[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] difference betw Dutch and German language?

[Charlotte Dubay]

What pleasure this mailing list brings...thank you all...

Another question, triggered by your posts:
My Block ancestors (German Lutherans) lived in Posen area (about 100 NE of Berlin) from 1700-1892, until my great-grandparents came to USA. 

My great-grandmother Wilhelmina Meyer Block spoke Dutch, but was born in Posen, baptized in near-by Lobsens.

Any ideas on why grgrandmother spoke Dutch? If her parents were Dutch, you would still think she learned German in Posen. How different does Dutch sound from German? (Great-grandmother passed away 2 years before I was born, so I never heard anyone speak Dutch. Guess I should google a translation program and hear what it at least "sounds" like!)

Her daughter, my grandma, was taught high German in school. The German government had just made a mandate that all German children should learn to read/write/speak high German, sometime around when she was school age. She started school abt 5 in abt 1899.

When they came to America, each family member could bring one "baggage" on their ship trip; she filled her wooden box - that she made and we still have - with books rather than dresses!

Charlotte DuBay
hoeserhistory at aol.com