Margit’S Red Book: From Elephant to Butterfly
Reflections of a Bohemian Butterfly

By Margit Heskett

Margit Heskett still eats seafood with a knife and fork and politely thanks those who serve her. Her walls are covered from floor to ceiling with artwork, and her shelves overflow with books. Her garden boasts a sculpture collection, and she loves to travel and seek new adventures. Her adult life mirrors her childhood. In this memoir, author Margit Heskett details not only her childhood in Czechoslovakia, but also her subsequent schooling, career, and international travels.

Heskett, a natural storyteller, has lived a long and interesting life by learning to adjust quickly to new situations and looking at the bright side of life. She grew up in Bohemia and came to the United States in 1938 to attend college, becoming a United States citizen in 1944. Rich with detail, this memoir describes a long career of teaching, dancing, and traveling.

Margits Red Book provides a telling narrative of Hesketts richly lived life and of interesting people, places, and situations. These memories may have sprung from hidden places, but they serve as a reminder of how precious ones life becomes and the surprises one uncovers when retracing the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595609482

Margit Heskett

Margit Heskett born in Czechoslovakia, began dancing and traveling at an early age. She attended Columbia University, New York University, and Wittenberg University; taught at Ohio colleges/universities: Antioch, Central State, and Bowling Green State, and in Springfield public/parochial schools. Heskett also taught in Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Czechoslovakia.

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Photos

Clippings

Documents

Foreword

This book is written to fulfill a promise given to a passed away friend, a former dance student of mine from Bowling Green State University. After graduating, Robin opened a travel agency in Bowling Green. One day I entered the agency looking for an interesting trip. Robin greeted me, Mrs. Heskett, how nice to see you. I was one of your students quite some time ago. Where would you like to travel? Robin was a most creative travel agent. You could ask her for a few days on a lonely island in the Pacific or a trip to a Tasmanian zoo. Perhaps I would like to take a trip to the interior of Bulgaria with a private chauffeur and female guide? Never a problem—she came up with the desired destination. I often stopped at her home, and in the summer we sat in the gazebo on her little lake. We also took a Swiss, Monaco, and French Riviera trip together so I could show her some of my turf. Thus a lasting friendship developed. She asked me to write my memoirs.

Chapter One

The family is one of Nature’s masterpieces. — George Santayana

I was born in a city in northwest Bohemia that began its history as a Roman spa. The city is located halfway between Prague, the Czech capitol, and Dresden in Saxony, famous for an art museum, Meissen porcelain, and the destruction of the cathedral by the Allied forces during World War II.

My parents married before the outbreak of World War I. My father, an officer in the Austrian army, was on leave from the Russian front, where he was stationed, and brought his bride to Budapest. I understand that at the end of the war, they caught the last train out of Budapest to what was to be Czechoslovakia, because they were now Czechoslovak citizens and had to flee the Hungarian Republic. They told me about taking a walk right after they were married over the Danube Bridge between Buda and Pest. It was Christmas Eve, the castle was lit, and they remembered the lights.

Father told me an interesting story about his tour on the Russian front. He had a valet and two horses. We have pictures of the tent where he lived—it looked comfortable. Father’s general wanted to take a city in what is now Poland but was troubled because it was his hometown; he hated to destroy it. He held a meeting to discuss the problem. In civilian life, my father had been a civil engineer and architect. He said to the general, Give me a few boys and some horses, and I will get them out of there. I’ll shut off the water so they have to give up. Father and his men shut off the water. The city gave up. He also told me that the Russian and Austrian officers met at night while there was no fighting. The Austrian officers had cologne, the Russians, cigarettes. They exchanged them, and the Russians drank the cologne, as they had no vodka.

The valet assigned to my father on the Russian front went with him and my mother to Budapest. My mother didn’t even know how to boil potatoes, so the valet showed her how to do some cooking. I had inherited Mom’s cooking skills exactly the same culinary feats when I got married.) I have a letter that the valet wrote to Dad, but the war ended, and Dad could never answer him. Since we did not have his address. I assume he returned to Sarajevo, where he was from.

My first memory is a small village street in Bohemia. It must have been springtime. I wore a coat and gloves and was walking happily alongside my governess. Then I saw a huge beautiful gander approaching me. These animals frequently cross Bohemian village streets. Always being fond of animals, I held out my hand to him. This seemed to agitate him; he made loud guttural sounds and ran toward me, his large wings outstretched and flapping furiously. My governess pulled me sideways as the gander lunged forward. From this time on I had great respect for geese and ganders. I still admire them but stay well out of their way.

The first winter that I remember in the Bohemian Forest was when I was four and a half years old. My parents and I were staying at the Rixie Hotel, located a few miles from the renowned resort, Zelezná Ruda, across the German border from the Bavarian resort, Eisenstein, in the Bavarian Forest. The Bohemian Forest and the Bavarian Forest are the same mountain range—the name is dependent on the border. I remember the snow, tons of it, high, clean, and fluffy. One day my parents took me walking, and I was having great fun playing in the snow when I heard my mother cry out to my father, Where is the child? The child is lost! I had fallen into a high snow drift and was playing in it. It made my mother most upset.

The next morning we settled into a horse-drawn sleigh to drive to Zelezná Ruda to buy skis and boots for me. Before we took the winter trip, the pediatrician had suggested that my bones were too tender for skiing, but I really wanted skis. I won! At that time, bindings were constructed with heels so shoes would fit into them. I took off happily. Because I was small and fast, I was called Snow Flea by the other hotel guests.

One late spring when I was about five years old, my parents and I were vacationing at Marianske Lazne, a northern Bohemian spa. We walked through a lovely pine forest, and I was looking for blueberries and mushrooms when we heard a rider approaching. It was a tall man seated on a large reddish brown horse and wearing a cap. I ran excitedly to him. My parents did not move. The gentleman leaned toward me, said several kind words to me in Czech, greeted my awed parents, waved, and rode on. My parents informed me that our beloved President Masaryk had just chatted with me.

We lived in a second-story apartment. The entrance to the apartment was in a hallway on the same side as the toilet, which was separate from the bathroom. The toilet was of special fascination to me; it sat up on a platform. To me the dark, small room with the toilet seemed ominous, mysterious. I had never entered it, mostly because I enjoyed riding my potty around some of the rooms, my favorite being the kitchen, much to the displeasure of our cook. At one end of the hallway was the door to my room, on the other end, the door to the kitchen. Opposite the entrance were two doors: one into the living room and the other into the large dining room. These two rooms, which were connected by an open archway, had windows to the street and overlooked the garden. My parents’ bedroom was on the other side of my bedroom, which also had large windows facing the street. The bathroom was on the other side of my room. The cook’s room and the guest room were on the third floor.

A retired general of the Austro-Hungarian Army who had served in WWI lived above us with his wife and two daughters. The daughters were cultured and gifted; I perceived them as lovely. They both played the piano beautifully. One, I think, was hired to give concerts. Reflecting as I grew older, I wondered why these good-looking young ladies had no suitors. Their mother often invited me up for garlic toast. I remember it was French bread cut diagonally, covered, I think, with sweet butter (Mom insisted it was margarine) and rubbed with garlic. My father disliked the smell of garlic; he found it offensive (in our house nothing was cooked with garlic), but I was allowed to visit the general’s family anyhow. On the first floor of our apartment house lived a couple with a teenage son. This young man was invited to our apartment often so I would have a playmate. In the bedroom I shared with my governess, we had a large playhouse set up in the corner. I played there with my friend from the first floor.

Across the street from our apartment house was our fenced-in garden with a gazebo where I played with my governess in good weather. I do not remember what flowers or vegetables were grown in the garden, but I do remember a large lawn. From the garden I could look up an incline at a large, pretty house. I was told that a well-traveled gentleman who had been a scientist in Africa lived there with his son. The wife had passed away. The move from Africa to Bohemia had been a great shock to her. I saw this dark skin man but only from a distance.. Being a mulatto was a rarity in our part of the world. I had never seen a dark-skinned person before, except in a circus.

I was put to bed early in the evening and was always in bed by the time my dad returned from the office. He sat by my bedside and told me stories before I fell asleep and he and Mom dined. When we had company for dinner, Dad lifted me out of bed and carried me to the living room to greet my aunties and uncles, by whom I was kissed and petted. I liked this very much. Then Dad returned me to bed.

When we still lived in the apartment, a big building design job that Dad had bid for came up in the surrounding area, either a glass or a porcelain factory. The directors called Dad and said, You have the best design and your price is right, but to get this order you need to buy a lot in a very good neighborhood and show us your plans for a superior villa. If we agree to the design for your new home, we’ll give you the building contract for the factory. That was how we got into our villa. As house-warming gifts, my parents received these by the manufacturers of glass and porcelain factories in our neighborhood, those who gave Dad contracts for their new or re-styled factories.

My first dog, Cesar, a Great Dane, arrived while we lived in the apartment. He was a baby, but a big one who was afraid to walk up or down the stairs and had to be carried. Perhaps a month later we moved to our new villa on the other side of town. In the new place, Cesar had an outdoor doghouse, well insulated and fit with bedding. He was sent to obedience school, learned to come, sit, and fetch the newspaper and the fresh rolls delivered in a cotton sack every morning to the front gate of the property. I suppose that Cesar knocked on the door or maybe the deliveryman rang the outdoor bell for someone to open the side door and let Cesar into the hallway that led to the kitchen. He never ate the rolls, and only once did he take the morning paper into his doghouse.

Once in a while he was allowed into the main part of the house; he always behaved well and never ate off the dining room table, even though he could put his head on it. He ate a tremendous amount of food that the cook fixed fresh for him daily in a cooking pot that was about a foot high and sixteen inches in diameter. The meals consisted of rice and fresh meat.

Just once I had a problem with him—when I decided to put my skis on in his yard. He put his front paws on my shoulders, gently pushed me to the ground, and looked me in the eyes. We both waited a moment until I addressed him quietly. He backed off. I never skied in the backyard again. He had made his point.

Later my mother felt she needed something cute that belonged to her, and she thought a small fox terrier would be delightful. Good husband that my father was, he found her one and brought the critter to our house; the dog was allowed everywhere and slept with my parents. The problem was that he remembered his past owner, a lady of the night, and, when he could, he would leave us and try to find the lady. This did not work for my family, and we returned the terrier to his previous owner.

Once in awhile Mom took me shopping with her. I remember going to the grocery, a small, privately owned store. Staples like dried peas, beans, rice, and fried corn were displayed in large sacks standing around on the floor. One sack drew my attention. It was filled with poppy seeds. I loved to eat them raw and in baked goods. I put my little grimy hand into the sack, swallowed a few seeds, and proceeded to fill my coat pocket. Just then Mom noticed. Get your hand out of the seeds and empty your pocket immediately back into the sack!

The grocer ran over to us. Please do not let your daughter put the poppy seeds back into the sack. It is not hygienic. I cannot sell these seeds anymore! It was a problem. I was taught not to acquire things not belonging to me—finally I emptied my pocket into a waste bin, both the grocer and Mom satisfied with the compromise. No one asked my opinion!

The first governess I remember was a petite, elderly lady who made pretty play houses for me out of wooden matchboxes. At times I was a nasty child and destroyed those lovely toys. That may have been when my father decided it was time to get a real governess. My beloved little lady was kept on as a seamstress. The next governess lasted about one week. She was strange. She sat at the dining table and prayed before each meal. She was not nice to me and once slapped me across the face when I did not obey her, even though my father’s rule was not to touch the child. I reported her actions to Dad, who immediately dismissed her.

When it was time for me to start school, my parents discussed which school I should attend. My father insisted I attend the public school to which I was assigned, but my mother took me to another school, one she preferred. In the end, I attended the assigned school. It was an all-girls’ school. My luck! It was there that I met Lucie and Trude, my dear friends for life.

Our teacher was a huge man, seen from little girls’ eyes. We sat at little desks, two by two. The teaching method was very authoritarian. The student was asked a question and stood up to answer. If the answer was correct, she was allowed to sit down. If not, she was forced to keep standing until the teacher asked the next question, and if she could not answer that, she had to stand in the aisle. Next, she moved to stand in front of the podium, then she had to kneel. The process could be reversed by giving the correct answer. We were all frightened of giving the wrong answer, but we did learn.

There were two notable things about our teacher, who lived on Castle Square. The first was that the teacher, when angered, flung the offending little girl against the wall. The second was that the teacher loved to go hunting. There was a lot of game in the mountain ranges between which Teplice, my hometown, is located. Luckily for Lucie and me, our fathers had limousines with chauffeurs available to take the teacher hunting. Therefore, we were never flung against the wall.

Trude was not as lucky. Our teacher liked Trude’s mother, a widow, who did not respond to his advances, and Trude had to withstand the worst of the teacher’s displeasure. She was, therefore, transferred by her mother to a convent school. Lucie stayed. I too was transferred, to Sanov School, because we moved into our villa.

My new lady teacher in Sanov, a city part of (my hometown, Teplice-Sanov, spa) was sweet. She did not have the discipline that my previous teacher had had, but she also didn’t throw anybody against the wall! Nor did we have to stand or kneel. She was just nice and pleasant. Because of this new teacher, my whole idea about school changed. I started to like it.

The first new subject (which didn’t work too well) was a sewing class, for which a special teacher came in. The teacher laid out all the material I could work with for me to look at. It did not make any sense to me. I was not interested in creating anything from these materials. I always went home for lunch, as did my father, because we were given a two-hour lunch break. I explained to my father that they wanted me to sew a nightgown! Me, a third-year grade school student. What a strange thing. My father said, That’s all right. You don’t have to do it. We’ll fix it all up. You don’t go to this class anymore. And sure enough, I was removed from the class, and I could just go sit someplace else, for instance, with the custodian and his wife and have a hot dog. I never had to learn how to sew.

My love, Oushko, was my governess during this time. She was loving but firm. The first thing to change for me was that there would be no more potty riding throughout the apartment. The cook was most pleased with this change, since my favorite place to ride the potty was the kitchen. Oushko and I had our first confrontation; I was to use the toilet, a room I had been frightened of. Oushko opened the door to the toilet, put on the light, and showed how lovely it looked. She called it the throne. We looked at how it flushed. Finally, the only objection I could offer was, My dad would not like this. Oushko was ready. OK, we’ll call your father at the office, and you can talk to him. We rang, the call was put through to him, and I voiced my problem. What a great idea, Dad commented. You can sit on your throne. Take some toys with you or bring a book. This convinced me. The problem soon became how to get me off my throne.

The next confrontation came as I was preparing to go to school one cold day. I chose a blue velvet coat with an attached scarf edged in little pieces of fur. I held out my school bag, a backpack that would have spoiled the effect of my lovely coat, for Oushko to carry, but she decided I should carry my own books. I told her that this was something I could not do—my coat was too pretty, to which she suggested that I could change my coat. I chose instead to carry the backpack over my velvet coat.

I was a finicky eater. Each spoonful was presented to me by Oushko, who would encourage me by using the names of family and friends. For example, she would say, This is for Papa. Eat. Eat. When the bite was for Papa, I would eat. However, if she named a person I did not like, I would turn my head and refuse to eat. My parents made sure I always ate alone with Oushko in the dining room. (I was in the second grade.) Oushko sometimes ate her meals with me, sometimes with my parents or our cook. On special occasions my parents, Oushko, and I ate together. This happened on Sundays in the summer when the cook was off, and we went to a restaurant. My favorite dish in the outdoor restaurant was fried chicken. I was allowed to order it only when I learned to eat the meat off the bones with a knife and fork—unless the piece was adorned with a manchette (cuff).

Once in a while we had a special treat from my father’s hometown in the Bohemian Forest that arrived as a parcel by rail—freshly caught trout. It was exciting for me to watch the cook unwrap the many pages of newspaper, then the layer of still-fresh nettles, to arrive at the glistening trout. We usually had trout blue, which means, steamed and served with lemon and butter sauce. Yet my favorite dish is trout sautéed and served with toasted almonds. In Austria this dish is called Forelle Muellerin (trout after Miller’s wife). Of course I had to learn how to eat the fish properly with fish cutlery, sliding the knife from the fish’s neck to the tail, lifting the backbone and bones in one move. It was quite an accomplishment for a little girl, but worth the trouble!

The three of us, Lucie, Trude, and I, met again in the girls’ high school in the sixth grade; it must have been 1930. It was an all-girls’ class, as was customary. It was a wonderful reunion! We were just as annoying to our teachers as we had been in grade school, but we had lots of fun. I remember when I thought I was a coloratura, trying out for a song fest. When I was not chosen for the leading role, I returned home complaining to my dad, who for once agreed with the music teacher that I did not have a great voice.

My first trip to Austria was the summer before my eighth birthday. Mom, Father, Oushko, and I took a train to Corinthia, an eastern Austrian republic. Our final destination was Millstadt on the lake. Our first day must have been hot and sunny, because Mom had to call a physician when Dad suffered from sunstroke. That ended Father’s vacation; he was packed into a wagon-lit and returned home.

This was my big trip: I learned to swim. Of course I’d been swimming in the River Elbe with Dad and paddled in the pool in Nyrsko, the Bohemian Forest. This was different. Sam, my swim teacher, was a known swimmer and diver. I loved to swim and, after two weeks, passed my efficiency examination. The exam started at the lakeshore in front of our hotel where Mom, my governess, and Mom’s friends were assembled to watch me. I had to swim far into Millstädter Lake, accompanied by Sam in a rowboat. After swimming about three hundred meters, I had to float on my back for awhile then swim back to the shore. Everyone congratulated me, and I received a pretty bouquet of flowers. I have a photo of me wrapped in a towel, looking happy and tired.

Dad did not come along on my second trip to Austria. This time, Mom, Oushko, and I took the train to St. Gilgen, on the lake, also in Corinthia. Mozart’s house can be visited there. Mom stayed in the Sea Hotel; Oushko and I stayed at the pension of the Sea Hotel, which was smaller, not as fancy, but belonged to the hotel. We ate our meals together. It was a fun time except for one incident. One rainy day I was dressed well in a loden coat (a wool, partially rainproof material) and hiking shoes. I thought it would be great to fish off the hotel’s pier. Oushko was watching over me. At one point I whipped the fishing rod way out and was pulled along with the line into the lake. I heard Oushko scream for help while watching