Earlier this month Kathy and I (James Behunin) visited the Saanen Valley in Switzerland, which is the birthplace of our great great grandfather John Zwahlen. We wanted to get a feel for the alpine culture and to see some of the sites that are significant to our family. In 1950, Elder Byron Young, a cousin of my father, visited Saanen on the way home from his mission. While there, he took several photos of some of the locations significant to our family history. The following photos show the locations that we found matching Byron's photos which have been inserted.
Byron described this as the "Zwahlen home when John accepted the gospel. they lived here most of the younger days of John in Switzerland. This home is located just a hundred yards away from the local cathedral. I determined this to be the same building as the one in the Byron Young photo because the windows match, the staircase. The photo below is the same building from the back side. The roof line and chimneys match the Byron Young photo, inset.
This photo below is the center of the town of Gsteig and hundred yards from the home shown above. It features the Bern Hotel, which is still there.
We tried to find the grave of John Zwahlen's brother, Emmanuel. Byron Young had taken a photo of the grave in 2050. See inset. there is a graveyard in the rear of the chapel which is the white building the back of the photo below. However, there were no graves that were in the time period of Emmanuel's death in 1939. I asked a women who lives near the church if there were other graveyards in town. She said that there had been one across the street from the church which is shown below. However, the grave markers are no longer visible. My guess is that they used wooden grave markets in the old times and that over the decades the markers rotted away. They seem to have made an effort to preserve the site. It has a fence surrounding it and a gate.
The photo below shows the view of the City of Saanen, which is similar to the county seat. The church shown has the records of family of Johann Jacob Zwahlen, John Zwahlen's father. The town of Sannen hasn't changed much over the last 70 years. Buildings are well maintained, but the area isn't showing the level of growth we see in towns in the United States.
The following are photos showing the alpine culture of the Saanen Valley.
Above: The town of Gsteig.
Above: A view of Gsteig from the Tram.
Above: The dairy industry is big in the Saanen Valley.
Above: The nearby Launen valley where some of our swiss ancestors came from.
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