I've been thinking of writing a blog entry about my late mother, who was born in Oggersheim, Germany, in July of 1917 -- in the second half of the First World War. So here goes.
When I was growing up, I thought it was the coolest thing to have a German grandfather. His name was Johann Schuessler, and my family and I used to go visit him every Sunday at his house, which my mother -- his youngest daughter -- called "The Ranch". It was a small working farm, situated just outside the city limits of Utica, New York. He would give us kids these wonderful hard candies which he kept in a jar marked "CEREAL" in his kitchen. My cousins and I would always thereafter call them "Grampa Candies".
My mother used to tell me stories of how she would go into the chicken coop and feed the chickens before they got their heads cut off -- and it's true: chickens DO run around after they lose their heads! My grandfather also had barn cats, which kept the rodent population down in his little barn. And of course, they would have kittens every year.... which were the cutest things imaginable. When my eldest sister turned 12 (somewhere around that age), my grandfather wanted to give her one of these kittens for her birthday. My mother, however, would have NONE of that. And I can still hear her telling her father so in German, to this day.
I didn't know my grandmother, Johanna Schuessler, very well. She passed away when I was about two or three. But my mother said she loved us kids very much. My grandparents had five children: two boys and three girls. All but the youngest son were born in Oggersheim, a small town in the Ruhr Valley, in western Germany. They arrived in the United States in 1923, aboard a freighter. My mother was six years old at the time, and she remembered that voyage was the first time she'd ever tasted a banana!
In the spring of 1990, I had the opportunity to visit Germany, and to try and locate where my mother's family lived in Oggersheim. My mother's eldest sister, Elizabeth, was the keeper of the family history, and my mother got the street address from her before I left. I would be staying with friends who were serving in the US Air Force at the time; this was just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
In the course of my visit, I saw places I never dreamed I would see: the Bavarian Alps, medieval walled towns, the fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein, other castles and Baroque churches galore -- and the concentration camp at Dachau. It was all quite overwhelming at times! But what I hoped against all odds to find was my mother's old house; I wasn't even sure it would have survived the heavy Allied bombing of the Ruhr Valley during the Second World War, as Oggersheim was quite close to the major cities of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen.
Anyway: my friends and I set out on a day's sightseeing. It was midafternoon by the time we were on the Autobahn near the Mannheim area, and somehow, we managed to get lost! We missed the Oggersheim exit, and had to go into the city of Mannheim itself. All I remember seeing there were modern highrise buildings.
We almost lost hope of finding Oggersheim. But in the end, we did! We also found the right street address--and the house. It was a small cream-colored stucco, with a peaked roof, and the house number painted on the wall. I was absolutely amazed, and moved--the house was
still standing after all these years, and one horrible war! I took some photos of the house, which was behind a brown fence, and the narrow street. Unfortunately, my friends were meeting some out-of-town friends that evening, so we couldn't go up to the house and find out who was living there now. I am sorry we weren't able to do that.
When I got home and got my photos developed, I showed the house pictures to my mother. She got emotional as she looked at them, even though her last memory of it was back in 1923. I am glad she lived long enough to see these photos.
The outcome of this visit was a beginning interest in the First World War. During that time, the British Royal Navy blockaded Germany's Baltic ports, to keep war materials out of German hands. At the same time, the blockade also affected Germany's ability to import food, which caused widespread hardship amongst German civilians on the home front. My grandfather, from what I've been told, worked in a munitions factory and did not serve on the Western Front (this also accounted for his deafness in old age). My mother was just an infant during those terrible days, and it is amazing to me how she survived potential starvation, and disease. What must her parents and older siblings have experienced! Did her parents tell their children what was going on? Or did they decide to keep such information to themselves, so as not to frighten the children? To this day, I wish I could have asked my mother's older brother and sisters what happened.
After the Armistice was signed in November 1918, there was widespread political unrest, as the defeated German nation searched for someone to blame for their woes. Strikes and riots took place all over the country, and no doubt it prompted my grandparents to seriously think about leaving, and going to America, and safety. And I am glad they did, in light of what was coming down the pike in ten years' time.
It is miraculous, that my mother survived such turmoil. But I am glad I was able to see the outside of her childhood home for myself, and share that with her while she was still alive.
