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“Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Mover
& Shaker
Interview by
Rose Mary Keller Hughes
Published at DVHH.org 01 Dec 2004 by
Jody McKim Pharr Welcome,
Brad, the first of the list of Shakers and Movers. It is always tough to be
the first of any new project, but Brad very graciously
agreed to go under the microscope so that we might have
the opportunity to know him better. Brad was
born in Catskill, New York in 1954. He attended
Coxsackie-Athens Central School and then went on to
college and received a BA in psychology from the State
University of New York (SUNY) New Paltz in 1976. Then
Brad joined the United States Air Force as a medic; he
was stationed in North Carolina, England and later in
California. In 1977, Brad married Donna and their
daughter, Kristy, was born while Brad was stationed in
England—he was working in Labor and Delivery! Their
son, Shawn, was born two years later. Following
his armed service stint, Brad was in the Air Force
Reserves and the New York Air National Guard. While
with them he flew as an aero-medical service specialist
in the C-130 Hercules around the United States as well
as other parts of the world including Germany, Hungary,
England again during Desert Storm, Korea, Hawaii, New
Zealand, Antarctica, and the Azores. Now he is retired
from the military but he is still busy working as a
counselor for the New York State Department of
Corrections in the local prison. Brad is
quite busy and multi-faceted as his hobbies are quite
varied! They include traveling, exploring, studying
nature, painting, stamp collecting and translating
German—especially Donauschwaben literature. Aha! We all
exclaim as we read this—someone to turn to when we can’t
decipher some document or other! Brad
was asked how he came to be doing research on his
family? He replied, “While I was growing up, I knew my
grandparents came from a village called Feketic
somewhere in Yugoslavia. But that is about all I knew
and they didn’t talk much about it. Then as if by fate,
I had the opportunity to be deployed to Hungary in
support of the operation in Bosnia. While I was there,
my father sent me addresses of German Schwebler
families. I wrote to many of them and received a few
responses. I visited two of the families when I went up
to Germany. They treated me like family and the mother
of the second family I visited showed me a book all
about the village my grandparents came from. I was
thrilled and asked her for a copy of it. A few months
later I received it in the mail. That was in 1996 and I
have been translating ever since, learning so much, not
just about my family and Feketic but about other
villages and the Donauschwaben in general. Then more
fate happened when Jody found me on the Internet and
asked me to join them on DVHH. My world has opened up
tremendously. I haven’t made it to Feketic (Feketitsch)
yet, but I was quite close. When I looked at the map
when I was in the beautiful city of Pecs in Hungary it
looked so close, but I couldn’t go there.” Brad was
asked who his ancestral heroes were? He told us that
somehow he is related to Teddy Roosevelt on his mother’s
side and that his wife’s ancestors are related to Kit
Carson. We can certainly understand why he chose these
two men—one a man of action and the other an
adventurer—both legends in history. Brad’s
Motto: “Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” What advice might you give to family tree
researchers? “My advice is to be as
helpful as you can and people will reciprocate. People
have been so generous to me in providing books and
literature in helping me with my research.” Thank
you, Brad, for being so open in response to the many
questions posed you. Thank you as well for being our
first interviewee—you are an interesting, smart,
resourceful and generous person and we are lucky to call
you our Donauschwaben friend!
Brad
& the DVHH . . .
Thank you Brad for your contributions to the DS community
and the DVHH
Project! Brad
has been a part of the DVHH since it
began! Brad is fluent in English and
German; and has translated and
contributed an enormous amount of
cultural and historical works for
the DVHH. See:
The Collected Works of Brad
Schwebler
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