1949 - The homestead. Walter and Brigitte are playing "Eins, zwei, drei, Engele fliegen!" One, two, three, angels fly!

Walter, Brigitte, Karolina. I did the same with mine when they were little. Mother had her hands full. In addition to keeping a vegetable garden, helping in the fields, taking care of the animals, she cooked on a wood stove and did the laundry once a week by boiling it in a huge wash pot on a stove. She made her own butter and baked her own bread. She candled eggs and slopped the pigs. The list is endless. It's no wonder she never wanted to live on a farm again as long as she lived.

Backing up to the road, in back of the house, the view you can see here, was the root cellar. The wagon would pull up to the top and down went the potatoes (people food) and rutabagas (animal feed). The jars she "put up" were also stored here, in the root cellar. Two of my favorites were pickled Kirbis (pumpkin) and Senfgurken (mustard pickles). I haven't had either of those since Germany and it makes my mouth water thinking about them.

I "helped" cut seed potatoes one year when I was about 8. I felt bad because I was slow but mother told me that every potato I cut was one less that she had to do. Still, that didn't seem to help make the pile of potatoes any smaller. I don't think I lasted too long at that job. (Update: In those days no farmer over there ate corn or rutabagas as they were considered animal food. We were all shocked to hear Americans ate food intended for animals. :o) It took Mother a long time before she tasted her first ear of corn - and it took a lot of persuasion. To be fair, the corn we eat now is much hybridized - I don't know about the rutabagas!)

I sat at the top of that wall one day as American soldiers marched past. Mother came out a while later and joined me. She reminded me to pull my dress down. Girls on farms in those days didn't wear underwear. So I'm watching the soldiers march past and my eyes are drawn to a dark-skinned man. That was the first time in my life I saw skin color like that. I don't think I could get my eyes as big again if I tried. He saw me staring and grinned ear to ear. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He walked over to me and offered me an orange. An ORANGE! What a miracle that man was. I turned and asked mother if it was alright to accept, she smiled and nodded yes. I didn't know where to look, the man or the orange. If by chance he gets to read this (unlikely), thanks again for my first taste of Orange!