The new owners

Today, Wyman and I became the new owners of the property. It is a semi-detached house with two flats (we live in the smaller one), several barn buildings and sheds and 2,5 acres of land. We are now the landlords of the pony farm. Mirco (the "pony man") rented parts of the barn, the shed and the grassland. 

Wyman, Glenn & Andrea 2017

Andrea grew up on this property in a time when her father owned quite a few sheep besides his main job of being a bus driver. Before he switched to this Job and before Andrea was born, he was the owner of a pig farm on the same property. When he obtained the property in the 1960s, he built major parts of the house and barn himself. Andrea grew up with many animals: sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, geese (with a lot of slaughtering going on; something we do not do), cats, hamsters, guinea pigs and budgies. 

​While still attending high school, she left and lived in several different cities in Northern Germany. Then she studied German literature and media studies, philosophy and art history in Kiel, Hamburg, Berlin and Potsdam. She attended many theater and film workshops and also studied film direction at Movie College Munich. Andrea has always been torn between rural farm life and a more intellectual, urban lifestyle. 

Andrea with the theater crew in Fürth 2017

Andrea at a graphic design workshop in Hamburg in 2014

Wyman was Born in Virginia and has worked as a book salesman and artists for many years. He is still doing art, but he is also working as an account manager for a US based financial firm. 
​Andrea and Wyman separated in 2017, but still raise their son Glenn together. 

Glenn and Wyman in front of the Vilnius Jewish Public Library

Andrea's father's sheep farm in the 1980s

Andrea with her brother 1982

Andrea 1997

Andrea interviewing Wyman at his library in 2011

Farm boy Glenny 2017

While working on a documentary project about the Jewish American entertainer Al Jolson, Andrea got to know Wyman Brent, the founder of the Vinius Jewish Public Library in Lithuania, Al Jolson's hometown. It is the first Jewish public library in the country since the Liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. When their son Glenn Jolson was born, they all moved to the property Andrea grew up on. Andrea has worked as an editor, author, translator and filmmaker and went through further education in social media management and graphic design. She is responsible for the website, Facebook page and YouTube channel of Mirco's "Pony Farm". 

​Since her mother's passing in April of 2017, Andrea has forced herself to go back to her intellectual life and made a stage direction internship at a theater in Fürth, Bavaria. She will follow that path in 2018. she also forced herself to officially graduate from university (after having finished her studies in 2013). 

Wyman in the Navy in 1982