I grew up in the small town of Marion, Ohio, USA. As a college student, I got to know a nice young lady from the Düssseldorf area who was working in my hometown as a nanny. She returned to Germany in 1998, and I followed her here two years later when I graduated. In 2001, we moved to Düsseldorf, first settling in Rath and later in Wersten. Like many native English speakers, my first job was teaching business English. Travelling from company to company, I got to know Düsseldorf intimately. Going out on the weekends, I got to know the Altstadt even better.
I’ve always been fascinated by local history, and I’m a sucker for those “ghost tours” that can be found in any major English speaking city these days. Not long ago, I realized my German was good enough to allow me to put together some of the research necessary for such a tour in Düsseldorf. So I did.
It worked out with the nice young lady, by the way. We married in 2003, and we have two daughters. We eventually moved to my wife’s hometown, Heiligenhaus, which is a little suburban town just outside of Düsseldorf.
Hope to see you on the tour!
~ Josh Simpkins, April 2019