" NEW " PATERNITY CELEBRATED

 PATER NOSTER : OUR FATHER

FATHERS DAY will be celebrated in Australia tomorrow, Sunday  5th September.

As  an 81 years old Father and Grandfather this gives me pause to think about the Paternity I have been involved in and with.

Fundamentally I am arrested by the words Our Lord gave us as the model prayer - it begins "Our Father....." God is the first Father of all humans - the Creator of us, each one His own concept and intention.What a remarkable privilege. And it goes back even further than the moment of our conception! As God Himself says to the prophet "Before you were in the womb, I knew you". (Jeremiah 1 :5) 

God knows everything that will happen, so he knows about future conceptions,legitimate and illegitimate.

So when we Fathers and the Mothers we have chosen, elect to conceive a child God is active at the instant of conception and throughout our lives.   

 

When I cast my mind around To think of Fathers I have the blessing of several images:

My Father in Law Owen P. Hannon  (Father of three children), me (Father of three children) and my Father (on the right, Father of two children) and my Son( partially obscured by a pole , now himself the Father of four children).

       Going back one step :

 

Grandad Edward Beckmann

 My Mother's Father - my Grandad Edward Beckmann was born in Germany in 1878 and migrated to Australia in 1901,. He died in 1962 aged 84 yrs. He was a N.S.W. Railways Signalman , a true "innocent abroad" a good citizen of his adopted Country .

He was married for 58 yrs until his death, to my Grandmother Louisa Beckmann. They had eight children.My Mother Elsie was the first and their only boy Conrad was the last.

 His integrity cost him dearly, and during WW I he was the victim of anti German prejudice. He had been an Australian Citizen since 1904. He was a Lutheran originally like his recent ancestors, but after some association with the Church of England, could best be described as an Evangelical, non-denominational Christian and a very earnest one at that.

Conrad BECKMANN

   Conrad Beckmann was the Father of Edward and thus my Great Grandfather. With his wife Ernestine, he had three children. The eldest was a Son Georg, then there was a daughter Charlotte (?) and I think that my Grandfather Edward was the youngest.

Conrad , like my Grandfather, was a Hannoverian by birth but he moved to Munich in Bavaria for business reasons.He was a well known and successful painter of major works (notably the huge murals in   the Banqueting Hall of Schloss Wernigerode, the ancestral home of the then Prime Minister of Prussia. He was also well known for his illustration of the published edition of  the works of the most famous North German poet. He died in 1902 aged only 56yrs.

 

Carl Dopmeyer

      Carl Dopmeyer was the Father in Law of Conrad Beckmann and therefore my Great Great Grandfather. Considering that he lived  1824 -1899 it is surprising to have not only a photographic portrait, but also his signature. He was a well known sculptor and wood carver in the Prussia of his day.He was also a Lutheran and one of his major works is a heroic larger than life statue of Luther in Hannover. He carved the marble Altar and over-sized( in the Protestant manner) pulpit   in the Chapel at Schloss  Wernigerode , he also did the woodcarving of the friezes around the courtyard of the Schloss.

For the time being, I do not have any more knowledge of his family.                              

These are the paternal ancestors for whom I have images. I know of details of some others but I do not have images of them. Not all of them were people I would care to  publicise. 

Interestingly, the impressive achievements of Conrad Beckmann and Carl Dopmeyer seem to have failed to be transmitted or are yet to fully manifest themselves. My daughter Marianne is an accomplished artist in the modern style. She has won a number of prizes. Time will tell.

My Father John Joseph DIXON achieved something far exceeding the others, in that he, being a Catholic, achieved the conversion to Catholicism of my Mother. In that way, the branch which had been torn from the True Vine at the time of Martin Luther and Henry VIII was finally reunited  to it as Christ intended. Deo Gratias!