The authors stumbled upon an unsolved mystery far away in the homeland of their ancestors, in a small village named Tiefenbach, set among the beautiful rolling hills in the Oberpfalz region of eastern Bavaria, Germany. The mystery involved a unique stained-glass church window with an intriguing inscription, "Kraemer in Amerika." Setting out to discover the meaning behind the inscription, the authors found themselves faced with many unanswered questions: Who did "Kraemer in Amerika" represent? Where in America did this Kraemer live? Who donated money for the Kraemer window? In what year was...

Lucy Bauer Kraemer was born in 1904 on a small farm in Franklin Township, a few miles south of Plain, Wisconsin. She lived to be 96 years old, dying of old age with dementia in 2000 at Greenway Manor in Spring Green. She came from one of the poorest families in the area, made poor by the early death of a father whose ambitions had created large debt that a widow with nine young children could not sustain. Despite the hardship and struggle, she had a rich life, also enriching all those who came in contact with her by her smile, laughter and tears.

Wisconsin is well known for its German heritage. Kraemers are a prominent name in that heritage with Kraemer descendants engaged today in road building, bridge construction, building construction, and construction-related businesses such as heating and air conditioning, lumber, plumbing, carpentry, electrical, and masonry; as well as many small businesses (such as farming and cheese making) and professions (such as medicine, law, and education) throughout the state of Wisconsin. The Kraemer heritage extends back to 1649 in Tiefenbach, Bavaria, Germany where the first known Kraemer (Johann or...