Aehren Lesen and The Church Bell

We went “Aehren lesen” meaning we picked up the heads of wheat, rye.. oats etc, that were left in the harvested fields. My siblings and I were very good at this. We could tell if someone had made a real find! Quickly moving in on the finder.. our bags were filled quickly. It truly was […]

Gnadau – The Angry Child Strikes Again

Tante Grete did this, I just know it. She was mom’s single sister, an RN . After dad died. Tante Grete tried to take his place financially and with other important decisions, thinking she was helping mom. She might have succeeded in this.. but in the process nothing but hurt me. She was the one who sent me […]

Pastor

At this point, and after my recent post “Angry Child” I feel it necessary to explain how I see a Lutheran pastor. The same probably applies to pastors of many other denominations. They are well dressed, ‘spiffy’ as Addie would say, their hands are well manicured, their demeanor is very gentleman-like, they are well educated […]

Angry Child

A little bit of background is appropriate before this story. During the 1930’s to the 1950’s maybe it was customary to beat a child for misbehaving. It was done by every parent I knew and nothing special, it was what parents did. Spankings for doing something wrong were the ‘norm’. Nurturing was not encouraged, “positive […]

Invincible!

After all and everything I experienced and lived through I became very survival oriented. There was not much compassion found among the people. Survival to the fittest. Uncle Ernst lived in Halle and his place was always heated and somehow there always was food. His place was where I would go to when the bus […]

Schnippe in Trouble

I would like to explain the alarm system in place, to warn us of either approaching, or already overhead.. bombers. Three long drawnout sirenhowls.. meant: bombers approaching.. get to your safe place. A wave-alarm, meaning up down, up down meant, save yourselves.. they already are here and the bombing has begun. The end of the attacks […]