Leap of Faith

By Willa van Gent

'A collection of five short stories - childhood memories, the quandaries of household repairs, ageing gracefully and the rarity of pandas. Looking at moments with awe, humour and patience, finding the balance between life's quirkiness and poetry.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456782610

Willa van Gent

Anna Danzinger (born Deissler) 6 November 1912 born in Taschwitz (at the time Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia) to Anton and Anna Deissler (born Riedl) 1914-1915 Anna Deissler, a porcelain painter, dies of pneumonia, leaving behind forester Anton with 2 infant girls. Anita and her sister Gisela are left in Viennese orphanage by widowed father. They are adopted separately. A distant aunt adopts smaller Gisela, “But they are sisters, they are together,” the orphanage says, “No, I can only take care of one girl.” Anita is left behind. Later, a widow with a little girl visits the orphanage, “Mother, take the one with the dark eyes, like that she will look more like my sister,” the little girl says. 1927-1943 Anita studies to become a Modistin. Some of her jobs are with hatmakers. 6 September 1936 Anita marries Franz Danzinger. Shortly before this she is reunited with her sister Gisela. 27 June 1939 Husband Franz joins the army as a male nurse, due to his bad eyesight. April 1945 Anita, 8-months pregnant, is evacuated from Vienna. The Allies bombard their apartment building, she, husband Franz and mother-in-law Maria are homeless. Anita lives and works on a farm in Schaerding (Upper Austria), where the aged farmer couple wishes to trade half a pig for Anita’s first daughter, “You are young, you will be able to bear more children.” 30 May 1945 Anita gives birth to daughter Elfriede Rosalia in Schaerding. First daughter Fridi almost dies a few weeks after birth due to neglect from farm family while mother Anita is hospitalised for breast infection. Fridi had drank some of the infected maternal milk. Both mother and daughter hospitalised. September 1945 Husband Franz discharged from army. 14 October 1946 Anita gives birth to daughter Maria Gisela in Andorf, Upper Austria. 27 December 1946 The family settles in a room and kitchen back in Vienna - Anita, husband Franz, daughters Fridi and Midi and widowed paternal Grandmother Maria Danzinger. 2006 Anita dies in Vienna, age 93.

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Contents

Little Girl Books

Birthday Outfit

House Repairs Piping & Bricks

Crossword Puzzle

Panda Life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Little Girl Books

When I was little, one of my favourite corners was by the bookshelf. I knew which book had which pictures and which stories. There was the big yellow one with shiny pages and rhymes. There was the big red one with bright, colourful illustrations and lots of animal stories. There was the one in German I asked Ma to read me every night, the same story, about the animals walking through the forest and the fox getting there first. Always the same story, poor Ma, reading to me the same lines night after night. Don’t you want to hear a different story? she would ask. There are many good stories in this book, you know, she would suggest. No, I wanted to hear the same story, until I knew it by heart and I knew which words she would read next, and I could imagine how the story would continue and already know how it was going to end. I fell asleep with all these words and animal images swirling in my mind.

When I was 4, 5 years old, Ma came back from a garage sale with a book about Bob White, a quail with a human name and persona who has to survive adventures in the long grass. I started reading. In first grade, I was already reading books. We were in Vancouver and Ma took me to the public library. There I could look around at all the books, so many, on all the shelves, even choose a few to borrow and take home. Ma read all Beatrix Potter books to us, I was horrified by the fat mean rat Samuel Whiskers, rolling up poor Tom Kitten and wanting to eat him as a dumpling! Jemima Puddleduck, Pigling Bland, Squirrel Nutkin, the Tailor of Gloucester, Peter Rabbit, I knew all the animals, all characters, who was good, who was bad. Curious George, Babar the Elephant and Dr. Seuss were also there. A life-long love of funny monkeys was started by reading about Curious George and his adventures with the Man in the Yellow Hat.

Later on, in my teens, there was Encyclopedia Brown, a young male student detective, and Nancy Drew. She was the heroine detective in every adventure imaginable, the book covers were frightening, a spider in a jewel or a dark stairway leading into an eerie basement. After those I went on to a romance streak, at age 14, 15, reading any Barbara Cartlands I found. Even if I knew that the girl gets the guy in the end, I had to read them all. Agatha Christie followed Nancy Drew. During my junior year at high school, I was a cadet teacher in the Elementary School Library. I looked through books which I had to index and put away, discovering the beautiful illustrations of Tommie Di Paola. I could recognise his drawing immediately. He drew in pastel pinks, peaches and blues, with a