Category: Throw Back Thursday

I first went to Germany in the spring of 1989. Hubby was a pilot for Pan Am, and he was temporarily assigned to West Berlin. This was before the Wall came down, and nothing I experienced then, comes close to the reunified city now.

This was the Airbus Jack flew over from New York with a 3 man crew, and me. They showed me how to warm up meals and make coffee and I was able to experience a takeoff and landing on this flight in the cockpit, as well as see St Elmo’s Fire. There were no passengers on this flight. They had to fill up to the brim with jet fuel to make the flight from JFK to Berlin, Tegel Airport.

There we are, at Checkpoint Charlie, when it really was a crossing from West into East Berlin. I went through several times with the US Military (a special privilege they gave to Pan Am families).

Here I am in East Berlin at Alexander Platz. I recall the gardens there were so beautiful. I spent a lot of time walking around East Berlin, and I brought back many wonderful things to remind me of my trip. The items we have used the most over the years are the cotton Decke (comforter type blanket). I love the two I bought, but they have slowly fallen to apart.

I also learned to love Dackels! Friends of Jack’s had a wonderful male, Wirehaired Dackel, named Shubi. He spoke no English, and I spoke no German, but it was love at first sight for us both.

In the years to come each time we visited, Shubi was at my feet, in my arms, and my bed! Oh, I loved that little man!

Years later, during the fall of 1995 Shubi got out of their yard and was hit by a lorry. My first visit back did not feel the same. I mourned the loss of my little friend. I saw how quiet their house was and said, “You know, we should get puppies together!”

And we did! In February of 1996, we brought home a three-month-old female Wirehaired Dackel, that we named Shubi-2. Our friends got her brother and named him Toni!

She was the best souvenir that I ever got!

This week’s Throw Back Thursday are pictures of my Mom and Dad in their teens. They were 13 and 14 years old when they met. Dad played the piano and organ at recitals and my Mom was a dancer.

Fourteen-year-old Dad. James Alfred, also known as Jimmy to Mom and Jim to everyone else. He was a handsome teenager back then, and he swept my mother off her feet. He became a music teacher in the schools in my hometown and at one point everyone had had Dad as their teacher. He loved music. He loved sharing it with others.

And here is Mom. Rosamond Ruth also called Rosa. She was really a quiet woman, and I think she was probably a shy child. She was very close to her cousin George and her parents. She adored her brother, but often he didn’t want his kid sister hanging around. Still, she loved him deeply.

If there was one thing that they shared with me growing up, it was their love of animals. All through my childhood, we had at least one dog, mostly two, and always a Siamese cat! A house wasn’t a home for us without a pet or two or three.

They were married for over 60 years! Their marriage wasn’t perfect, but they remained close all through their life together….

My sister and I have been working on our family’s genealogy. It’s been fascinating seeing where we came from.

My grandmother, Grandma Honey (Mary), was very much into that stuff in her day, and I imagine her sitting in the Boston Public Library looking things up. (No computers back then!) She told me stories about her father and her father’s parents. I was always interested to hear these tales. She never knew her own grandparents, But her father had told her some of the stories and she retold them to us, her grandchildren.

Although they were long gone when I was growing up, I knew all about George Keith and Pheobe Sophia. Grandma even joked with me that I must be like her because I could be overly dramatic at times, and apparently, from the stories told, so could she.

So here are my second great-grandparents.

George Keith.

And his love wife Phoebe Sophia.

This is where part of me started. These two people are in my DNA and the stories I heard about them made me feel like a part of it all.