Biographical Pilgrimage: From Everswinkel to Werne

In October 2013 our author set off on foot from her birthplace, Everswinkel near Münster – in the footsteps of her father and her family. Her “biographical pilgrimage” takes her in three stages via Rinkerode and Herbern to Werne an der Lippe, the town where her father was born.

“Walking as a pilgrim means engaging not only with yourself, but also with the past of people and places.”
(from the foreword to “Jakobswege in Westfalen”, Volume 4)

My pilgrimage from my birthplace Everswinkel near Münster via Köln

2 October 2013: Setting off

Joy
tension, nerves
lovely weather, a full rucksack
do I have everything I need?
I set out
everything begins at the beginning
courage walks with me.

Stuttgart – Münster, ICE 1922, 10:09–15:30: I love travelling by train: landscapes flying past, the monotonous hum of the wheels, my seat with its little table, a packed lunch, tea, books, a magazine. I sit still, yet I'm moving. My eyes and thoughts wander.

Bingen – Koblenz: My favourite stretch along the Rhine – the Binger Mäuseturm, vineyards on steep slopes, castle after castle, the Loreley, the great river with its big ships so close.

Memories come back of trips to Bonn to see Hartmut, of demonstrations, of the bike tour with Roland. And of hours spent longing for the Rhine in Mannheim – my secret wishes as a teenager: what would it be like to hop on one of those ships and sail all the way to Rotterdam and beyond?

Rhine bridge in Köln: One love lock after another, thousands of padlocks, the whole length of the bridge.

Arrival at Gästehaus Arning, Everswinkel, Vitusstraße 10

“Bönninger? Of course that rings a bell. They had the electrical shop at the front on the left.”

A familiar feeling, almost like home, settles over me. People here still remember our family. “Do you still know anyone in the village?” Sadly, I have to say no.

I wander through the village and let it all sink in – the old and new brick houses, the Magnusplatz. A woman I had already noticed on the bus from Münster to Everswinkel cycles across the square. The flat where I spent the first months of my life is at Vitusstraße 13, ground floor – an unremarkable house, built shortly before I was born.

On the church square I notice an old man going into one of the little houses. He might have known my father and grandfather, I think. I greet him warmly and we get talking. Yes, he knew the Bönninger electrical shop. “Didn't they live out in the farming hamlet at first?” He tells me he spent seven weeks in the war – at 16! He came back ill, and his mother nursed him back to health with milk and butter.

I go to eat at the Gasthaus Diepenbrock, Vitusstraße 5. There used to be 10 inns in Everswinkel; now there are only two: Arning (a 300-year-old house) and Diepenbrock (150 years old), both family-run for generations. I'm allowed to sit at the regulars' table, drink a Detmolder Alt and eat a salad “Grandma's style” – with fried potatoes. Opposite me hangs a painting of old Diepenbrock, father of the current owner, Clemens Diepenbrock, born in 1958. I ask him about the electrical shop, but he can't remember it.

I imagine my father and grandfather sitting in this pub too. Here you sit at the bar, drink one beer after another and chat. It's quite lively. “Come back for a beer after the concert,” the landlord says as I leave.

I go to a folk concert that's part of the Münsterland Festival. Fiona Daniel sings melancholy, haunting songs you can sink into. One song in Swiss German is about “travelling”. That one's for me, I think.

Back to the Diepenbrock pub – packed to the rafters, with a cluster of smokers outside. Bravely I take a seat at the bar, get my promised beer and a very talkative neighbour who tells me all about Everswinkel and politics. He's a regular at Diepenbrock or Arning. Twice a week his wife lets him off the leash, he says with a twinkle. He's pleased to have found a patient, interested listener in me. Have I ever actually been alone in a pub before? It's mostly men standing around the bar, chatting away. I like being right in the middle of it, taken into Everswinkel village life.

3 October 2013: Everswinkel – Rinkerode (22 km)

At 9:30 I leave Everswinkel. Because I don't want to walk along the road, I ask the landlady for another route. At first I find my way: the old people's home, a little wood, the sports ground, the Waldorf school. But then? I follow a narrow path that leads nowhere – or rather, ends at a tipi made of logs, probably built by the Waldorf pupils, I think. I fight my way through the bushes, see the road and, in the end, head back to it after all.

Detours – getting lost – finding a way – going back to the road after all – accepting the “normal path” – the images of my life's journey.

In Alverskirchen I run into the Münsterland cycle race. I stop, watch and remember that my father raced bikes too; I can see the old black-and-white photos in front of me. What kind of young man was he? I picture him riding his races here in the Münsterland.

On I go – meditative walking on straight, sunlit paths through the flat country, past farms, fields and little woods, hardly anyone about, birdsong, quiet.

The plain stretches on and on – left, right, straight ahead, and nowhere a sign telling me how far there is still to go. Worry creeps in. Will I manage today's stage? Have I taken on too much? Headwind, sun in my eyes – good thing I brought my sunglasses.

At the end of a long, straight path, framed by two oaks, a yew and a juniper, a wayside shrine awaits me with Saint Joseph holding the Christ Child in his arms, and opposite it a sign: “Albersloh, 3.8 km”. That I can do! In the lee of Saint Joseph I have a picnic and let the sun warm me.

In Albersloh I visit the 1,000-year-old church of St. Ludgerus, light a candle in front of the icon of Mary and try to feel whether I'm close to my father here. But he wasn't Catholic, wasn't very religious and had probably never been inside this church.

On the terrace of an ice-cream café overlooking the Werse I enjoy a cappuccino and the sun. It's about 6 km more to Rinkerode, and it looks like a lovely path along the river.

Trees line the riverbank and mark the course of the path. My legs are slowly getting heavy, and again and again I wonder whether I'm on the right track.

After 22 km the first stage is done, and I arrive at the long-established Gasthof Lohmann in Rinkerode. On a little stroll I go into St. Pankratius church and find the official stamping point for pilgrims of St. James. My first stamp!

Dinner at the Lohmanns'

I sit on the red sofa (table 1). The Bavarian Oktoberfest specials throw me – I want to eat something typical of the Münsterland. Broad beans with pork belly and boiled potatoes!

My father didn't like these beans; even as a child he couldn't eat them. His mother accepted that and always cooked him something else, which was unusual in those days.

Since this dish never appeared on our family table, I don't know it at all and I'm curious. The beans are no bigger than kidney beans, a bit rounder and green. They're served in a creamy sauce, with little pieces of bacon to round it off. I like it! The landlady, Frau Lohmann, sits down with me and says: “It's unusual for a woman to order that, but you've earned it with all your walking!” The house has been an inn for 260 years, now in its 7th generation of Lohmanns. She'd love to go on the pilgrims' way herself, she tells me – she's 63 – but she's still needed in the house and can't get away.

4 October 2013: Rinkerode – Herbern (17 km)

Spiritletter of the day:

Stillness is a proverb
gathered from
the fruits of the field.
Not passed away
is our sojourn
upon the earth
that sets in motion
the becoming
of the human being, carries on
freedom in the whole.
Life is
the heartbeat of God.
(Barbara Hempel)

Haus Borg and Haus Bisping, Rinkerode

Frau Lohmann lends me a bicycle so that I can take a look at these two moated castles before walking on. Together with the Pröbstinhof, the two houses formed the nucleus of Rinkerode.

The manor of Borg, 1170, a chequered history. The last count died in 1978, deep in debt, at the age of 102 – a bon vivant, as Frau Lohmann put it. The estate was bought by a multimillionaire whose sons now live in Borg and Bisping – hermetically sealed off, no entry.

I set off; it's drizzling. It rained in the night, but it isn't cold and there's no wind. My rucksack feels heavier than yesterday, my steps are slower, I can feel my feet, hips and shoulders. Cows look up at me and watch me go by, a huge maize harvester comes towards me – otherwise I'm walking alone.

Pylons line my path. My father looked after these when he worked in my grandfather's business – high-voltage construction. He once told me how he had to climb up these pylons to repair or fix something at the top.

Sometimes you can sense the sun, sometimes it drizzles – weather that suits the melancholy of the path.

A shelter at just the right moment, because the rain is getting heavier. I can take a break here for a while, drink tea, eat honey wafers, look around and let things settle.

A cyclist rides past, a basket full of apples and an apple picker on his carrier.

The rain stops. I plod along, taking in all sorts of things: the smell of rain-damp country air, birdsong, striking trees standing on their own, fields – green with fertiliser, harvested, ploughed, freshly harrowed, freshly sown, standing with ripe maize – and in between, farming hamlets with crucifixes.

Endless straight farm tracks. A bus comes towards me – out here among the fields? Later I take a break at a bus stop – Sellhorst. Monday to Friday a bus comes through here five times a day!

I'm afraid I'll get blisters today. Still, I want to make the detour to Schloss Itlingen – an extra 2 km …

The 3rd privately owned moated castle today! Hidden in a little wood, surrounded by spacious paddocks – they still exist here, the landowners who can afford to keep up an old castle. I meet two girls. How do they live in such seclusion? Where do they go to school, and how do they get there?

I can feel my feet; I drag myself through the last few kilometres – seemingly endless straight paths to the horizon and then beyond. At last a bend and the sign for Herbern! The church tower points the way to the village centre. Relieved and truly worn out, I step into the church. Two little girls watch, fascinated and almost in awe, as I press my stamp into my pilgrim passport.

Dinner and a night at the Wolfsjäger

Wolfsjäger – the “wolf hunter”: this is where the man lived who shot the last wolf in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1835. The current owner – the 3rd generation – is a member of the Confraternity of St. James and played a key part in developing the Way of St. James here. He talks enthusiastically about the Jacobean spirit that has taken hold of the community of Herbern. The coat stand in St. Benedikt came from the “letzter Wolf” inn, and he helped design the stamp.

I dare to strike up a conversation with someone!! In the empty dining room only one other table is occupied, by a man. He looks like a hiker – hiking boots, hiking trousers, hiking shirt. “Are you on the pilgrims' way too?” “Yes, but I'm walking from south to north.” His dream, he says, is to walk right through Germany one day, from Basel to Flensburg. Every so often he takes a few days off to do it. He's looking for quiet, because in his job he has to talk all the time. Soon he says goodbye.

Bowling alleys – every pub has a skittles alley. Do so many people really go bowling here? Aunt Gunhild and Aunt Ortrud are in bowling clubs too. Is it that widespread in southern Germany as well?

5 October 2013: Herbern – Werne an der Lippe (16 km)

Spiritletter of the day:

Begin
Do not despair
though even the light
shows itself today in darkened shade,
discover life, do not lament,
the mystery grows clear –
and stays unsaid.
Begin!
Set yourself free
from the shell of being
and from its negation,
for emptiness holds potent fullness
and the beginning already knows the end.
(Albert Kreuzer)

Schloss Westerwinkel

Another private castle; it has belonged to the Counts of Merveldt for four centuries. In my guidebook I read the words “Sleeping Beauty castle” – it doesn't want to be found.

The sign says 15 km to Werne – that far? Now I really have to get a move on if I want to catch the 5 p.m. train in Werne! Stay relaxed, it's perfectly doable!

The landscape changes, becomes hillier and more wooded. The Horne springs – from here I simply follow the little stream, which flows into the Lippe in Werne.

Finding the right pace. If I walk too fast, I won't reach my destination (or only completely exhausted). If I walk too slowly, I'll miss my train.

Finding the right posture. Leading neither with my upper body nor with my feet, staying straight and plumb, shoulders back, upright. It should feel upright and light.

Lunch break looking out over a rapeseed field. I check the map to see how the path continues. So far, every day has had its moment when I worried for no reason.

• Day 1: Will I manage the stage?
• Day 2: Did I leave my ID card at the Lohmanns'?
• Day 3: Will I catch my train?

Werne an der Lippe

I try to get a feel for this little town where my father was born. Why here, actually? How long did he live here? I know far too little about that time …

I have a coffee at the Café Telgmann am Markt – also in its 5th generation, a long-established place. So it was already here in 1934, when my father was born.

I ring the bell at the gate of the Capuchin friary. “Please wait, I'm coming,” it says on the bell. A grumpy friar opens the door. “I'm on the pilgrims' way and would like a stamp.” “Just a stamp?” “Yes” – what else, I wonder. He stamps my card and I go on my way again.

In St. Christophorus church a special cross catches my eye. It's made of Plexiglas, hangs in front of the old stained-glass windows and, depending on where you stand, reflects the light and the windows in all kinds of colours. Beautiful! I try to photograph the cross, without success. A Franciscan sister gives me a disapproving look. Guiltily I put my camera away. But I don't want to leave with the feeling that the clergy in Werne an der Lippe are so unfriendly, so I go looking for the sister. “Hello?” “Yes?” comes the answer from the sacristy. “What's the story behind that beautiful cross?” Happily, she tells me about a cross project three years ago. A family donated the cross after the exhibition. The sister even gives me a picture of the cross. With the good feeling that we both – the sister and I – were able to change our negative impressions of each other, I leave the church.

The route in Camino Ninja

From Rinkerode via Herbern to Werne, the author follows the Westfälischer Jakobsweg. You'll find it with stages, map and accommodation in Camino Ninja: Westfälischer Jakobsweg.