reichling, née Barbara Bleu from Redingen. This surgeon, from Würzburg, ended in Luxembourg at the end of the feudal age, a protestant, he converted to the catholic religion, most likely due to the efforts of the scholarly Petrus Knepper from Dahlem who was the resident priest in Bauschleiden (1770-1806). The work of Petrus Knepper with the long-winded title "Fundamental Proof of the Catholic Religion out of Love of the Protestants and for their Education Presented in a Conversation between Father and Son about the most Salient Beliefs Dividing the Non-Catholics from the Catholics together with the Answers to an earlier Letter from a Protestant by Father Petrus Knepper, Priest in Bauschleiden and Chapter of Bastnach Definitorn". Johann Georg Schmitz, bookseller and printer in Malzbüchel, published the book in 1792 in Cologne.

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