Ollenburger Family Emblem

• The shield has no corners. Eternally the family will live!
• Two quadrants are backed with brown, the color of earth, which bears us all on this journey.
• The quadrant behind the cross shows the oceans crossed and rivers travelled by our ancestors.
• The remaining quadrant represents the barren landscape transformed to green growing hills.
• The bands are iron, forged in flame and skillfully crafted, the work of hands lasting generations.
• As a shield, the cross covers the wearer's heart. It exhibits the hearts of our ancestors, who crossed continents and oceans for their beliefs.
• The German symbol of strength is the oak. Our strong German heritage and those who remain in Germany and Europe are remembered through the oak leaf.
• Ancestral neighborhoods for nearly five hundred years included windmills, even into the New World, which testify to ingenuity, industry and cooperation.
• Wheat stalks by themselves bend easily, but bound together are impossible to break, and so represent strength.
• Wheat also speaks to transformation, for our ancestors brought to both the East and the West modern tools and methods, and landscaped the plains of two continents into breadbaskets for their nations.