August 2, 1943: Twain's German and In-Laws

Letter from Opa to Grandmother

Transcription:

August 2, 1943

Dearest Marjorie,

Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead! I wished Mr. Dingle were here to set the stage for us and do a little interventional politics, but that happens only in shows. I guess we expected that it would take a while to reconcile your folks with this latest one of my acts of sabotage, but just because the first attack did not hit home, is no reason to give up. Remember how the Allies soften up Germany? They use saturation air raids on the most vulnerable parts.

I believe that I shall wait with sending that letter until at least your next letter so as to see whether you have made any progress at all. As long as the situation remains at its status quo, my letter would only aggravate things. I do think, though, that the letter should be sent within the next week or two.

Please let me know just what objections your folks have; it might make it easier for you to talk about it, and I may be able to alter my letter correspondingly, or have some suggestions. 

Congratulations to eating half a sandwich in twenty minutes. I admire your progress. See how nicely destiny and providence have dealt with you? I bet it was your feminine intuition which made you miss (!) that train on Thursday!

I haven’t been doing so good this weekend; had only eight dates on Saturday and six on Sunday; they must be rationing women too, now. 

Did you by any chance hear Bill Shirer last night? He was at his best; I only wished I could share his optimism. 

I got the proofs for our pictures. They don’t look any too flattering, but I guess they are better than average. Much will also be done by retouching, I hope. Old Papa Wolf is still A.W.O.L., so we can’t have the pictures till about two weeks from now. 

Saw “Arabian Nights” last night with Kent. Afterwards, we went to the Palace and kept ordering Pepsi Colas until the waitress threatened to charge 50 cents for every additional one, so we decided to make a truce. Imagine, I went to bed at 10:30 last night. Was my pillow ever surprised, not to speak of my beloved roommate. 

How is your German getting along? Are you ready for the graduate course, or are you like Mark Twain who decided to commit suicide when he found out that the German word “damit” has the emphasis on the second syllable and means nothing but “thereby?” By the way, the same diligent student of German decided that he would rather decline two glasses of beer than one German adjective. 

All seems to be quiet on the Bluemont Front. Somebody’s taken your place in that southwest room. Considering that I had neither a telescope nor x-ray eyes to penetrate the blinds nor the sufficient interest or curiosity, I was unable to find out who this somebody was.

Love,

Tom

R.S.V.P., and make it snappy! 

Opa is trying to win Grandmother's parents over, and what I love is the humor with which he talks about it to Grandmother. This is where I see a lot of my Dad. When forced, my Dad can have a serious conversation, but often he inserts a sarcastic or witty comment in every empty space left by an awkward conflict or uncomfortable situation. 

Opa has a real challenge ahead if he wants to marry Grandmother but has not received her parents' blessing. Even still, he does get to business and offers some helpful suggestions. He decides to wait before he contacts them and see if Grandmother can give him specific concerns that they have so he can address them. That's pretty logical.

Then Opa continues by making fun of Grandmother for being able to eat a half of a sandwich in under 20 minutes. Guys- you have to know my Grandmother to get the hilarity of this statement. She was the S.L.O.W.E.S.T. eater. Mostly she just didn't eat very much anyway, but she just did not speed eat ever. When I would eat out with her I had to make a very deliberate effort to slow myself down to a crawl so that I could at least try to keep pace with her. I learned (as she got older and needed my help) that she would stop eating when she realized people were waiting on her. She didn't want to be impolite or inconvenience anyone, but she was so tiny that she really did need to eat more. So I learned to eat slowly. It was like practicing mindfulness with food- I think I should try to go back to that since I'm now back to eating at the pace of my husband and sons which is lightning speed.

It makes me smile that Grandmother ate tiny amounts over long periods of time even as a college student.

Opa teases Grandmother by naming that he had several dates over the weekend- I love it. He did actually have a real date, but with a friend to see Arabian Nights. He didn't give his opinion of it- but I saw it just last night in preparation for this blog. (Yes, that's how I do my homework.) The movie was certainly entertaining and had beautiful costumes- there was some weird acting and racist undertones- but overall it was surprisingly entertaining. I was surprised by the simplicity of the story line. There are a few little twists and turns, but it's basically a love story between a king and a woman who wants power. 

Grandmother is attempting to learn German! I don't know that she ever learned it. Opa references a piece by Mark Twain where he complains about "The Awful German Language." I read that piece and I found myself laughing out loud. It's pretty hilarious. You don't even need to speak German to get the humor of it. In one part he talks about how the Germans place the verb so far away from the subject that it's absurd. He writes about the fact that in English, the sign of a practiced writer is concise lines and clear focus, but the opposite seems to be true for Germans. Here is a line from that discussion:

A writer's ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the woman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and drawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.

How I wish I could have read Grandmother's responses to these letters. I know she had a sense of humor, but she often kept it closed in. Would her letters be sprinkled with the same kind of wit and charm? I would love to have seen that.

It's nice to see that Opa had time and space to delight in things like Twain's thoughts of German and how he could impress his potential in-laws.

July 31 & August 4, 1943: See You Soon

Red Cross letter from Ella to Opa. Sent on July 31st, 1943; Received Dec 1, 1943

Translation:

Tom-

Tom, happy about your studies Stay strong! Admiring Miss Hertz, Greetings to her, Hanna, Rose, Shelleys. We are healthy; I teach. Hoping for a reunion!

Annchen, Mama

Date: 31st July 1943
Signature: Ella Doppner

Red Cross Postcard from Opa to Ella Sent August 4th, 1943 

(looks like it was received November 1943)

Transcription:

American Red Cross

Washington, D.C.

International Red Cross Committee

Geneva, Switzerland

Civilian Message Form

Sender

Name: Thomas W Doeppner

Street: 1011 Moro Street

City: Manhattan   State: Kansas

Citizen of: No Country 

Relationship to person sought: Son

Chapter: Riley    Date: August 4th, 1943

Message 

(News of personal or family character; not more than 25 words)

Dear Mother,

Birthday greetings! Received your and Gis' letters today. Keep your chin up, I'll see you soon. Am still teaching, but anxious for last semesters.

love,

Tom.

Addressee

Name: Frau Ella Döppner

Address: Droysenstr. 14

         Berlin- Chlbg 4

Country: Germany

Identifying Data:

Birthplace and date of birth: Ottenson 8/4/89

Citizen of: Germany

A few thoughts on these. I imagine Opa's heart did a leap every time he received a Red Cross postcard from his mother. The delay of delivery was painful enough, but at least you knew that they were OK three months ago. The news within was not so important as the fact that his mother was still home, able to write. They were never able to share much (she never seemed to write about any of the family who went missing). I wonder if perhaps they may have tried and those letters never made it past the censors. Either way- proof of life is better than anything, and I can't imagine the sustained anxiety and brief relief that these Red Cross Postcards offered. 

I noticed that in Opa's letter, he fills out the citizenship question with "No Country." He had no citizenship! In a way, this is true. His German citizenship would have been revoked due to his jewish ancestry (and he revoked it anyway), he wasn't a citizen of Holland, and he certainly wasn't a citizen of America yet. 

Opa wrote to Ella on her birthday, likely not a wonderful birthday for her, but I know she was so happy to receive his greetings eventually. Ella would have been so touched that he thought of her and wrote her on that day. 

I've said this before, but the lightness that Opa writes with is a function of survival and forced optimism. "I'll see you soon." They both knew there was a small chance that was true, but the hope of it might be enough to keep their souls afloat. 

July 1, 1943: American Girl

Letter from Opa to INS

Transcription:

1011 Moro Street

Manhattan, Kansas

July 1, 1943

St. 16645

U.S. Immigration and 

Naturalization Service

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Gentlemen:

I shall be grateful if you will supply me with information regarding the law and procedure concerning marriage between aliens and American citizens. 

I am in this country on a student visa and am considering marriage to an American girl. The points I am especially concerned about are the following:

(1) Would my future wife retain her American citizenship? (2) What would the citizenship of our children be? (3) How would such a marriage affect my status, if any?

Any advice and information you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Very truly yours,

Thomas W. Doeppner

Guys, guys. Opa is thinking about marriage already! Also- we ALL know that the only question he is really asking is that third question and that the other two are just fillers to make it not look like he is trying to get citizenship by marrying an American. No one is fooled. I mean, he really does love my Grandmother- we know that, but no matter what, the INS doesn't care. Or do they? But this certainly isn't convincing, and honestly, how would you prove otherwise?

This has always been a little bit of a curiosity for me- was there a seed of doubt by my Grandmother that Opa wanted to marry her for citizenship? I never thought that Opa had that as a goal, or that their marriage gave him his citizenship, but honestly I don't know for sure if it did or not. We'll find out!

Either way, this is the precious line I love: "I am....considering marriage to an American girl."

June 27, 1943: Shirt Prison

Letter From Opa to Grandmother

Transcription:

June 27, 1943

Dear Marge,

Taking out half a day for the purpose of recuperation. The work has been a little too easy for harvest time, though, because of continuous chains of misunderstanding between the various parts of the combine, each one of which preceded by a biblical adjective, and the farmer. To my great relief and satisfaction, I have found out, though, that Charlie has only about one half of his usual amount of wheat, which reduces the time I shall be her(e) correspondingly. Also, my secret agents in Heaven have heard from usually reliable sources that St. Peter is going to call a truce till after harvest time, which, in my language, must mean no rain.

How did the consilium abeundi at Number 105 come out on Thursday night, or was it held behind closed doors with you taking care of Scott? What other important events or complications have taken place during my absence? I do hope that the Signal Corps boys are missing me, even though I cherish serious doubts concerning that matter.

My deepest apologies for anything I ever said about the Kansas landscape, for I found one thing which almost makes up for the lack of it: the way the sun sets. Every night, on the tractor, I am engaged in an exciting race; I try to reach the east end of the field before the sun touches the west end, for I like to see it set, but the sun crosses my desires. It's a rather predetermined race, though, for both sun and tractor proceed with fixed, unchangeable speed. When I do get to beat, though, and do see that sun creep in right between barn and silo, I understand why they put me into Kansas. Then, ten minutes later, however, sun is gone, the mystery has enriched, and nothing is left but that plain, endless, tiresome, super-flat Kansas with not a darn thing worth looking at. I wonder whether it has been worth it, making a 24 hour per day state for just a ten minute service. Engineers would call this inefficiency.

Since I am in a vile, vicious, and ostentatively cynical mood, one more word about the stubborn and apparently prepense stupidity of farmers. Here they pine away in the sultry June sun and let their precious wheat go to waste because they have no help. The government comes and suggests to send them a bunch of war prisoners, but the farmers decline. Not because they are afraid that the prisoners might run away; not because they hate them; not because they are afraid of language difficulties, but because, as a safety measure, they would be required to cut down their hedges, and the Kansas farmer rather sacrifices many thousand dollars' worth of crop, than to give up his sacred hedge. If it wasn't for the fact that out at Selten (Selden) there are some brilliant, intelligent, progressive, patriotic, and even democratic farmers, this would be the time and certainly the place to commit hara kiri, or however you spell that. 

Next time I shall heed your advice more carefully, for I did get my arms colored with a different shade of red than I had originally intended, and consequently was confined to work inside the prison of a shirt all day yesterday, but tomorrow the ban will be lifted and I shall expose the air to my chest and win that bottle of ginger ale.

I(f) you by any chance should not be campused this week, you may be in a position to mail a letter to Conway. If, which seems more possible, you should be campused, let your dear beloved roommate mail it.

Unless it should rain, I'll be seeing you end of this week, and I certainly am looking forward to it.

Love,

Tom

So many quotable lines. My favorite is his description of the magnificent sunset, followed by this fabulous bit: 

I wonder whether it has been worth it, making a 24 hour per day state for just a ten minute service. Engineers would call this inefficiency.

I can attest to this experience: when we visited Kansas I was enamored by the gorgeous sunset (although I would say it actually lasts longer than 10 minutes). In fact, we were driving towards the sun set one evening in such a way that it seemed the sun was setting for nearly three hours. But on the other hand there is absolutely nothing else to look at. My Grandmother used to sing this chorus: "Blue skies, nothing but blue skies do I see"- and she was right. That's literally all that there is to look at. Now I know why one of her favorite pastimes with us as kids was looking at clouds and seeing different shapes in them. That must have been a giant source of entertainment for her as a kid! Nothing else going on with the Kansas landscape! 

Then I love Opa's grumpy rage against the farmers who will not cut their hedge. It does seem ridiculous, but I wonder if these "hedges" are actually those precious erosion blockers that were so needed during the dust bowl. With acres and acres of flat land, the winds meet so little resistance that any dry land is swept up. I wonder if the farmers were actually thinking big-picture about their hedges (that may have taken a while to grow) and the role they play in keeping another dust bowl from happening. If that is so- I bet Grandmother let Opa know that while he may have lived in Kansas a few years now, he's still a city boy without the memory of the dust bowl behind him.

Last but not least, Opa's description of his sunburn and having to "work inside the prison of a shirt" is perhaps my favorite way anyone has ever talked about a sunburn.

I love Opa's quirky sense of humor and I think that this is going to be a lot of fun going through these letters!

Introducing Grandmother

I was originally going to have a couple more posts to introduce you to Grandmother, but I think I can do it all in one which will catch us up to where Grandmother is now (hanging out with Opa!).

We talked about the Sloans (Grandmother's father's side). The Wilkins (Grandmother's mother's side) we don't know as much about. Rebecca Wilkins died in 1899 at the age of 48. Bingham Wilkins was a railroader and did a few odd jobs. I have faint memories of Grandmother talking about her Grandfather working at the railroad station, living in the house there. When we went to Selden, we looked through their newspapers from the early 1900's. Here are a couple talking about Bingham:

Here's the transcription of the part that mentions Wilkins: 

B.G. Wilkins, of Selden, was a Rexford visitor last Monday. Mr. Wilkins has lately traded the stock of merchandise which he owned at Selden for a farm and will change his occupation in the future. - Rexford News

(looks like this is when he dropped farming and picked up railroading!)

B.G. Wilkins left the first of the week for Logan, Kansas, to look after his farm. He will again take up his old occupation as station agent on some railroad in the near future.

B.G. Wilkins had options! 

We are not sure how Mary Ellen Wilkins (the daughter of B.G. and Rebecca) met William Sloan, both families lived in Selden, but it seems some of the Wilkins moved away, including Bingham toward the beginning of the 1800's. Possibly due to his careers changes! Both families had experience farming. The Sloans made their living that way. When I describe Grandmother as a "Kansas farm girl", it is true on both sides! 

Selden is still a TINY town in Kansas. How do I know? I visited of course! Here is a description from one of the papers we looked at from the 1900's.

Transcription:

Selden 

In the month of June 1888 the town of Selden first saw the light of day. Now we have a population of about 300. As a Rail Road, Stock Raising, Agricultural, Fruit Growing, Commercial and Business Point, Selden occupies at present, or will in the near future, a commanding position in Western Kansas and will undoubtedly hold the second if not the first place in point of population and wealth in Sheridan County within the next ten years. 

Seldenis located on the Rock Island rail road midway between Norton and Colby; nineteen miles North west of Hoxie, (the county seat of Sheridan County,) and twenty-three miles south of Oberlin(the capital of Decatur County and where is located the U.S. Land Office.) 

Parties who contemplate embarking business will do well to visit this town before locating as the Selden Town Company will offerExtra Inducements to all parties who will engage in any kind of business at this place.

According to this newspaper, this town of 300 was the up and coming place to be (or they hoped you would think so and bring your business there). Selden's current population is listed as 216.

Grandmother went to school there, her extended family is in the cemetery in Selden.  Grandmother grew up on a farm not far from the heart of town. They lived in the farmhouse below (you can see me, my dad and the nice man who lives there now who let us walk in and look at it). Also- that dog was awesome.

I shared a bit about grandmother's brothers, who you will hear more about as we go through the blog. I want to catch you up on Grandmother's life between growing up in Selden to going to college and eventually meeting Opa. Then you'll be ready to enjoy the letters from Opa to Grandmother. 

After graduating as valedictorian of her tiny High School, Grandmother spent two years at Fort Hays Community College. We don't know much about this time except one important story that is one of my favorites about Grandmother.

Grandmother transferred from Fort Hays to Kansas State University, where she and Opa met. But something she never really talked about was the silly little detail that she was ENGAGED when she met Opa! In her time at Fort Hays, she became engaged to a boy named Archie. This little fact was hinted at: there was a story that Grandmother hid her ring when she met Opa. But Grandmother would never tell us the whole story.

When Opa died in 2001, we all traveled to Virginia for the funeral. The night before the funeral, my sisters and I spent the night with my Grandmother, sort of as a bonding time but also to keep her company. We were all in our PJs when we asked Grandmother to finally tell us the story of how she and Opa met, and to tell us if the rumors about her engagement were true.

She told us, with a twinkle in her eye, about Archie and the story of hiding the ring. Archie was her boyfriend/fiance, sort of the boy-next-door. The way she spoke about him, she was almost marrying him out of pity. She felt too bad to say no. (Glad she got out of that!) When she transferred to Kansas State in 1942, she had an engagement ring on her finger, but it seems her heart wasn't in it. 

Grandmother was raised Methodist, and so she joined the Wesley Foundation (the Methodist College group), and that spring, on a group hike up the only hill in town- Bluemont Hill- she met Opa. (Kansas is crazy flat- like you can watch the sun set for three hours flat- so this really is the only hill in town). When she was talking with Opa, she really liked him, so she made sure that she kept her ring hand in her pocket! 

Grandmother told this story like it was just so matter of fact, but my sisters and I loved every juicy detail. We just could not imagine our prim and proper Grandmother ever being so cheeky! The story goes that she eventually broke it off with Archie and dated Opa. Grandmother said that Archie's mom even wrote a really nasty note about how Grandmother had broken his heart. She said she only recently had gotten rid of the letter because she had been so guilt-ridden by it when Opa finally told her she needed to get rid of it! 

(To be honest, I wish she had kept it because I would love to see what "nasty" in 1940s farm language is.)

At this point going forward in our letters, Opa is writing to grandmother as she is home for the summer and he remains at Kansas State. Get ready- because Opa can write a LETTER!

Introducing Marjorie Sloan

It seems strangely appropriate that at this point in the blog when Opa's family is being deported to their deaths, news is scarce, and hope is waning- that we should happen upon a bright light. At this point in the timeline, my grandparents had been dating for at least a few months. There is a letter coming up where Opa mentions "that spring meeting on the hill" which I believe is when they met. (I've got a whole story about that that I'll share soon!) So let's say it was at least 3 months if not perhaps a year since they've met. Clearly since I'm calling her Grandmother, you already know about at least part of how their relationship works out.

We are going to delve into their love letters. Their love is a beacon of hope and light in the midst of darkness. These letters are the first things I saw and was able to read snippets of when I found that box of letters under my Grandmother's desk. These letters are what inspired the rest of the research.

Before we delve into the letters- I need to give you some background on my Grandmother and her family- like I did with Opa. Soon her siblings and home will be integral characters in this broadening story. So it's important you know them!

Announcement of Marjorie Sloan's August 14th birth 

in Selden Chronicle (Newspaper) on August 17, 1922

Reads: "A daughter arrived the first of the week to spend the next twenty years at the W.J. Sloan home. Everyone doing nicely - Bill is still in the seventh heaven of delight - it's the first girl."

Marjorie Ann Sloan was born on a farm in Selden, Kansas on August 14, 1922. She was the youngest, and the only female. She had three living brothers, a brother who was the next youngest had died at age 4 a year after she was born. In a way, Grandmother was a shining light after a terrible loss. Her older brothers were much older and did most of the work around the farm. Grandmother lived an unusual experience as a farm girl- because she was the youngest and only girl, her chores were minimal in comparison to her brothers. She spent a lot of time in her mother's garden.

My Grandmother in August 1926 (4 years old)- Can you handle the cuteness?

I'm going to spend the next few blogs talking about Grandmother's family and how they came to live in the middle of nowhere. I've been there- miles and miles of flat land and endless horizon. But in this blog I want to talk briefly about my relationship with Grandmother.

My experience of Grandmother was a proper and polished woman. She always had a purse and a pair of shoes to match her outfit. She always wore hose. She could play the piano, organ, and bells- though none of her family inherited her musical talent (except maybe my uncle). She loved to whistle and sing little ditties. One of the songs she often sang was "Blue Skies, nothing but blue skies do I see"- which I understood more deeply when I witnessed the endless Kansas sky.

Every time it rained, even if it was flooding, Grandmother would say "I guess we needed the rain." She hated rain but was always grateful for it- I am certain that was her conditioned response to living through the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s. Grandmother was 90 pounds dripping wet, with a delightful short crop of curly hair on her head. She had the tiniest body, with a large chest (another characteristic she did not pass on). I'm not sure she ever reached 5 feet tall, while Opa towered over her at 6 feet 2 inches.

Grandmother and Opa in front of their Mount Vernon home, in the late 80s, early 90s.

She loved birds, and had just about every notecard, stationary, and notepad with birds on it that existed. She was an avid gardener, organic gardening before it was cool. She could feed a household with her vegetable garden, but her pride and joy were her rose bushes in the front yard (to the left of the driveway, so you can't see them in the picture above). Even in her later stages of dementia, if she walked by a rose bush she would prune it.

Grandmother was a serious proponent of dessert. She would eat measly portions of dinner, but always a healthy dessert. Never too much- but there wasn't a meal when she couldn't justify dessert. She wasn't the best cook, but was a wonderful baker. Her cherry and apple pies were legendary. She had a fun thing she would do with us granddaughters when she made pie: she would let us roll out the leftover crust dough, spread butter on it, and cover it with cinnamon sugar. We called them "sugar pies" and ate them like they were the most valued delicacy invented. Just the other day my older sister texted a picture of a sugar pie that she made with her children.

Grandmother was a preschool director and teacher. This education benefitted us as grandkids. She would play all sorts of word games, make crafts with us (including making play dough), and was very hands on.

She and Opa enjoyed the fine arts together: opera, musicals, art, and other concerts. They were so refined and fancy to me as a kid. Yet they also played with me and engaged.

Grandmother had a tissue, cough drop, and comb in every single purse she owned, and in most of her pockets. Looking back I'm wondering if she had allergy issues. There was a story that she had some sort of botched tonsillitis surgery, which meant that she had to take smaller bites of food because her throat wasn't completely right. No idea if that was true.

I loved Grandmother. She was more formal (as you might be able to tell from the name she chose for herself) -so it wasn't a mushy relationship - but it was warm. The more I learned about her background and where she grew up- the more she made sense to me, and the more I understood how Opa stole her heart.

When I lived in Fairfax, Virginia, I was about 30 minutes from Grandmother's apartment in a nice retirement home. I would visit occasionally and drink hot tea with her. She doted on my first son, who was such a show-stopper in her retirement home. The residents rarely saw anyone as young as I was, much less a baby. We would sit in the main dining room, with Grandmother beaming with pride. Many people would stop by our table to talk to the baby, to feel his soft cheeks and ask me questions about him. Grandmother wouldn't hesitate to claim him as her great-grandson, and though she formally insisted that we call her Grandmother, she happily settled for Gi-Gi as her name for the great-grandchildren. 

My favorite job was the two years I took care of Grandmother. She was so grateful and kind. She certainly had a solid penchant for the guilt-trips if she thought I hadn't visited enough (I started writing my visits down in her calendar so I would get "credit" for the visit.) She adored my son, she had a stubborn streak of independence, but we managed the dance just right where she allowed me to help and I allowed her to feel independent. She asked about me and my family, asked about how my son was doing. She told stories of her childhood and watching her boys (my Dad and uncle) growing up. She was so excited for me when she found out I was having another boy, and get my own two boys like she had. We played cards, went to doctor's appointments, ate good food, and drank lots and lots of hot and lukewarm tea.

She was just as much my companion as I was hers. I miss her. 

We moved her to Florida to live near my parents after she had fully healed from a medical emergency. I knew that my growing family and potential for a move would negatively affect her. She needed more than I could provide. So we moved her and my parents got the benefit of her whistling and quiet appreciation. They got to learn the little tricks for getting her to eat more and drink more water. They got to see her eat healthy desserts. My mother and I bonded over our little tricks of the trade when it came to taking good care of Grandmother. We were lucky- it wasn't too hard to keep her quality of life fairly high. 

Then when none of us really expected it, she was gone. She did get to meet my second child, who was 6 months old as we gathered for our last Thanksgiving dinner with Grandmother. There was a moment of beautiful clarity that evening, when she looked up, looked around at the whole family sitting at the table and exclaimed: "We're all here!" She knew us- she always knew us, we were grateful that her dementia never stole her knowledge of her family. But in that moment she was distinctly aware that we were really all there. Shortly after we left my family's home, Grandmother came down with pneumonia, and quickly slipped away from us. 

We would be back together again to bury her in December at Opa's grave in Arlington National Cemetery. The funeral at Arlington was a beautiful experience for me. It was sort of like closing a book that had been read many times and lovingly cared for. Of course I wish I could read it again, ask more questions, drink more tea, eat more ice cream and pie. But there in the cemetery, there in the perfectly crisp and proper burial grounds of the heroes of the United States - were buried my Grandmother and Opa together- brought together by completely bizarre and unlikely circumstances. They stayed together against all odds (and many predictions of their failure). They both had full lives. It was the right time and place for closing the book. 

l look forward to diving into her family history and learning a little bit more about what made her who she was.

June 23, 1943: Mama is Teaching

Red Cross Letter from Ella to Opa

Translation:

23 June 1943

Beloved boy, hope you are healthy as we are.  I’m nearing fluency, Mama is teaching. Papa healthy. No news from Patti for a long time, from you either. Greet the Shelleys!

Annchen

This is the second letter from Annchen's address, this one not even signed from Ella. I wonder if Ella is hiding out at Annchen's home. I think it is odd that Annchen uses a whole sentence to talk about Ella tutoring her (in English I suppose). However, perhaps it really is something easy and happy to mention. Perhaps it was a way to mention Ella without specifically naming her. They haven't heard from Patti, who is in the "free" part of France (southern France) but likely still not completely safe. August must be keeping a regular correspondence with Annchen. I really wonder if Opa didn't get letters from August or if he didn't keep them. Either way- that's odd isn't it?

Opa received this letter sometime in November of 1943 it seems. Five months later. I hope he is writing to Ella. I know she needs it. In the meantime, mama is teaching.