Lonely Grave in the Sierra:
Die Naturfreunde

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One Friday in September 2004, I sent an email to the International Secretary of the U.S. branch of The Nature Friends, Susi Raub. I briefly described the grave that I found, and asked if she knew where to get more information about Die Naturfreunde Inc, San Francisco. From the email address, I couldn't tell where Susi lived. If she were located somewhere on the East Coast, the chance that she would be familiar with a no longer operating California branch was minimal. I was pleasantly surprised when Susi's reply came the same evening. Not only did she live near San Francisco, but she also had heard the story about the Rettenbachers from another member of the organization. Susi is a hiker/climber herself, and made it to the top of Banner Peak one summer in the 1990s, but didn't find the grave site. Before replying to me, Susi contacted the local historian of The Nature Friends, Erich Fink. It was believed, Susi said, that Anna and Conrad, both in their thirties, had been on a honeymoon trip when the accident happened. She expressed hope that more information would be available in The Nature Friends' small library in their Muir Woods Clubhouse, above Mill Valley. Susi also did something else: She wrote an article for The Nature Friends Bulletin—California Edition (October 2004 issue), mentioned my search, and asked the readers for additional information. See the next section to find out if anybody has responded.

The Nature Friends (Die Naturfreunde) Clubhouse in the 1970s.

It was really exciting to finally find that other people were familiar with the story, and that even more information could perhaps be available in the Clubhouse. Susi said that the library there was a bit disorganized, but that didn't discourage me. I couldn't wait to get there.

However, more than two weeks passed before I found time for the trip to Mill Valley. On October 12, I called Todd Sutter, the caretaker of the Clubhouse. He had already heard about me from Susi, and he agreed to show me The Nature Friends records that were kept in the Clubhouse on the coming Saturday. It was understood that I should come early and be done before they opened for the public at 2 p.m. Todd also forewarned me that not much was left in the library. Some of the more valuable records, he thought, could perhaps be in the custody of the Club's historian.

On the morning of October 16, I found Todd in the middle of a big project: Several Clubhouse doors were carefully positioned over chairs in the card room and getting a fresh coat of paint. He interrupted his work and brought a nice big ledger from the office. This was a register of all San Francisco Bay Area members of The Nature Friends, and Todd thought it was the original book, used from day one. If the Rettenbachers were from the Bay Area, Todd felt that their names would certainly be listed in the register. The ledger contained several thousand names. The first few pages rarely showed the date of membership, but starting in the mid 1930s a registration date was consistently recorded for each new member. A nice red oval seal was stamped on the front page of the ledger. It said TOURIST CLUB "DIE NATURFREUNDE," INC. on the outer rim, and BRANCH SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA in the middle. The good news was that I knew now this was the right place: The same words, "Die Naturfreunde Inc., San Francisco", had been cast on the grave site's plaque. The bad news was that the Rettenbachers were not registered in the ledger. I went through all early records twice, but found nothing. It was a drizzly cold day with low overcast, the weather perfectly matching my mood. This was probably the lowest point in my quest. Another dead end! Where to go from here?

In spite of the dreary weather, many people were passing by the Clubhouse, on their way in or out of Muir Woods. Some of them were trying to purchase beer and pretzels, although the opening time was still an hour away. Todd was not done with the door painting yet, and now he was also busy with the visitors. I really didn't think I should keep bothering him with my petty project, but he kindly encouraged me to stay.

While waiting on the first floor balcony, I found a window panel that described the history of the Clubhouse and of the local The Nature Friends organization. San Francisco branch of Die Naturfreunde was founded in 1912 by German speaking immigrants. Their Muir Woods Clubhouse was built in 1917. In 1927, along with the Oakland Hills and Los Angeles (Sierra Madre) branches, they incorporated into the "California Nature Friends". Currently, the organization has about 500 members, and is affiliated with the Vienna based Naturfreunde Internationale. Pictures of many happy members, young and not so young, were pasted around the panel. Some pictures were obviously old, and I wondered if one of those photos could have been a portrait of Conrad or Anna.

After a while, Todd found a moment for a break and led me to a second floor room. There, he grabbed a chair and a lamp, and entered a miniature adjoint storage space full of books and other no longer used objects. Todd pulled out several old notebooks from an overhead shelf, and said I should perhaps check those before I gave up. He had to return to his work, and I was left alone with those dusty old memories. Almost all of the notebooks were hand written in German. Those were book-keeping records from bygone days, with carefully stated receipts and expenditures related to a "Spring Dance", or "Christmas Party", or some other Club event. The Rettenbachers might not have been members, but there was no doubt that Die Naturfreunde Inc has placed the plaque on the grave. I looked, therefore, for something that would indicate a cost of a plaque for the mountain grave, but in vain.

One notebook caught my attention because it was different. It was smaller, in rather poor condition, and also written in German. As soon as I opened the first page, it became clear that this was not an accounting record. Instead, the book contained names, addresses, filled in application forms, and recommendation sheets. My heart leapt. The first record was from July 1919, and the last one, on page 188, from January 15, 1932. This looked like yet another, alternative register of members! Could it be that this notebook predated the official ledger still in use today? I didn't know the answer. I went through the pages with great interest and expectation. The new applicants, it was clear, had to be recommended by two already established members, give their addresses and list their occupations. One could find bakers, cabinet-makers, gardeners, mechanics, and other similar working class people among the applicants, but there were also a few nobilities, judging by the title von attached to their names. The strict application process might have been relaxed later, for as the years passed, the notebook logged less and less detailed information. I had promised Todd to leave at 2 p.m., and the term was quickly approaching. This was now race against time, and I went through the remaining pages in hurry. On the penultimate page (I am not making this up), one of the last three records in the notebook said:

--------------------------
15/1/1932
Übergetreten aus Phila
angemeldet
     Rettenbacher Conrad
        und Anna         Mill Valley
----------------------------

On January 15, 1932, two and a half years before the accident, Anna and Conrad, who had previously been registered in Die Naturfreunde in Philadelphia, transfered their membership to the San Francisco branch. Sadly, not much else was listed. How did they get to Philadelphia, and when? What were their professions, skills, origin? How old were they, and how were they related to each other? There were no clues about that in the register.

That afternoon and evening, during a long hike in foggy Point Reyes, I was trying to connect the points, to make sense of things that hardly could fit together. The Rettenbachers were San Francisco area residents, yet the main City papers had not reported the accident. Anna and Conrad died in the California mountains, yet they were not listed in the California Death Index. While thinking about the old notebooks in the Clubhouse, all written in German, I wondered how well the "Club" (Die Naturfreunde) members were integrated in the bustling English-speaking society of the 1930s. Were those foreigner-friendly times? Probably not. Although we might be much more sensitive and broad minded today, think for a moment about how we still treat foreigners. Consider, for example, the recent Mexican immigrants who don't speak English. Couldn't we project their negative experiences to the German-speaking immigrants from the 1930s? Perhaps Conrad and Anna didn't have a good command of English. Perhaps their close friends didn't speak English either. I could imagine the Rettenbachers and their friends being on a summer trip in the mountains, when the fatal accident happened. The other members of the group would have panicked. They wouldn't have known what exactly to do, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted to be harassed by the authorities and exposed to interrogations and suspicions. Perhaps they would have simply buried Anna and Conrad, without ever reporting this to the police? Some years later, they could have gathered enough money to purchase the plaque, and had it placed on the grave known only to them. Couldn't this be a viable interpretation of the events?

What followed shortly, proved otherwise.

NEXT: A breakthrough

If you have any reliable knowledge about the accident or the Rettenbachers, please drop me a line at

indicates that more information is available in the footnotes section.