Our family had a very bad year in 2015 when we lost a lot of family members.
It started with Manfred in February, we knew he was very ill due to diabetes complications and his heart was failing. At the same time, on my husband's side of the family, he also lost his brother 2 weeks apart-- they were both 65 years old and has a similar name called Manfred Freddy, and Frederick was called Fred, I never forgot this. I had just returned from Scanton that Sunday, and on Wednesday we learned that Fred was critically injured. He passed on February 14, 2015. Then we lost our nephew, Charles Hepplewhite, the eldest son Gerlinde and Robert Hepplewhite. This was more than Jessie could endure, and she passed away on October 18, 2015.  Freddy and Jessie are interred together and I hope they both rest in peace. We can now go to the same cemetery and visit our mother and our siblings. Charles is interred in a mausoleum nearly.  February-early March is a season of birthdays. Mutti our mother February 21, my husband February 25th, twins Freddy and Laurent on February 27rth, Christa March 1st. So we think of all our loved departed ones
especially that time of year and on their birthdays, and often out of the blue something will remind us of them. We have a hard time believing that two of the five siblings have already gone.

Can't quite believe that 4.5 years have passed since you left us. Our brother Freddy passed away in february 2015, and your son Charlie July 4, 2015. 2015 was a year of great loss and we will not forget it.

You did a lot for your family. You suffered a lot no knowing who your father was although we now think we know the circumstances we will never really know who he actually was. We are sorry that this was something you would have loved to know but sometimes the truth is worse than not knowing.

When we see each other in heaven we'll make up for some things we never got to talk about in life. But I am sure that you already know that.

My sister Gerlinde Hepplewhite who was nicknamed Jessie, passed away October 18, 2015. Although she was our sister, she was much more than that. For most of us she was our second mother, in fact she was my guardian when I was 15 years old and she was 25 for a period of three years after she brought me to the United States when our mother was in the hospital and could not take care of me and we did not have any other relatives in France that could take care of me. After she brought our brother Manfred Lennartz over, and later our mother (Josefine Lennartz) and our younger sister (Christa Lennartz) our family was reunited in the Scranton, PA area. Our other brother (Werner Lennartz renamed Laurent Lennard after his French naturalization).  We are of German origin, our parents emigrated to France after the 2nd world war When Jessie was about 5 years old, and the twins Manfred and Werner were 3 months old. I was born in France four years later (11.27.1952) and our younger sister Christa was born 4 years and a few months after me (3.1.1957). So Jessie and her husband Robert Hepplewhite were responsible for all of us coming to the United States and starting our lives over in this country. She became the matriarch of the family in many ways and was always there to help out the family. She tried to bring our remaining sibling over from France also, but he had a family of his own, a son, and later remarried and his wife Martine could not leave her children behind in France. So he remains there to this day. We find it difficult but understand that sometimes it is not possible to get what we want most and must accept it. It is difficult to be away from one another but life brings about changes over which we do not always have control so we must just go on.
Jessie was a very strong person, who worked hard, and raised a good family. Married for 52 years with Robert Hepplewhite, a marriage that would have lasted longer had cancer not claimed her life earlier than expected. Together they raised three children: Charles Hepplewhite (deceased July 4th, 2015), Elizabeth Hepplewhite-Maslyar, and William Hepplewhite.