A Life Fully Lived: Loving Hildegard

By Helmut Lemke

A Life Fully Lived (Loving Hildegard) is the story of an immigrant family. Hildegard, a young university graduate, meets an architect from Germany. They both immigrate to Canada and start their life together as professionals in Vancouver, BC. They try to contribute creatively to their new environment.

Hildegard gives up her profession as a teacher and devotes her time and energy to her family bringing up three children in the turbulent sixties and seventies, the time of draft dodgers, hippies and Jesus people.

After the children left home and she withdrew from her church, Hildegard goes through a period of self evaluation. Searching in feminism, mythology and spirituality she finds her identity as a woman with new visions and responsibilities.

Exploring new territories, she discovers a way to express herself in art

She is drawn to a Mennonite fellowship where she feels valued and accepted and to which she can contribute creatively.

She and her husband share enjoyable and adventurous retirement activities, exploring the beauty and diversity of this world.

At the age of seventy-three, Hildegard is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, unexpectedly for her and as a shock for her family. Her tranquil preparation for dying is moving and amazing for doctors and all those who knew her.

A Life Fully lived, Loving Hildegard, is written by Hildegard's husband in memory of her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452037202

Helmut Lemke

Helmut Lemke was born in 1926 in West Prussia, Germany. He attended a boarding school from where he was drafted to fight on the Russian Front in the Second World War. After the war he undertook a dangerous trip into Russian occupied territory to search for his mother. They were expelled from their home and he fled with his mother to West Germany. He studied at the Technical University Braunschweig in Germany and in the USA and graduated with a degree of Diploma Engineer. He immigrated to Canada and worked there as an architect and art instructor. He married Hildegard and they had three children. Both parents were active in youth work and church activities. In his retirement he volunteered as a director for a social housing society. He has written several books.

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CONTENTS

1. In Memoriam

2. Meeting Hildegard

3. Leaving Germany

4. New Beginning in Canada

5. Starting our life together

6. Our first employment in Canada

7. Changing Careers

8. Second Thoughts about Canada

9. Becoming Canadian Mennonites

10. Preserving our heritage

11. Building a new Church

12 For the Love of Music.

13. Our first home

14. Searching for new ways.

15. Our ’Hauskreis’

16. Revisiting Germany

17. Family Activities

18. Getting involved

19. Spiritual Renewal – Jesus People

20. Retracing our roots

21. Leaving Sherbrooke

22. St. Margaret’s

23. A place of refuge

24. Challenges in growing up

25. Our new house.

26. Metamorphosis

27. New Challenges

28. Exchange teaching

29. Visiting Italy

30. Bielefeld our new home.

31. Holiday in Greece and elsewhere

32. More adventures in Europe

33. Retirement

34. Closing the circle

35. Early retirement activities

36. The empty nest.

37. Oh Canada, our home and native land!

38. Family events and surprises

39. Meeting relatives and in-laws

40. Becoming grandparents

41. New Discoveries

42. The new Millennium

43. Returning to her ‘Father’s House’

44. Our last journey

45. The final story

Preface

When my wife, Hildegard, unexpectedly died of lung cancer, I felt I had to write our life story to deal with the grief and agony of her loss. Writing our story slowly changed my sorrow into quiet thankfulness for the privilege I had, to share my life with her for fifty-one years.

Hildegard was an exceptional woman, beautiful, intelligent and transparent. She had a very positive attitude towards life, was loving and compassionate. She could listen intently to other people, make them feel important to her and respond thoughtfully. Many expressed this in letters of appreciation and sympathy at her memorial service.

I relived our life again, remembering the short meeting with her when we were students and then learning to know her more intimately through letters across continents, which motivated me to immigrate. We started our life together, adjusting and contributing to a new culture and new customs, finding work and changing careers. We started a family raising three children in the turbulent sixties and seventies.

Our lives were enriched through our involvement with other people, artists and musicians, draft dodgers, hippies, Jesus people, young offenders and marginalized people.

I remember the challenges to our relationship when Hildegard left the church and went through a metamorphosis, changing from a more traditional woman to finding her identity as a woman with new visions and responsibilities and a new faith.

We shared wonderful retirement activities together, exploring the beauty and diversity of our world - it all ended too soon.

This story developed into a biography of our family, a sequel to my autobiography, ‘Crossing Frontiers,‘ in which I shared my childhood and war experiences.

A Life Fully lived (Loving Hildegard) is based on my memory, on reflections about Hildegard, our family and friends.

I wrote it as honestly as I could remember and verify through letters, diary and journal entries. To refresh my memory, I communicated with our friends and my children who suggested that I smooth over some of the ‘rough edges’ referring to their life stories.

I hope my children and grandchildren will treasure it later as a memorial of their mother and grandmother.

Helmut Lemke                            April 2010

1. IN MEMORIAM

When Gillian starts to play the harp, tears fill my eyes. Hildegard had seen Gillian grow up to become a beautiful young woman and an accomplished harpist. Now she plays her harp in memory of ‘Tante Hildegard’ at her memorial service.

Many people gather in Peace Mennonite Church to pay tribute to Hildegard. She always liked this place of worship because of its simplicity and pleasant design by an architect friend of ours. Hildegard needed beautiful surroundings to blossom and enjoy life.

Dr. Evan Kreider, who officiates at the memorial, characterizes her life and spiritual journey very thoughtfully. He admires her honesty and transparency in the way she interacted with people and in matters of her faith which has deeply influenced him. He will remember this celebration of Hildegard’s life as ‘A life fully lived’.

Hildegard loved music. Evan has arranged a quartet of musicians from the church we attend and they sing songs by Schubert and Mendelssohn; they are very suitably chosen for the occasion.

It is a tense and quiet mood when close friends bring words of gratitude and appreciation and talk about the inspiration Hildegard had been to them. Tears come to the eyes of many when our children passionately express what their mother had meant to them and what they learned from her.

It is moving when Madison’s letter to her Oma is read.

I am participating in the ‘celebration of Hildegard’s life’ but feel like an onlooker from a different planet. I still cannot accept that this is to be final. I will never be able to see her smile and hear her cheerful laughter, never share impressions, creative ideas, dreams and future plans with her. Never again? –

We pour her ashes into the earth, as she had wanted it, in the wooded area of a small cemetery. There her remains lie now under a rough granite boulder, into which both of our names have been engraved, she lies in the shadow of the trees.

We had selected this spot several years ago already; a solitary niche flanked by two large cedar trees. The trunk of one had grown in a curve first and then changed its direction and straightened up. This unusual tree had attracted her attention, as trees in general did; she liked round forms.

Anna, her daughter-in-law, puts a beautiful bouquet of white roses which she had arranged with dark boxwood green from our garden, in front of the stone.

I take Ruth and Eva, Hildegard’s older sisters, from the memorial service back to my house. They stay for a short time with me; we reflect on the service and Hildegard’s last days with us and then they leave for home. I am now alone in the big house. Still not really conscious of what has happened. I go into Hildegard’s bedroom, look at her pillow and think: I cannot talk to you anymore, cannot stroke your cheeks and give you a good-night-kiss….

The library door is open and I notice on the writing desk lies an early photo of her, a picture of a charming teenager. As I pick it up, tears come to my eyes. My thoughts wander back – I fell in love with this girl fifty-six years ago.

2. MEETING HILDEGARD

Bluffton College, Ohio; I have been studying here for a year on a scholarship from the Mennonite Central Committee, (MCC). The year is over now and I have a few months to spend before I go back to Germany. I had discussed with Gerhard, a fellow student from Germany, studying at Eastern Mennonite College, the idea of exploring the United States together after our final semester. He is from Karlsruhe and we came over on the same ship from Germany.

We meet in Kansas and hitch-hike from there together to the Pacific coast, which is still possible and safe to do in 1952.

Dr Shelly, my counselor at Bluffton, has arranged stays for me in Mennonite Voluntary Service Camps along our way. I am quite familiar with MVS camps. I had taken part in several of these international camps in Europe and am interested to see how they operate here in the States. Many young Mennonite men in America opt for alternative military service. They would rather serve socially and mentally disadvantaged people in mental hospitals, help in refugee camps and peace teams, than go to war and kill or maim people.

Visits to these MVS camps have an added benefit for us, as it gives us a place to stay over-night and enjoy a warm meal.

One family we have to visit, Gerhard tells me, are the Schefflers. He knows them as a Mennonite Pastor’s couple from youth retreats in Germany where he had befriended ‘Onkel Hugo, Tante Susa and the girls’. They had emigrated from Germany to the state of Washington, to a remote little town called Ritzville, a year ago and have told him they would gladly accommodate us for a few days.

They used to live in West Prussia, close to where I was born and knew my parents quite well. Tante Susa sang in my Father’s church choir. I know Ruth, the second of the girls, with whom I worked in a MVS Camp in Espelkamp, Germany, and I liked her and thought it would be nice to see her again.

Our journey takes us to Arizona. The MVS members serve in a Mennonite Mission in an Indian Reservation in the desert east of the Grand Canyon. This is our first opportunity to meet American Native people. We help the volunteers with the building of a school for Native children and visit them in their children’s summer Bible Camp. We sing a German lullaby for the kids and we encourage them to join us in the refrain

Aber Heidschi Bumbeitschi bum bum.. and they love it.

In California we run into trouble. A Sheriff stops his car in front of us; he has seen our sign ‘Foreign Students’ which so far has served us well and provided interesting rides. He asks for our passports. Gerhard does not have his with him. He makes it quite clear to us that hitch-hiking in California is illegal and he is going to arrest us.

We have to get into his car and he takes us to the San Bernardino police station. The officer at the desk to whom we report dispels our fear and, instead of putting us in a cell, he issues Gerhard a temporary ID card and wishes us a good trip.

Two days later we arrive at the bus station in Ritzville. We ask a woman how to get to the Schefflers. Oh you mean the new immigrants from Germany, she answers They live on the other side of town. I’ll take you there in my car. She drops us off on Broadway Street on the outskirts of the town close to the little airport. It is the house with the tall red and white hollyhocks in the front yard.

I feel a little uneasy when we knock at the door. Though Gerhard had informed them that we were coming, I am still a stranger. Nobody is at home. We decide to play a little trick on them. We leave our luggage beside the front door, hide on the other side of the boulevard and wait to observe how they will respond to those strange suitcases when they come home. After awhile a young man stops at the house, unlocks the door and puts the suitcases inside. As he is about to leave again, we go over and introduce ourselves. He says he is Herbert Janzen, Tante Susa’s nephew. He invites us to come inside and tells us the family will arrive soon. We sit on the sofa and look around the living room. Everything is clean and orderly, simple but tastefully furnished. After a short time we hear a car pulling into the driveway. Two women are getting out of a shiny black Buick and walk towards the entrance. They are astonished and happy to see us. Gerhard introduces me to Tante Susa and then to Hildegard. She is a tall, lively, good looking teenager. We shake hands, as is the custom among Germans. A little later, after he has parked the car in the garage, Onkel Hugo comes in. He is a stately middle-aged man with black hair and a short mustache. He welcomes us and makes us feel at ease. He tells me that he still has good memories of my parents back in West Prussia which makes me feel more at home. At the supper table questions go back and forth; they want to know what has happened in Germany since they left. Gerhard tells them that Onkel Hugo’s former congregation in Southern Germany misses them very much. I join the conversation and tell them about our Mennonite Young People in Northern Germany, mostly refugees from West Prussia, with whom I am very much involved.

Hildegard shares with me later that since she came to Ritzville she cannot get over her culture shock. She is still homesick for the lovely wooded rolling hills of the Palatinate which are so different from this somewhat barren land. The people here are superficially very friendly but more focused on material things and having fun. The girls are mainly thinking of boys and dating compared to her many interests which they do not share.

We talk until late into the night and the next morning they are late getting ready for work. They usually walk to their workplace. Since I got my driver’s license at Bluffton, I can drive them to work in their new Buick. I take Onkel Hugo to the Safeway store. He has a job there in the vegetable department. Hildegard tells me, when they came to Ritzville she worked first in the harvest on different farms and then in the local restaurant as a waitress. One day she served the manager of the Safeway store his coffee and he asked her if she wanted to work for him as a cashier. She accepted.

Not long after this ‘promotion’, the bank manager came into the store. He had noticed how well and efficiently she served the customers and asked her if she would like to do this kind of work in his bank as a teller, a somewhat more respectable position with better pay and better working conditions. So she switched her work place again. I drop her off at the local bank where she still works.

Hildegard is the only one of the four daughters who is living at home with her parents; the other three are ‘farmed out’ to wheat farmers in the area to help with the harvest and with other chores. Onkel Hugo had made arrangements to visit them and so we all get into the Buick and drive first to Mammy and Daddy Gering, as Eva calls her employers. She takes care of Mrs. Gering, who has been diagnosed with cancer, and helps in the household. Leon Gering, a well-to-do wheat farmer, had assisted the Schefflers with finding and financing their house and car. After a good lunch with the Gerings we visit Ruth. She is pleased to see me again and we refresh old memories from ‘Camp Espelkamp’ where we helped to convert former German ammunition barracks into homes for refugees. She is busy and we go on to visit Gertraud, the youngest. She has been ‘adopted’ by a wealthy wheat farmer to help in the household while finishing her final years in the local high school.

On the way back, Hildegard confides to me her interest in art and literature which she cannot share with her new friends in town, not even intimately with her own sisters.

When we come home and the others have gone to bed she asks me into her room and shows me her art collection. Inspired by her art teacher in her school in Germany, she had started to collect a variety of art reproductions. She had cut out from Life magazines pictures of Giotto’s frescos depicting the life of Christ in the Padua Chapel, several pages of Grünewald’s Isenheim Altar, works by several Impressionist and Expressionist artists, reproductions on post cards and calendars from ancient Egyptian and Greek sculptures to Barlach and Matare. She spreads them out on the carpet around us. We discuss the changing art periods and the different styles, share our knowledge about the work and life of the artists and the impact they had on society and how they affect us. Her appreciation of art is genuine and sincere and she talks about it unaffectedly and naturally, asks questions and considers my answers thoughtfully. I am astonished at her intuition and knowledge of the subject. She tells me that her involvement with art has led her to discover and appreciate beauty. When I look in her bright open eyes I can see right into her and feel that her outer beauty is paralleled by her inner beauty. I just love that girl. It is past midnight when we part and I thank her for sharing her intimate thoughts and feelings with me.

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Hildegard 1952                             Helmut Hitchhiking

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Visiting Scheffler

On the last day of our stay in Ritzville she does not have to work. It is very hot and we go swimming in the town’s swimming pool to cool off. She drives us around town and to the Mennonite Church in the country. On the way back we stop at the Safeway store to see where her dad is working. She parks the car very close to a fire hydrant and when we leave again she turns too close to the fire hydrant and it scratches the fender of the car. She stops the car, goes back to the store and tells her father about the incident. I admire her honesty in reporting this mishap right away. Shaken by what had happened she asks me to drive home.

I still remember that last day after supper when we were doing the dishes together we sang this sentimental German folksong:

Zum Abschied reich’ ich dir die Hände

und sag’ ganz leis’ Aufwiedersehn,

Ein schönes Märchen geht zu Ende, es war doch so schön

(For parting I stretch out my hands to you and say softly good-bye

A beautiful fairytale is coming to an end, it was so enjoyable)

The next morning Hildegard drives us to the highway and when I say good bye to her I ask her if she would mind if I write to her occasionally. In her natural, open way she says: Not at all, I would love that. Later she told me that at that point no sparks had yet been crossing over, she just thought it might be interesting to correspond with a student of architecture at a German university, sharing similar interests; that was all.

We are on the road again, on our way back east. We get a few short rides and then strike it lucky. An ex-soldier who had been discharged from the army is going home. He drives alone, sees our sign ‘Foreign Students’, stops and invites us in. He is glad to have company for the next one thousand and five hundred miles. His destination is Ohio, not far from Bluffton. He drives until late into the night, stops only for a few hours of sleep in the car and continues early in the morning. We do not mind, it saves us looking and paying for night quarters.

He lets me out at the road to the College and I spend a few days packing my belongings and writing my first letter to Hildegard, telling her about our trip as well as thanking her and her family for hosting us. I tell her how much it has meant to me to learn to know her and how much I enjoyed her sharing her interests with me.

The time comes to say good-bye to Bluffton and the USA and sail back to Germany on the SS America.

3. LEAVING GERMANY

My mother and the other residents in the parsonage where we live are happy to see me back again and celebrate my return.

I enroll at the Technical University of Braunschweig for my fifth semester in architecture. To bring some balance to my serious studies I join the Lutheran Student congregation. They have rented a house not far from the University for students to congregate during lecture breaks. They can share their problems with the student pastor or with friends, join discussion groups or sing in the choir. I love music, join the choir and play the trumpet in the brass octet. I enjoy the company of my fellow students, the activities and the Sunday services in the large gothic cathedral.

I hear through my connections with MCC that Mennonites, mainly West Prussian refugees, meet as a congregation once a month in one of Braunschweigs Protestant churches. I contact them and attend their service. After the meeting I introduce myself to the elder of the congregation and in our conversation he tells me he is concerned about the young people and asks me if I would be willing to care for them.

I talk to the young people and we agree to come together as a group twice a month. Katja knows a Lutheran pastor in her neighborhood and he allows us to meet in the basement of his church. We get acquainted with each other, share our life stories, talk about our faith, sing, and go on hikes and ski tours together.

I write to Hildegard about my activities and she shares what she is doing. She is now studying at Bethel College on a Mennonite scholarship. We write to each other more frequently now and in each letter we share more intimately and honestly our thoughts and experiences. This is not easy for me because by nature I am more of an introvert. Intentionally I do not aggrandize my activities or make empty compliments to please or win her.

Two years have passed since I departed from her in Ritzville and our relationship has become quite intimate. She has moved from Bethel College to the University of Washington. For her twentieth birthday I send her a tiny red book with love letters from famous writers, artists, poets and musicians with the title: Wie lieb ich Dich (How I Love You!) and write into it: ‘This is what I want to say to you but cannot say it as eloquently.’ She answers with a poem by Shakespeare:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever fixéd mark that looks on tempests

And is never shaken

It is the star to every wand’ring bark

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come,

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

She signed the letter for the first time with: Deine Hildegard (Your Hildegard).

The ending of this letter makes my heart beat faster. I cannot wait to see her again and plan to immigrate to Canada after my graduation. Before that happens I would like to see more of Germany especially the southern part.

At the end of the summer semester, our art history professor takes us students on an art excursion. He wants to show us the real cathedrals, castles and medieval towns about which he had talked in his lectures. He guides us through art galleries and points out what is typical and unusual in paintings and sculptures in different time periods. Art becomes alive when Professor Flesche explains that to us. I appreciate this trip immensely, learn to understand and value our art treasures much better and see parts of Germany which I did not yet know.

A little later, Dr. Kristen, our professor for chemistry and material application, wants to show us the production of materials which we may consider using in our designs. He takes us on a tour of factories which manufacture different construction materials.

This tour has an unforeseen and tragic ending.

We are travelling on the Autobahn and see a truck pulling a trailer loaded with tar paper rolls approaching. It does not slow down when it changes lanes at a detour on the Autobahn; the trailer sways and tilts, hits our bus and rips the whole left side of the bus open. The driver is killed and several of us are injured. Ambulances take us to a nearby hospital. I suffer a concussion and cuts and bruises, and have to stay in hospital for almost three weeks.

This accident has an unexpected benefit for me. The insurance company pays me a two thousand one hundred DM compensation for my injuries. This solves one problem, it will cover the price for my voyage to Canada and leave a little over to expand my wardrobe and buy some gifts and things that I need to take along.

For the conclusion of my studies to receive my degree, I have to write the ‘Diplomarbeit’ (thesis) I have chosen to design a central bus station for the city of Braunschweig. It takes longer than I had expected to do the required research and I have to add another semester to finish it.

My final oral and written examinations are now completed and the thesis which I handed in has been accepted; I am ready to cross the ocean.

The next thing I have to do is get my immigration papers. I stand in line to fill out application forms for a passport and an entry visa to Canada.

While waiting for my immigration and travel documents to be approved, I take on a short term job with an architect in Braunschweig. Working for him gives me some practical experience for my future work in Canada and will provide me with some extra cash.

I pay visits to relatives and friends. Members of my youth group surprise me to say good-bye. They give me a signed copy of a book on ‘Beautiful Germany’ to remind me not to forget them.

An antique overseas trunk in a second hand store has caught my eye; it seems to be just the right size for all my belongings, my clothing, books, architectural drawings and my musical instruments. I had been given a trumpet, acquired a set of recorders and a violin which I picked up in a second hand music store. They all have to be wrapped up carefully and put into the trunk.

Russian soldiers had smashed my father’s good violin, when they ransacked our home at the end of the war; it made me sad and angry and I felt that I would not touch another one anymore. I had taken violin lessons and had just come to the point where I appreciated playing it. When I saw the violin in the music store on display, old memories came back, and I could imagine playing the violin again someday.

Many stores had been destroyed during the war and here and there one is opening up again, displaying some merchandise. Mother and I are strolling through the city to see if we can find a sewing machine to take along for my sister. We walk by a jewelry store and see a nice ladies wrist watch in the window, a rarity. I point it out to Mother, That might look good on Hildegard’s arm; it would be a lovely engagement gift. We buy it and ask the cashier to wrap it in a fine gift box. I am glad to have a gift for her when we meet again.

The hardest part of leaving Germany is parting from my mother. We had shared so many daring episodes together in the war and post war periods. Could I now leave her behind? She does not want to come with me until I have established myself in the new country and be a burden to us children at this time. She knows that I will be with my sister who immigrated five years ago and I know she is in good care in the Handorf parsonage and can be with her siblings and other relatives. This makes it a little easier for both of us to say good-bye.

4. NEW BEGINNING IN CANADA

It is my third crossing of the ocean. This time it is a rather rough voyage. Hurricane-like storms toss our small boat around. The doors to the outer decks are tied together with ropes for fear that passengers might go outside and be swept overboard. The dining room is almost empty. The waiter has set the table for us few passengers and at the next sway of the ship the dishes slide on the floor and break, even setting them on a wet tablecloth does not help;. He serves us only half portions. I am glad when we arrive at the North American continent, on the safer shores of the St.Lawrence River.

Going through the Canadian immigration in Quebec causes no problem. I am quickly sending a letter to my sister in Vancouver to tell her of my approximate arrival date and hope it will arrive before I am there.

For four days the train is traveling through very diverse landscapes. I look out of the window and see the landscape passing by. It gives me an impression of the beauty and vastness of a place which I will now call my home country. Sleeping at night on hard wooden benches is not so comfortable and I am relieved when we arrive in Vancouver. My sister and brother–in-law have received my letter in time and are at the station, welcoming me with open arms and take me to their home. They are renting the main floor of an older one family residence in the vicinity of Vancouver’s ‘German-town’. A small, cozy room on the attic floor furnished with a bed, a closet, a writing desk and an easy chair will be my abode for the next months, that is all I need and I am quite happy to have my own floor.

Little two-and-a-half year old Ralf, Magdalena and Gustav’s first son, looks inquisitively through the open door when I put my belongings away. I invite him in, take him on my knee, play ‘Hoppe Hoppe Reiter’ with him and slowly he accepts Uncle Helmut as a part of the family and we become friends.

I cannot wait to contact Hildegard; she is now in her last year studying foreign languages at the University of Washington. With some anticipation I dial her number in Seattle and am delighted to hear her voice. She wants to know about my trip and we are both looking forward to see each other. Her Dad has an appointment next Sunday to preach in a Mennonite Church in nearby Abbotsford, he will pick her up and bring her over.

It is now over three years since we first met; at that time she was open and friendly with me. Through our correspondence, we have become much more intimate with each other; I wonder how she will respond now when we see each other. I will find out shortly.

The black Buick that I still remember from Ritzville stops in front of 947, 30th Ave. in Vancouver. Onkel Hugo, Tante Susa and Hildegard step out. I rush down the stairs to meet them. They greet me heartily and I am very happy to see them again. Magdalena has already set the table and we drink coffee together and taste the delicious cake she has baked for this occasion. Soon Hildegard’s parents will have to leave for Abbotsford where Rev. Scheffler has been offered the position of pastor of a German-speaking Mennonite congregation.

Magdalena knows Ruth, Hildegard’s older sister, from voluntary service camps in Germany and they have become friends. The two sisters had visited Vancouver a few years ago and had stayed with Magdalena, so she knows Hildegard too. She remembers her as an amiable person, full of life and ideas.

After a while of catching up on news, I take Hildegard up to my room. We are alone and when I look at this graceful, handsome young woman, she seems to me to be even more beautiful than when I first met her. In her natural, open way she is very attractive.

We had shared our feelings for each other in our letters and now we can verbalize them. I hold her hands, look into her deep clear eyes for a while, and can see right into her.

This time sparks fly back and forth. I get the courage to ask her if she will share her life with me and become my wife and life partner. I don’t remember if I sank down on one knee when I proposed to her to emphasize my serious intention. Moved by my question, she nods, Yes, I will, with her winning smile. Our lips meet for the first time and we hold each other close for a while.

There is one more hurdle to take. I will have to ask her parents for the ‘hand of their daughter’.

On their way home Onkel Hugo and Tante Susa drop in again to say good-bye. When they are alone in the living room, I start out, I know you must have noticed that Hildegard and I are in love with each other. I make a pause and continue, I just asked her if she would consider becoming my wife and life partner and she said that she gladly would. Then I ask them if they would accept me into their family and give their blessing to our union. Onkel Hugo first acts as if this is news to him and asks questions about my work, not having a steady job yet, how I see our future, if I think I could provide for a family — Tante Susa gets more and more agitated, Why don’t you tell him that we like him and that we would love to have him become part of our family, she blurts out. Hugo smiles We have to make sure that things are in order and will work out, Mother. Then he shakes my hand, Yes, we will give our blessing, Helmut. After they have left, I tell Hildegard what happened. She wants to know all the details.

We sit together with Magdalena and Gustav and talk about our engagement preparations. They assure us that they will help to arrange it. We set the date for Saturday Oct 1, 1955. That is in two weeks. I notice Hildegard does not wear a wrist watch, so I am sure my engagement gift is suitable and she will appreciate it. The next day I take Hildegard to the railway station and she takes the train to Seattle, back to her studies.

Hildegard grew up in a Christian home, in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I think she inherited the best qualities of her parents, the positive, inquisitive and joyful attitude of her father and the sense of justice, honesty and work ethic of her mother and her ability to create a pleasant home atmosphere on a tight budget, which she did from her husband’s lean salary as a Mennonite pastor.

I had responded to an ad in the paper, an architect’s office is looking for an architect to help with the construction of a model for a design of a large bank in Vancouver. I present the portfolio of my student work and my Diplomarbeit, which has several pictures of models of my work, to the head architect. He is impressed and hires me. I am now employed, my first employment in Canada. I board the bus to downtown every day, walk to the Marine Building, the second highest building in town at that time, and take the elevator to the top floor, where McCarter and Nairn have their offices. During my lunch break I step out onto the balcony and enjoy the panoramic view of the city of Vancouver, the mountains and the ocean, my new home town; it is wonderful.

We finish the model in three weeks and that means my job is over. It takes a while until I find another job, this time with a Belgian architect. Work for architects is scarce at this time. When he interviews me he says he can pay me only two hundred dollars a month to start with and will raise my salary when he gets more contracts. I am astounded to be offered the salary of a household help for an architect with five years of university training and I fear it will be hard to raise a family on that salary. But I trust that things will change and get better. I do not pay much for room and board at my sister’s place and live frugally, so I can even open a savings account.

We celebrate our engagement with a small circle of friends and relatives. The day before, we had gone to a jeweler and selected a pair of simple golden rings. On our engagement day we put them on each other’s ring finger on the left hand, which is the custom in Germany. We will change it to the right hand when we get married. I do not remember many details of the celebration. We know now that we belong to each other and we are both very happy.

Hildegard is delighted and thankful when I strap the elegant ladies watch on her arm. Mother, who helped me select it, cannot celebrate with us but I know she is with us in her thoughts and prayers. My sister cannot join us either; she is in hospital, giving birth to her second son. Benno did not want to wait his turn, he was a week early.

Since I cannot get a visa to the USA as a recent immigrant, Hildegard comes to visit me in Vancouver. Gustav is generous and lends me his Volkswagen to pick her up from the railway station and I am very grateful for that.

I am always looking forward to her coming and enjoy being with her. During the day we take long walks to the beautiful sights of Vancouver, to Little Mountain Park, along the Sea Wall and the famous Stanley Park, we visit art exhibits and go to concerts. In the evening, after supper, we sit in my room and share our thoughts and experiences from the last two weeks.

I notice that she is sometimes quiet and thoughtful. When I ask if something troubles her, she confides to me that she would like to know more about what I think and feel inside. In my letters I had described so skillfully my experiences and was able to express my inner feelings and intimate thoughts so well that she loved to read them several times. But now, when we are together, I seem to have difficulty expressing them verbally. She tells me later that this was a great concern to her at the time of our engagement and she wondered if it would affect our communication in our married life and be a hindrance to real intimacy. I did not really know what she meant by that. I loved her dearly and would have done anything to make her feel at ease and happy but I did not know how to dispel her concern. I had no role models; my father had died too early.

Most of the time we enjoy doing things together. We have a lot in common. We grew up in the same country with very similar customs, speak the same mother tongue, sing the same songs, share many interests especially in music, art and literature and even share a relative. My uncle married her aunt.

5. STARTING OUR LIFE TOGETHER

Hildegard is now in her last semester. She enjoys her studies and does well in all her subjects. We plan to get married after her graduation and discuss with her parents a suitable date. Aug, 18, 1956 seems to work out for all of us and we put that date on our calendar.

Gertraud, Hildegard’s younger sister, has fallen in love with a young man in her father’s former congregation on Vancouver Island. They decide unexpectedly and without discussing it with us, to get married before the date we had set for our wedding. We are upset when we hear that. We think it is inconsiderate and will be too much of a burden to the parents to cope with two weddings within five weeks; it will be draining their energy and their financial resources. But they insist on it and we accept their decision gracefully.

I hope there will be a change in my employment situation. My boss is awarded a new contract to design a conference and exhibition building in Vancouver. I remind him of his promise to raise my salary if this happens but he is still reluctant. So I keep my eyes open and find out that a Dutch architect is hiring new staff. I go to his office. Mr. Van Norman, a warm hearted, middle-aged portly man, looks through my folder, likes my work and tells me I can start on the first of next month. The salary he offers me is almost double what my present employer pays me. I am happy and tell Mr. Noppe that I have found another job. He is fair and gives me a two week holiday pay.

I have applied at the American Consulate for a visa. It is approved and I can now enter the US. Gertraud invites me for her wedding and Hildegard encourages me to come. She wants to introduce her fiancé to her friends in Ritzville. It does not take much persuasion as I love to pose with her.

Everybody in the Scheffler household is running around preparing for Gertraud’s and Werner’s wedding. The ceremony is in the Ritzville Mennonite Church. The young couple looks lovely. I do not remember many details about the celebration, except that Hildegard was the most beautiful bridesmaid. For us it is a kind of rehearsal for our wedding.

After the reception is over we help to clean up and collect the gifts. When most of the guests are gone, we leave too. We want to be alone and have some privacy. We take the long way home, driving down the lonely country road. We stop on a small side lane off the road, watch the sun setting over the wide golden wheat fields and see the tumbleweeds rolling across the road. We reflect on the festivities we took part in and try to imagine us being in front of the altar and then living a life together afterwards — wonderful thoughts. It is getting dark and we sit quietly close to each other. Hildegard puts her head in my lap. I stroke her hair and she touches my hand and whispers, I am looking forward to the time when we are married and can be close together. It is late when we arrive home. The next day I have to go back to Canada and back to my work.

Hildegard finishes her studies at the University. She graduates with a BA. Magna cum laude in foreign languages. She has also become an honorary member of a German and an American university sorority, the Delta Phi Alpha and the Phi Beta Kappa, for outstanding scholarship. We celebrate this honor appropriately.

Now we have time to prepare the details for our wedding.

We almost have to postpone our wedding date. Gustav gets sick and asks me to drive to the nearby drugstore to get some antibiotics. On an unmarked street crossing a drunken barber staggers towards my Volkswagen and throws his half empty beer bottle into my open window. I duck to avoid a hit and by doing so turn the steering wheel towards the curb and drive right into the back of a parked car. There are several bystanders on the sidewalk who know the man and they tell the police, when they arrive, what has happened. We have a court hearing and the fellow is sentenced to pay for the repair of Gustav’s car and for the treatment of my injuries. This is ten days before our wedding. Fortunately the doctor