Prince Ernst!

I am referring to Ernst August, Prince of Hanover. He recently married Princess Caroline of Monaco and was the subject of a cover article in People magazine. I wrote the following letter to the editors:

Congratulations on an excellently covered and unbiased article on the new royal family, Ernst and Caroline. I wish them and their children a "fairy tale" ending to their story; they deserve all the joy and happiness which has seemingly eluded them so far.

At least they won’t be lacking adequate quarters. Two summers ago, I had the chance to take my own sons to visit at ever so distant cousin and namesake Ernst’s not so humble Marienburg with 160 rooms on immaculate grounds with great views of a beautiful countryside. Nice house!

In the 1 March edition, the one with Celine Dion on the cover, they honored me by printing an excerpt from my letter in a prominent location. I hope many of you saw it! And to clear up that reference to him being a very distant cousin; he is NOT a Keidel. I am related to him by way of my mother Maria, the late Baroness von Medau-Tellbach. She was born 1910 in St. Petersburg and claimed kinship to the Romanoffs.

Our good friend and oft-times gracious host George L. Keidel fell victim to some dastardly black ice on his impossibly steep driveway in La Vale, Maryland. He stepped on what he thought was a dry spot and went down hard; hard enough to seriously break his wrist! He rejected suggestions of pins and screws and is taking a risk of it mending perhaps slightly askew with just a cast. I don’t envy him the cast; I wore one on my right arm for better than five months, after my Harley mishap in ’86.

Son Armin is doing well as a freshman in high school and made the honor roll, this last grading period. When I chided Willy for not making the honor roll also, he declared tearfully: "But they don't HAVE honor roll in sixth Grade, Dad!" True enough, although he did get more B's than A's!

The Keidel Update is read by many folks in the United States, as well as internationally. Here are but two family friends who visit our website regularly from abroad:

They are Wolf Meyer of Bad Gandersheim, Germany and Florin Popescu of Constanta, Romania. I met Wolf while visiting Germany with my sons, two summers ago. Wolf is a motorcycle aficionado and also has his own website business. I kid Florin about his marked resemblance to Vlad Tepes - the real Dracula, who also hailed from Romania. What do YOU think?

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Kimberly (Keidel) Sapp and Ron, as well as to Tommy Lee Keidel and his Inez , our gracious past hosts in Michigan.

On a somber note, let us remember that in this month my brother Willy and my sister Marianne died during an allied bombing attack on Hamburg. March is also the month in which we lost my beloved Aunt Tony, sister to my dad, wife to Sebastian Huber and mom to Jörg, Hannegret, Gerd and Heino.

Do you remember my dear friend Carla von Keltner, whom I reported ill in The Keidel Update 299? Unfortunately she didn't live to see February. She died in a hospice situation at her daughter's home, upstate New York. Carla will most certainly be missed by not only her family but also by me and her "cyber family" on Prodigy.