 Enjoy this link to Sonja's Blog, where she muses about mothers and daughters and the grace and miracles we experience in life.
Germanwriter Blog
On my first time in an American grocery store, I browsed the meat section and found just what I needed. And it was so much cheaper than in Germany. I proudly carried home a package of chicken hearts, necks, gizzards, and livers to make a wonderful, warm soup for that night.
Again culture shock set in when I presented my new father-in-law with my home-cooked chicken soup. He appreciated it, I could tell, but his eyes were wide in surprise, and he ate very little.
The next morning the sun shone onto two inches of fresh snow making the small town look as if it were covered with a clean, white feather blanket.
By the time Gary came home four months later, I had weathered a ‘baby shower,’ an unfamiliar custom during which I received gifts for the new baby and made new friends from the church and the neighborhood.
Verna is in the back, and Art is kneeling next to Daniel. Dennis and Marja are standing in front of their grandmother.
I had also gotten to know scores of my husband’s aunts, uncles, and cousins.
And I had given birth to my firstborn son, not at all by myself, but with the help of my new parents. My new Mom and Dad, maybe as culture shocked as I, nevertheless stood by me, helped and guided me through the pitfalls of cultural assumptions, and until they passed away, were my American parents and my best friends.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about the baby shower.
On my first day in the United States, staying at Grandpa Art and Grandma Verna Towne’s home, I followed my husband outside to see Verna in the hospital. I stepped from the house into a snow-covered, much too large yard. I blinked into the bright January sunshine and stopped short.
“The sun is shining on the snow,” I said. “I need some sunglasses.”
Gary laughed. “We get sunshine a lot. Let’s go to the drugstore first and get you some glasses.”
“The drugstore? Isn’t that the store where you get medicine? Can you buy glasses there too?”
“Yes. It’s not like in Germany. You can buy all kinds of things there.”
He helped me into his father’s car. The older Mr. Towne had already gone to work at Mesa Verde, where he was the maintenance foreman. I assumed he had taken the train or a bus, until Gary said, “Dad took the truck so you won’t have to struggle to get in, with your belly.”
“I suppose there’s no bus or train that could take him to work?”
“There isn’t. I’ll show you where he works on the way back from the hospital. But first let’s go see Mom. The doctor said she could go home in a few days, but she can’t wait to meet you.”
Gary pulled onto the main street of the small town his family lived in.
I stared out the window and forgot to breathe.
The buildings along the road all were low, two stories at the most, and there was so much unused space between them. I felt like we were swimming through emptiness.
Mancos, Colorado, still looks like this.
We left town and drove on to Cortez, but it didn’t get any better. Trees and what seemed unused fields lined the road, all covered with the brilliant snow, made even more bright by the relentless sun in a truly blue, cloudless sky. Even the sky looked different here, not the washed out, smoggy blue I was used to. I felt like I had been transported to Mars, or some other, unknown planet.
Verna Towne in 2006. We all love and miss her!
Verna Towne passed away last night, at 91 years of age. Even though we should have been prepared, the family is reeling. Grandma was a great and wonderful influence in all our lives, and for me, she had become a true mother. The next few blog posts will be about her and about me getting to know and love her. Here’s the first one.
Culture Shock
It was dark when we arrived at my husband’s parents home in Colorado. I was jetlagged and my head kept dropping onto my chest on the ride from the airport. I had only one desire, to find a bed and sleep.
Gary opened the car door and helped me out of the car. A large dog came up to me, alternately barking and wagging its tail. I shrank back. That dog was larger than a German shepherd, with thick, dark fur. He took a sniff at my extended belly, and I expected him to take a bite out of me. But before Gary could even say a word, the dog quit barking and licked my hand.
“Triton smells the baby inside you,” Gary said petting the dog who now had lost interest in me and was smiling a doggie smile at my husband. “He is never friendly to strangers, but somehow he knows you’re part of the family.”
A stranger to me, an older version of Gary, came from the house, hugged me and led me into his home.
Gary showed me a bedroom and finally I could sleep.
The next day, I watched Gary make breakfast. He turned on the faucet over the kitchen sink and let it run. Soon the water coming out steamed. I was surprised. This house had running hot water. In my apartment in Germany, I had to heat the water on the stove when I wanted it hot.
Gary said, “If you’re up to it, let’s go visit Mom in the hospital in Cortez.”
I had slept long and well, and was up to it.
I followed my husband out of the house, and that’s when culture shock really set in.
*****
Tomorrow I'll post more about culture shock and the first time I met Verna Towne .
Thank you Alexandrea Zenne, for this beautiful picture of a tightrope walker! That's how I imagined a high wire walker to look when I was in fifth grade!
February 4, 2012
Germany, 1958
My paper on Icarus and Daedalus had received an “A” in the fifth grade class I attended that week. In spite of my haphazard education and in my childish enthusiasm, I decided I would be a writer one day. And the first thing I would write about would be Mutti’s life. I ran home, full of excitement.
Mutti stood in the kitchen of our caravan home, stirring soup in a pot and listening to soft music coming from the radio in the living room.
Over the sound of the music I heard my siblings outside, helping Vati put up the merry-go-round. Good. I had Mutti to myself for a few minutes, and she seemed in a good mood. Now was the perfect time to do some research for my future writing career.
I leaned against the counter opposite the stove. “Why did you join the circus Mutti? And how did you find it? What did you do in the circus?” I half expected her to brush me off, but she didn’t.
A far-away look settled in her eyes, and she sighed. “That was a long time ago, child. I needed to get out of Berlin, and the circus seemed the perfect solution. It was a way out of all my trouble.” She stopped, turned the propane fire under the pot to low, and pulled a chair from the kitchen table.
I slipped into the converted bus seat Vati had screwed to the floor between the table and the wall. “Did you need to leave Berlin because of Hitler?”
“Yes. The Nazis were everywhere. I was lucky to find the circus.”
“Did you meet Vati there?”
“Yes.”
Enveloped by the enticing aroma of oxtail soup, we sat at the kitchen table. Mutti told me about how she met my father. I listened, as quiet as the circus audience when the tightrope walker performs. Mutti rarely talked about her life, but as long as I could remember, I knew she was half-Jewish and hid from Hitler during the war. I watched her, still so beautiful, talk about a past that was surely more bitter than sweet, and knew I would one day write the story of her life.
And I have!
I just received my advance copies of the book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Messages from Heaven. My story, "A Message for Mom," starts on page 47. The story is a true account of an experience one of my husband's brothers had many years ago, after their youngest brother was hit by a car and passed away. I wanted you all to know.
I'd love for you to follow the link below and order a copy.
Tomorrow, there'll be more about Mutti and my unusual childhood!
At 91, Mutti like to talk about Berlin and how she grew up. She loves talking about the Busch fashion store, where she apprenticed at fourteen, and where she stayed until she was eighteen. It seems those four years were the highlight of her life.
The original owners of Busch’s fashion store were Jews. When the Nazis deported them to a labor camp after Kristallnacht, (the Night of Broken Glass) the new Nazi owner fired her. Mutti loves talking about Busch’s, but she doesn’t talk too much about what happened to her after she had to leave there.
Once, when she was visiting me in Provo, where I live, we sat down, I asked her guiding questions, and she told me what happened. I taped our conversation, and using her unusual life as an outline, wrote a novel about her efforts to stay ahead of the Nazis during this terrifying time.
My memoir, Carnival Girl, will be published in a few months, and I hope Walk on a Wire, the novel based on Mutti’s life, will be next!
I’ll write more about Mutti tomorrow.
My Fahrtenschwimmer decal looked a lot like this one
When I was a teenager, Mutti left the Carnival with us girls and little Michael. We stayed in the caravan home in Wetzlar for about one year, then moved into an apartment in a tiny town close to Wetzlar. I rode my bicycle to Wetzlar to work every morning.
I was seventeen by that time, but because I had left school at fourteen, but because of our constant traveling I had never made any friends.
A seventeen-year-old without friends is a rare thing! Something had to take the place of friends, and I did find two things that delighted me to no end. I had converted to the LDS church two years earlier, and in our tiny branch in Wetzlar I made a friend, a girl with whom I’m still in contact today. However, she lived in Giessen, about twelve miles from Wetzlar, and even further away from the tiny town I lived in, so we saw each other only occasionally, and when we took the train to visit each other.
The other thing that I delighted in doing might have found me friends, but because of my background, which taught me to be careful and not make friends because I would just lose them again, and because of a natural shyness of strangers, it never did.
But I did have fun! I went to the indoor pool in Wetzlar every week or so, to swim, teach myself to dive, jump off the board, and in general delight in playing in the water. Most of the kids in the pool were younger and I kept to myself for the above mentioned reasons. I learned to swim on my back and under water, but I never could teach myself the crawl, which is so commonly taught here in the States.
One day, I was playing along the rim of the pool when the life saver on duty, and older man, at least twenty-five, bent down and talked to me. “I see you here a lot. Would you be interested in getting your Fahrtenschwimmer?”
I had heard of Fahrtenschwimmer before, but wasn’t sure if I could do it. “What exactly would I have to do to get it?”
“You have to be able to swim for fifteen minutes without touching the bottom or the sides and dive for ten meters and bring up one of these blocks.” He held up a black rubber block with a handle. “They’re only five pounds. Also, you have to dive off the high board and swim on your back without using your arms.”
“I don’t know.” I frowned at the man. “It sounds hard.”
“It isn’t. I’ve seen you do all of that just for fun. If you pass, you’ll get your certification. You could go on from there, take another test, and even become a lifesaver, if you want.”
That sounded great to me. “How much does it cost?”
“It’s only five Marks. I have regular times when I administer the test. You’ll be certified right afterward. So how about it?”
“Yes. I want to do it.”
“Come with me to my office, and we’ll set you up.”
Two weeks later, on a Saturday when I didn’t have to work, I took my Fahrtenschwimmer test and passed it. I received a little decal and a blue booklet certifying that I passed and could go on from there.
At home, I showed it to Mutti, but she was busy with Michael and just glanced at it. I put it away, intending to take the next test, which included forty-five minutes of swimming and some diving. But things got in the way, and I never went back for it.
However, I still delight in swimming and water play.
I only know how to swim breast stroke, and here is why!
I love going to aqua aerobics in the mornings. I enjoy moving in the water, swimming a lap or two and the companionship of the other gym members. But I only swim in breast stroke. Here’s why.
When I was little, in the winters, we attended the same school for about four to five months One day in late November when I attended fifth grade I came home, looking for Mutti. She was in the living room, reading.
“Do I have a swimsuit, Mutti?”
She looked up from her book. “I think you do. Look in your drawer. Why?”
“The teacher said that we will have swimming lessons every Wednesday afternoon, right before we come home. I need to bring a swimsuit.”
“Okay. See what you can find.”
I dropped my satchel onto the kitchen bench and went into the bedroom, pulled out the drawer and dug through mine and Josefa’s underwear. Yes, there was a suit. It was a bright, cheery blue. I pulled it out, and while I was alone, took off my clothes and tried it on. It was a little tight, but still fit. “I found one, Mutti,” I called through the half open door as I put my clothes on again.
On Wednesday the teacher herded us into a school bus and took us to the local indoor pool. “Here are the dressing rooms,” he announced as we walked through the wet and bleachy smelling hallway. He pointed to one side. “This one is for the girls.” Go change into your suits, girls, and wait in the pool area.”
We dressed in the common area, and in no time were in the pool area. The teacher was already there. After all the children were assembled and the teacher had done a headcount (We were about sixteen children) he asked, “Which of you already knows how to swim?”
Three boys and four girls raised their hands. “Okay. You can go to the deep end and play until I’m done with the beginners. Then I’ll teach you some tricks.” He turned to the rest of us. “Line up in the water, please, hands on the rim.”
I followed the children into the pool, hanging on to the rim. The water was surprisingly warm, not as cold as it usually was in the outdoors pools we sometimes played in, in the summers.
Teacher had us line up on the rim of the pool and showed us how to move our legs in the breast stroke pattern. He left us to practice and went to work with the swimmers.
I enjoyed my swimming classes every week and practiced with enthusiasm. But I was a little too wary of the water to let go and let the water carry me. When classes were over in February, I still hadn’t learned how to swim, but I knew the breast stroke movements very well.
That summer I had the opportunity to visit an outdoor pool in one of the towns we held our carnival in. I played around in the shallow end, enjoying the cold water and the feeling of cleanliness it gave me.
“Let’s play together,” a local girl suggested, and we chased each other around in the water. Eventually she caught me and pushed me under. I was scared, but when I came up again she was laughing. “Your turn,” she said, and I dunked her. I pretended I liked to be dunked too, and by the end of our play my fear had gone.
As we ventured into a little deeper water, I pushed off the ground and actually floated. I remembered my breast stroke movements and before I knew it, I was swimming. I had a wonderful time practicing my swimming for two days and then it got cold and started raining, and I couldn’t go back to the pool.
I forgot that girl’s name, but I still remember how I wished I could have stayed her friend and not leave for the next town and the next carnival.
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