Tribute to Lester G. Seibold

"Someone has said, you can look ahead as far as you can look back....as we continue living, the past continues to disappear. With this purpose in mind, before it is too late, the connection with the past should be made.

What is the use of the past? It has made us what we are today. Just as what we do in our age will make what will be tomorrow.

How valuable are the records that have been kept and the men and women who have compiled them...What a dramatic story is being told. It could have been you at any given time, only it was not yet time for your span of years." (Lester G. Seibold, Heritage Review Issue #21, 1978)

Although Lester Seibold's span of years has now ended, he leaves behind a legacy of his passion for researching his German-Russian heritage. As a 77-year-old ex-farmer, he might seem an unlikely candidate to embrace the latest technology. But even in his final weeks of life, he was getting started on developing "Lester's Korner" on the GRHS website so he could more widely share his vast store of knowledge about Germans from the Dobrudscha and Bessarabian areas.

When he became interested in his family history, he traveled to Germany and Rumania to further his research and satisfy his thirst for knowledge about his heritage. He worked closely with his dear friend Armand Bauer to develop the family information he had gathered so it could be shared in the Heritage Review. He traveled around the Dakotas doing presentations about what he had found. He became an icon in his own time as one of the most knowledgeable people in our German-Russian community on the families of the Dobrudscha.

Lester became a member of GRHS when the organization was still in its infancy and was the first winner of the Joseph S. Height Literary Award. "Lester Seibold was a great supporter of Der Stammbaum Heritage & Lester Review with his contributions in the very early days of GRHS. His knowledge and research was admirable to the beginner or seasoned individual which he was willing to help and share." (Elaine Bauer)