The church records gave the date of her great-grandparents’ wedding as well as her grandmother’s baptism. The town records office yielded drawers of family information that went back to the seventeen hundreds! Overwhelmed, Carolyn said thank you and left. Maybe she would just take lots of pictures around town and then return to Landstuhl. She headed up the hill to Hotel Edelweiss.
Ilse introduced her to her grandmother, Etta, a lovely, gray-haired lady around the age of Carolyn’s own mother. She switched from German to English and back again with enviable ease, while Ilse served cabbage soup, sausages and vegetables, fried potatoes and onion salad.
Ilse asked Carolyn if she’d found any information about her family at the church or records office.
“A few important dates at the church, and I practically ran out of the records office when I saw how much they had. I could spend the rest of my life going through all of it.” She shrugged. “My mother wanted me to take lots of pictures. I think that’s what I’ll do.”
Etta passed the plate of sausages around again. Carolyn told her they were delicious.
“An old family recipe,” Etta said with a smile. She cocked her head and studied Carolyn. “You mentioned that your grandmother had a friend here at Hotel Edelweiss. Do you know her name?”
“Yes. Rosie Brechtwald. Have you heard of her?”
Etta gasped. “Rosie Brechtwald was my mother! My granddaughter is named after her—Ilse Rose. My mother wrote letters to a friend who ended up in America, but her name was Waltert. Is that your grandmother?”
“Yes! Marta Schneider Waltert. I have your mother’s letters with me.” Carolyn went to her room, retrieved the bundle, and returned downstairs.
Etta looked delighted. “I grew up on stories of your oma. My mother used to read her letters aloud to us. They wrote back and forth for over fifty years! When Mama died, I wrote to Marta, but the letter came back. I would like to hear the end of the story.”
“I’d like to hear the beginning and the middle.” Carolyn smiled. “I have a hundred questions.”
“Do you still have Marta’s letters, Mama?” Ilse glanced at Carolyn. “She never throws anything away.”
“I’ll look in the family trunk after dinner is finished.”
* * *
Etta Bieler brought a box into the living room and set it on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. She took out bundles of letters, tied with faded ribbons. “My mother learned about organization from her father. When he died, she took over this little hotel. She kept perfect files.” The letters had been kept in chronological order.
When Carolyn started looking through Oma’s letters, her heart sank. “They’re written in German.” Why hadn’t she thought of that? All of Rosie’s letters to Oma had been in German.
“Ah, but look in the bottom of the box.” Carolyn removed the rest of the letters and found a thick sheaf of papers under them. Etta’s eyes twinkled. “My children found the story of their grandmother’s friend so fascinating, I encouraged them to translate the letters when they were studying English in school. They enjoyed the practice, and we all enjoyed reading through them again. I remember them very well. Marta’s father made her leave school. He sent her to Bern to become a servant.” She chuckled. “But your oma had bigger dreams than being someone’s maid. She wanted to learn French and English so she could have a hotel like this one. Mama said what Marta set out to do, Marta did.”
“She never had a hotel.”
“No, but she owned a boardinghouse in Montreal. That’s where she met her husband. They moved to the Canadian wheat fields and, later, to California. It’s all in the letters. I think the only thing she didn’t plan was meeting your opa. We all loved that romantic story. Marta didn’t think she would ever marry; then she met handsome Niclas, graduate of Berlin University, also an immigrant. Marta taught him to speak English.”
Ilse yawned and said she needed to get to bed. She had to get up early and have breakfast ready for some guests who wanted to go out cross-country skiing. Carolyn apologized for keeping them up so late. “Would you mind if I took these upstairs to read?”
Etta had already begun opening Rosie’s letters. “They’re yours to keep. Our family enjoyed them, but you must have them. They’re part of your family history.”
“I can’t wait to read them. There is so much I’d like to know about my grandparents. Maybe she wrote about her sister, Elise, too. She sometimes mentioned her to me—even used to tell me I looked like her. But she’d never tell me anything more than that.”
Etta looked troubled. “My mother told me the story. It’s in the early letters—references to it, not details. You may not want to know.”
“I think it’s important I do.”
“Mama said Elise was very beautiful. I’m sure you do look like her. She was very quiet and painfully shy. She stayed in the shop with her mother while Marta was sent out to work. Mama didn’t say much about what went on in your grandmother’s family, just that Marta did not have an easy life. Her father sent her to Bern.”
“To housekeeping school.”
“Ja, but Mama said Marta wanted more than that. She went to Interlaken.”
“And worked at the Hotel Germania.”
“That’s when her father sent Elise to work for a wealthy family in Thun. It turned out very badly.”
Carolyn saw how Etta hesitated. “How badly?”
“The master of the house and his son abused her.” She lowered her eyes and Carolyn understood. “Marta took her sister out of that house and brought her home, but Elise was already pregnant. No one knew yet, but the girl never went out after she was brought home. She stayed inside the house. Everyone assumed she was taking care of her mother, who was very ill with consumption. Marta confided in my mother that she feared for Elise. Apparently the girl was very dependent on her mother, whom Marta felt coddled her all too much. Then when her mother died, Elise disappeared. Everyone went searching for her. It was my mother who found Marta’s sister by the river. She had frozen to death. And she was heavy with child.”
Carolyn closed her eyes. Oma had kept secrets, too. Her sister’s rape, an unwed pregnancy, suicide.
Etta went on with the rest of what her mother had told her about a plain girl wounded by a father who didn’t love her, but used her as a source of income for the family while her mother languished with consumption and her exquisitely beautiful and delicate sister remained hidden away like Rapunzel inside a tower. When Marta went away to work, her father had demanded a portion of her wages, and Marta capitulated until Rosie Brechtwald had written the truth. “Mama knew Marta would never come back after her mother and sister died.”
Carolyn ached for Oma.
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I should not have told you.”
“I’m glad you did. It explains so much.” No wonder Oma had been so determined to make sure her own children could stand on their own two feet. Cloistered by fear, weakened by a needy mother’s coddling, Elise had been unprepared for the world. In the end, she gave up her life without a fight.
How many times had Carolyn considered doing the same thing? Once she had almost walked into the sea. God had used a man wounded by war to draw her back. He’d used an unexpected pregnancy to give her reason to keep on living, to work hard, to accept consequences and blessings along the way. But she had kept silent, too, keeping the pain locked in and pressed down.
“You look like Elise. She was my little sister, and she was very, very pretty, just like you,” Oma once said, but wouldn’t explain. Yet, Oma hadn’t treated Carolyn the same way she had treated Mom. Oma had held her close, told her repeatedly she loved her, encouraged her to step out in faith. Oma had learned that withholding love might make a daughter strong, but also left deep wounds. On both sides.
* * *
Carolyn read the letters translated by Etta’s children and tucked them into the corresponding originals written by Oma in German. She read until her eyes blurred.
I am
in England. Papa sent a wire telling me to come home. He said nothing about either Elise or Mama, and I knew he would expect me to spend the rest of my life in the shop. . . .
Cousin Felda said it was you who found Elise. I dream of her every night. . . .
Later, Oma moved away from London to “better air” and lived and worked in the “fine Tudor home” of Lady Daisy Stockhard, who loved high tea every afternoon at four o’clock. When one of the other servants left to get married, Oma replaced her as Lady Daisy’s companion.
She is a most unusual lady. I have never known anyone to discuss so many interesting topics. She doesn’t treat her servants like slaves, but is genuinely interested in our lives. She had me sit with her in church last Sunday.
Her daughter is never happy with anything, not even her mother. She is off on another hunt for a husband, and when she’s gone, everyone in the house breathes easier, even Lady Stockhard.
Oma wrote of the long voyage to Canada:
I had days when I would have jumped overboard to end my misery if I could have climbed the stairs to reach the deck. They have packed us like cattle in a barn. The woman in the bunk next to me moans day and night. I know how she feels, but sometimes think about putting a pillow over her head, if I had a pillow. I can laugh about it now that I am on terra firma again.
And in Canada, she found so much more than she was looking for.
Dear Rosie,
I am married!
I never thought anyone would want me, and certainly never a man like Niclas Bernhard Waltert. . . . I thought I was happy when I bought my boardinghouse, but I have never been as truly happy as this. It makes me afraid sometimes. . . .
Carolyn understood the feeling of unworthiness all too well.
She continued reading. Oma’s letters changed. Disappointment set in when Niclas lost his job at the railroad and decided to become a farmer. Oma couldn’t understand how a man of learning would want to work the land.
Dearest Rosie,
Niclas has left me and gone off to work on a wheat farm in Manitoba. He went away three weeks ago and I have not heard from him since. I begin to understand how Elise felt when she walked out into the snow. . . .
I would have given anything for an education, but Papa said schooling was wasted on a girl. And Niclas, who has the knowledge to be a professor, wants to throw it all away and live out in the middle of nowhere tilling soil and planting wheat. He wants me to sell the boardinghouse. He wants me to go on this “adventure” with him. I would kill him if I didn’t love him so much. . . .
Opa had gone alone, and Oma’s letters showed how much she suffered for her decision.
Why must I give up everything I have worked so hard to gain to follow a man whose dream will impoverish us? But how can I not? Life is barren without Niclas. I will have his child soon. . . .
Carolyn read of life on a wheat farm miles from the nearest town, winters when the temperature dropped well below zero, a landlord who cared nothing about their plight and cheated them out of their share of the profits. She wrote lovingly of Bernhard, and she worried about the new baby coming.
Several months passed before Oma wrote another letter, and it held the first mention of Hildemara Rose.
I fear for this little one. I understand now how Mama’s heart broke every time she held Elise. She was small and frail, too. . . .
Pray for your namesake, Rosie. One breath from heaven could blow her away, but God forbid I go too far in protecting her and bring her up to be weak like Elise.
Opa and Oma left the farm and went to Winnipeg. Opa went back to work for the railroad. Another child came.
Our third child, Clotilde Anna, arrived a month after Niclas went back to work. She is as robust as Bernhard, and every bit as loud in her demands.
Soon, Opa began to talk about farming again. This time he was dreaming of California.
The man will not be happy until he has his way. And I am tired of fighting with him.
Life in California was difficult. First the family lived in a tent by an irrigation ditch, then in a structure not much better on a farm owned by . . .
. . . Mrs. Miller, who orders us around like serfs while she and her daughter, Miss Charlotte, sit on their behinds and listen to radio programs in the big house. The wind and rain blow through ours, and she expects us to pay for “improvements.” The children have constant colds. I fear most for Hildemara Rose. She has Mama’s constitution. . . .
Oma reported on the achievements of Bernhard and Clotilde and Rikka in a matter-of-fact way, but her eldest daughter perplexed her and seemed a constant worry.
What must I do to make my girl strong? Niclas tells me to be gentle with her, to love her for the child she is. But he doesn’t understand what happens to a child who cannot stand up for herself. I can’t give in and become like Mama, coddling and protecting her. . . . I would rather she hate me than end up like Elise.
And then the day came when Hildemara got the courage to speak up. Carolyn could hardly imagine the scene as Oma’s letter described it.
After all this time, my girl speaks up to me and what do I do? I slap her across the face. I did it without even thinking. I had said something hurtful to Niclas, and he left the table, and Hildemara Rose exposed my shame. . . .
I could see the hurt in her eyes. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to tell her she had every right to scream at me. She doesn’t have to sit there and take it! She would have turned the other cheek if I’d raised my hand to her again.
I have not cried so much in years, Rosie. Not since Mama and Elise died.
Carolyn lay back and closed her eyes. She’d never seen Oma cry, never guessed the depth of pain she carried. Oma had gone to her grave in silence, still wounded. Carolyn realized how alike they were, and Mom, too. How many other unhealthy coping tools have we passed down, Lord? Show us, so we can turn swords into plowshares. Wiping tears away, she thanked God again for May Flower Dawn. God had used her and other prayer warriors to bring the walls between generations tumbling down. I miss her, Lord. I had so little time with her.
And she felt His answer. You have time and eternity.
Then Hildemara further asserted herself by choosing to go to nursing school, against Oma’s wishes. But when she graduated at the head of her class, Oma’s pride was evident.
She is not a timid child anymore. My girl knows her place in the world. I am so proud of her, Rosie.
Opa got cancer.
I had no choice but to ask Hildemara to give up her life and come home. He needs a nurse. He worsens by the day and I can’t bear to see him in such pain. She is a great comfort to us both.
Oma grieved over Opa’s passing, then began to worry about Hildemara Rose again. She didn’t return to Merritt Hospital, where she had been working before Oma asked her to come home and take care of Papa. Carolyn knew a crisis was on the horizon, and in the next letter, it had happened.
A young man came to Niclas’s funeral. I had never seen him before, and Hildemara had never mentioned him. But I knew when I saw them together, they love each other. She had it in her head that she had to stay and take care of me. As if I cannot take care of myself! I said enough yesterday to make her pack and leave. l appreciate all she’s done, but enough is enough.
I offered to drive her to the bus station this morning, hoping for a chance to explain myself a little better. But she had already asked her brother to take her.
She was hurt and angry, once again misunderstanding my intentions. When will she understand how much I love her? How easy it would have been to let her stay and be my comfort! But at what cost to her? Elise was Mama’s comfort and suffered for it. So did Mama in the end, though she didn’t live with the fullness of it. No matter how much it hurts, I must be strong for Hildemara Rose’s sake.
When Hildemara became sick with tuberculosis, Oma lived in fear of her dying.
I went to Arroyo del Valle to see Hildemara Rose. She had Mama’s pallor and the deep shadows under her eyes. I could
see no life in them when I first arrived. It terrified me. . . . I called her a coward. Though it broke my heart, I mocked and belittled her. Thank God she got good and mad. Her eyes spit fire at me and I wanted to laugh with joy.
Better she hate me for a while than give up on life and be put in an early grave. She was trying to get up when I walked away. . . .
Carolyn blinked back tears as she read Oma’s description of Charlie’s birth. Oh, Charlie. I still miss you so much it hurts. Oma was concerned even then about the breach between herself and Mom.
Hildemara Rose and I get along, but there is a wall between us. I know I built it. I doubt she’s forgiven me for my harsh words at the sanatorium, and I will not apologize for them. I may have to prod her again. I’ll do whatever I must to keep her spirits up. Oh, but it hurts me so to do it. I wonder if she will ever understand me.
No, Oma, I don’t think she ever did. At least not yet.
Years later, Oma wrote about the gold, jade, and pearl brooch. Carolyn fingered it as she read.
I was so stunned and touched by Hildemara’s gift, I said something stupid. I could see the hurt in her eyes. It’s become a bad habit, saying hurtful things to her. I reached out, but she’d already turned away, and I had no voice to call her back. I take out the brooch every day and look at it. My girl has a fine, generous heart. . . .
Oma had tried to reach out to Mom in those later years, and Mom shrank back. Mom and Oma never had someone who pulled them together the way May Flower Dawn had done for Carolyn and Mom. She had built a bridge so the same mistake wouldn’t be carried into the next generation.
Sometimes seeds fell on rock, but they still found a way to grow, to press up toward the sun, to cling to life no matter what. Oma had done that. She had left a legacy. Endure whatever life dishes out. Learn all you can. Count your blessings. Never give up. Keep growing in the Lord.
Her Daughter's Dream Page 48
