Twenty years after their Grandfather Del Havens died, sisters Lynne Doele and Dr. Deb Havens discovered a secret that stunned their entire family: a box of pictures and post cards from their grandfather’s post–World War I service in Europe. Among them were sad messages from a mysterious woman named Dora Gallner, claiming to be his abandoned bride. All the postcards she had written to the sisters’ Great Grandmother Grace, Del’s mother, seemed to support Dora’s claim. But if that were true, if he had left her behind, truly abandoned Dora, it was unforgivable— the act of a man the family didn’t recognize. The two sisters traveled to Germany, Austria and Switzerland to search for Dora Gallner… and uncovered her tragic
story.
“The Abandoned Bride” documents the dramatic tale as the sisters traced the clues they found in Del’s personal papers and photographs to conduct
historically–based genealogical research.