O M A: A Divided German Family Emigrates to Utah Seeking Renewal

By Bruce N. Bell

Bruce N. Bell was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1935. After two years in the US Navy he graduated the University of Utah 1962. He spent 15 years in radio followed by 35 years in advertising. He lives a contented life with Judy his wife of 52 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483423081

Book preview

OMA

A divided German family emigrates to Utah seeking renewal

Bruce N. Bell

Copyright © 2015 Bruce N. Bell.

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ISBN: 978-1-4834-2309-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2308-1 (e)

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 2/16/2015

Contents

Preface

Part One

A New Direction

Part Two

The Early Years In America

Part Three

War

Part Four

Peace

Acknowledgments

For Judy who inspires me daily.

PREFACE

I arrived home on leave from the Navy in 1955 and my younger brother immediately drew me into a secretive conversation. He informed me that on orders from our father he shown up, dressed in a sport coat and tie at an address on Third East in Salt Lake City. There he was told he was to act as a pallbearer. My father and brother were part of the group that took a pine box adorned with the Star of David to the Salt Lake City cemetery. There was a brief ceremony by someone who clearly knew the person in the casket. At the conclusion of the ceremony my brother asked who was in the casket. The three-word answer from our father was, Your great-grandmother.

We spent some time together in our mutual bedroom. We concluded that we weren’t Jewish because no one ever told us we were. Our paternal grandmother only mentioned her pride in marrying a Scotsman. Our maternal grandmother never said much of anything to us beyond questioning our church attendance. We let the matter die and joined the usual pursuits of aimless youth.

Sometime near midlife the puzzle of this woman found a continuing place in my consciousness. As I shared this lost story of my heritage with friends responses ranged from fascinated to flabbergasted. As I moved toward retirement I related this story to a dear Jewish friend who suggested I should write about this missed connection. Using a framework of real events I choose to create a life for a fictional woman of great strength and character who lived in a rich historical environment.

The Oma of this story spends nearly half of her years dealing with a restricted family life, building new relationships and finding purpose in her new community. In the end it is a story of people making the most of life with the tools they have acquired. As my dear Jewish friend often says, It’s the journey. Not many clues are left of the real Oma but the review of the period led to discoveries along the way that I could, in a small way, share with the Oma of this book.

PART ONE

A NEW DIRECTION

Franz closed the door quietly as he’d been asked to do a thousand times. As a thirteen-year-old wage earner, he had his pay envelope from the woodshop tucked in his front left pocket ready to surrender to his mother and receive in return his spending money for the week. It was money Franz was actually hiding in his lone drawer in the nightstand he shared with his younger brother Wilhelm, saving it to purchase a lavender bow tie to wear for his bar mitzvah. With just forty days to go, he worried if he could ever come close to managing the words of the Torah and the broken singing he produced again and again in last night’s lesson with the rabbi. There was no rote thank you for not slamming the door from his mother as he entered the kitchen. Spinning around, he left the empty room and walked down the confining hallway listening for any sound of occupancy.

Anxious to share the news of another one hundred percent on his mathematics exam, his breathing skipped its rhythm as he heard what sounded like a muffled cry from Grandmother and Grandfather Millerberg’s room. Leaning into the room, he saw grandmother sitting on the room’s lone chair with the delicate frame of his mother kneeling beside his grandmother, her head in the older woman’s rigid lap. There were no tears in his grandmother’s eyes. It was the look of some mental turmoil that Franz couldn’t define. Franz’s mother looked up to see him with an unknown expression of pain. She rose from the floor, took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen and asked him to sit down.

I have something to tell you, she said in a long exhale. Your grandfather is dead. Murdered. Your father will tell the rest when he returns from meeting with Rabbi Hasse. Go to your room.

Franz stumbled like he’d been pushed fiercely as he walked toward the room he shared with Wilhelm. Separated by three-plus years, Franz was not half a head taller, and though he had broad shoulders, his slender body made him nearly equal in weight to the athletic Wilhelm. Since their sister Emma was born, at the stern insistence of their father, the boys had not wrestled with each other to establish superiority. It was a struggle Franz did not miss.

Wilhelm would be at the playing fields indulging in whatever contest he and his friends had invented as part of their after-school ritual. Franz felt weak, like you might just before a cold made a home in your body. He lay down on Wilhelm’s bed, listening to the intermittent wails coming from his grandmother’s room. He decided they were mostly those of his mother. He pulled his knees to his chest, sighed and thought of nothing until Wilhelm was shaking him.

Franz! Franz! Did you know grandfather is dead?

Yes. Is father home?

I saw him up the street just as I turned into the house.

The boys heard the front door of the house close to confirm their father’s presence.

Now we’ll know what happened, said Wilhelm. Do you think it was something gruesome?

Listen to grandmother’s room. It’s gruesome for her.

Another wail ripped down the hallway as the boys’ father entered their room. Their father sat his narrow frame between them on the bed, wiped his glasses with his handkerchief and brushed an imaginary crumb from his mustache before he answered Wilhelm’s demands for information.

As much as we understand, your grandfather was doing the books for the Communist Party on Linenstrasse when a bunch of men crashed into the house, breaking things up and clubbing people. Those that could, fled. Your grandfather, trapped by a desk, became an easy target for their rage. I could barely recognize him at the police bureau. I am going to ask, no, demand you stay in your room and not make a sound for the next few days. Your grandmother’s friends from the synagogue will be coming to see her. Read a book. Do school work. Play chess. But most of all, be quiet.

Franz had a sense of heat kindled in his core, spreading out to his fingertips as he made a fist and dug his fingernails into his own palms. His ears felt strange, as though he’d noticed their presence for the first time. His body quaked. He had no name for the emotion he was feeling. His first thought was he’d wait to cry when he was with his grandmother.

Later, Franz heard his mother dutifully preparing food in the kitchen for the visitors that were sure to come. His father looked into his room and quietly told him his grandmother wanted to see him. In her room, Franz could see enough to know that his grandmother was rocking gently in her chair and moaning with a kind of rhythmic sound.

Even though you will soon be a man, you won’t understand much of what has happened.

I know enough to understand that gangs who will never be arrested beat a decent but helpless man to death. You, Father, and the rest of us have suffered a great loss.

You are right, even though that is more than you should know. And I still have you.

You always will.

As he spoke, Franz knelt down beside his grandmother, threw his arms around her neck and began to cry. He’d hardly finished a loud breath when he felt his grandmother sniffle back a tear of her own. They both seemed to relax and their chests heaved in emotional unison. At the right moment, his grandmother pushed Franz away. She dried his face with a nearby tea towel.

I love you, Franz. Thank you for your concern. Please go eat.

Alone, Etta wanted to recall some good times with Klaus, but found herself remembering a bleak day when her son Karl came to visit in her apartment. She clearly saw him as he declined her offer of tea and in his manner came to the point.

I have spoken with Father and he agrees that the two of you should come to live with me, Margaret, and the children. Please listen. You have noticed that Margaret is not responding to little Emma properly. The doctor tells us it can happen after delivery. In time it should change. Right now little Emma needs love and attention and frankly, Father tells me that he is having trouble keeping accounts. It would be a help all around.

I wish your father had talked to me first. I will talk with him and give you an answer.

Etta’s conversation with Klaus had been brief. He promised to be more forthcoming and share his successes and failures. But Etta had already known what the answer would be. She had watched with a degree of horror as Margaret held Emma at arm’s length, failed to respond to the baby and looked on her baby with anger. Whatever time Margaret needed to free her from these feelings, Etta had thought she would commit to helping Margaret make the adjustment. At the time, giving Emma the care required seemed secondary.

Margaret was most gracious in helping Etta rearrange the bedroom across from the boys. There was room for their large bed, their armoire and desk. The sewing room at the end of the upstairs hall was to be shared and as Margaret noted, wasn’t used all that much for sewing unless Karl brought work home. He preferred to use the kitchen table for simple repair jobs like darning socks and patching the ever-present holes in Wilhelm’s trouser knees.

Etta remembered Margaret being pleased to have someone to share her kitchen duties. Emma’s needs were met by Etta with not more than an emotionless glance from Margaret. The first few nights Etta was awakened by Margaret, who held out the baby and said, Could you? Soon Etta had assumed most of the responsibilities for little Emma.

After five years, Etta knew that her real charge in the matter was Emma. Now with Klaus murdered, caring for Emma would be her primary role until the hoped for change in Margaret came. Caring for Emma was Etta’s last thought before fatigue took her.

The morning of the graveside ceremony, when everyone seemed busy with private details, Franz knocked at the door of his grandmother’s room and once acknowledged, slipped inside. Franz’s special bond with his grandmother was built during the three years when he was the only grandchild. He never quite knew how to say what he felt for his grandmother but even now, as he was about to begin his adult life, he expected their special relationship to continue. Inside the darkened room, Etta’s small body was dressed in black but it did not hide her tiny waist. The fine, oddly delicate features of her face were not diminished by the sadness Franz had expected.

Are you well, grandmother?

No. I ache like I have been beaten.

Are you sad?

No. I feel a boundless anger. We are supposed to be a civilized society and yet people expressing hope, compassion and different ideas for perhaps a better way of life are murdered. I know that the men who did this will never be punished. Injustice is unacceptable, but I know there is nothing I can do.

Franz suggested that little Emma was very concerned about the what had happened and worried that someone else would disappear from her life without her understanding why. Etta assured Franz that she would find time in the days ahead to calm Emma’s fears and promise that her grandmother was staying right here with the rest of the Millerberg family.

A large group of people from the synagogue gathered at the gravesite. Their expressions of understanding seldom registered with Etta who responded to each with hollow grace. The pale sky, the pine box with its Star of David, and the rote words of Rabbi Hasse were a blur for Etta Millerberg, who gripped Franz tightly so he could not somehow slip away. Karl Millerberg’s vision seemed blurred by tears and Margaret let out a shriek that sounded like a person who had just seen some indescribable horror. Emma clung to her mother to fend off her own fear. Wilhelm was simply put off that he could not join his friends on the playing fields that day.

As she sat shiva, the first visitor to the house was Etta Millerberg’s dearest friend from the old neighborhood. They talked of Etta’s youthful passion for women of accomplishment, recalling how they followed Nellie Bly and her trip around the world. Etta’s friend teased her about the fight for the vote for women in country after country. It had been Etta who had solidified in both of them the habit of reading the newspaper on a daily basis and how, over the years, they had searched for stories that would excite the other as they met for coffee. This woman owed much to Etta and her friend’s promise of continued visits to the end of their days was a comfort to Etta.

The jolliest member of these coffee sessions was not somber for long as she laughed about her unmanageable girth and her love for Etta’s ginger snaps and sugar cookies, which she was eating as they visited. Here was a strong woman and Etta remembered how she could ask her friend for help anytime Karl’s foot brace slipped; she could restore it to its proper position with little effort. And Etta had helped her friend in their early days in Berlin by organizing her kosher kitchen in a way that amazed her. Etta took none of the credit, passing it to the cook and housekeeper of her family home near the lake in Beetszee, a calm body of water in near her childhood home. This woman taught the skill to Etta when she was a child with too much energy and too little to do.

The old neighborhood organizer visited too, and as usual, she was filled with plans to involve Etta and the rest of their old friends and families in Sunday outings, visits to galleries, and concerts in the park. There had never been a shortage or want for events with the help of this woman to schedule it all. There were times when Etta was happy just being with Klaus and Karl, but her friend made weekly events simple and enjoyable. Karl seemed happy to mix with the other children, who learned early to include him in everything and not to mock his mobility. These simple pleasures gave Etta a sense of pleasure equal to Karl’s.

The visitors, some friends with deep bonds and others casual contacts from the bakery, market, and other local environs, chatted with Etta and Karl with teary memories of Klaus and his life with Etta. It could have been a perfect sitting except for the appearance of an old busybody who couldn’t seem to control her urge to tell Etta that she knew Klaus’s contact with Communists would not end well. Etta controlled her fury but told the woman that she should be worried about bands of bullies who were allowed to attack innocent people for just expressing an opinion, just as the woman was doing now. Soon the woman turned to make her abrupt good-bye, telling Karl she was only trying to help.

During shiva, little Emma often found her way to Etta’s lap. It was not much different than their daily routine, which had started not long after Etta and Klaus moved into the home with Karl, Margaret, and the children. Early on, Emma had developed a habit of drawing her curled index finger across Etta lower lip. Etta always smiled as best she could. Even in semi-sleep, Emma toyed with her grandmother’s lip. At shiva, what Etta did notice was Emma’s genuine attempt to somehow console her Oma. It was a tenderness Etta didn’t sense from the rest of the family, even though she knew they cared in their own way.

It was the third day of shiva when Emma curled up in Etta’s lap and fell asleep. As her little body warmed in real sleep, Etta thought about the bond she had formed with Emma and knew that Karl had invited her and Klaus to live with them not only as a financial aid to the two of them but to add a measure of nurturing to little Emma. She did not intend to speak with Karl about his other purpose for inviting them to live in his home. Their bond did not require a discussion. Karl’s smile when watching Emma and Etta’s interaction was enough. Etta had constantly observed Margaret keeping her distance with Emma and being very matter-of-fact in dealing with her daughter. Etta had been very careful to not interfere with any mother and daughter moments. She did, however, try to share moments of closeness and play during the day before it was time to help Margaret with the preparation of the evening meal. Little Emma had taken to sitting on a chair and watching the two of them at work, asking the occasional question of her grandmother about her preparations. Her curiosity was usually limited to what Etta was preparing and a satisfied Emma watched intently.

Less than a week had passed since shiva when Franz and Wilhelm had a visit from their father while they were intent on their schoolwork.

Your mother and I have decided we are moving to America. Grandfather’s death has linked this family to the Communists. We cannot stay here and live in fear for our lives.

How, how will we get to America? stammered the brothers in near unison.

Your mother has been talking to Mormon missionaries for several months. Our conversion will open the door to a new life without fear. We will do this for the two of you and Emma.

I am not afraid, said Wilhelm.

I’m not afraid of the Communists, said Franz. It’s those bullies.

Right. And as their power grows, every day is less safe. Things will begin to move fast now. Be prepared and do as I say.

Karl then knocked on his mother’s door. He entered her room as soon as he was invited. Karl loved his mother without words. He gracefully leaned over and kissed her cheek and he saw a deep affection when their eyes met.

We are all, including you, Mother, going to America. I have sold my business. The house sale will soon be finalized. Margaret has been talking with the Mormons for months and they have assured us that we will be able to leave for America as soon as some details have been worked out.

Do you think that after the fact is a little late to tell me what my future is going to be? Why do you think I want to go to America? What would I do there that is not far more convenient here?

You are my mother. Margaret has never grown close to Emma. You have helped me raise Emma. I will need your help in the future and I can’t get that help when we are separated by an ocean. It would make it easier for you to make the journey if you consider joining the Mormon Church with the rest of us.

I am a Jew. I will die a Jew. I cannot frivolously reject my life so easily. I cannot understand how you can.

You have watched Margaret. She is constantly on the verge of a breakdown. Her fear terrifies me because I can do nothing. She has hopes that leaving Germany will ease those fears. I do this to help Margaret find peace. It’s what I can do.

Klaus and I gave what money we could to own our share of this house. Did you think to ask about that before you arranged a sale?

I will use the money to buy you your own home if you will not join the Mormon Church. Margaret is convinced that she will be persecuted as long as she is associated with being a Jew.

A sad pretense.

Karl told his mother they would talk some more. He had some things to deal with at the shop.

In the quiet of her darkened room, Grandmother Millerberg called to Franz. Dressed in black she seemed little more than a face floating in the room.

Come, she said, when the boy appeared in the doorway. Sit.

Your father has sold the house. He had no right but now I must go with you. I will not live with you and the family. Your father says I can have my own house. I ask that you stay in contact with me. I love you and I trust you.

Yes, Grandmother.

Go, and close the door.

The rush to leave Germany found Franz, his brother and sister standing outside the Mormon Church. They had never been inside a Mormon Church. In fact, they weren’t very familiar with this part of Berlin. Emma was not taking part in the baptism because she was not old enough. The Mormon age of accountability was eight years old. It was a kind of bar mitzvah where the adults do all the work. The boys were given a set of what looked like white underwear and asked to step behind a curtain and put them on. They smelled of disinfectant and Franz was in a hurry to end whatever was going to happen next. He was the first to appear from behind his curtain.

A large man led him up the stairs to a big vat of water and asked Franz to step in. The large man then joined him and told Franz he would, after a few words, hold him under the water for a brief time and that would be all. It was not frightening and seemed to Franz to be not much more than an unnecessary part of his new life. He knew he would get Wilhelm’s opinion later. Emma was only bothered that she couldn’t play in the water like her brothers.

The day to board the ship had come and a swirl of regret and anticipation accompanied the family as they and hundreds of others milled about the Hamburg docks, waiting for some official word to go aboard. Two Mormon men, who no one seemed to know, scurried about reassuring some people, interpreting for others and, as far as Franz and Wilhelm could tell, being a nuisance.

In the wandering, Karl walked up to Franz and handed him his passport, saying, You’re a man now and a man should care for his own passport.

But I will never bar mitzvah, not now.

This journey may make you more of man than any ritual. This document officially makes you Frank M. Milton. His father then tucked two other passports into his breast pocket and walked over to talk to Wilhelm and Emma.

Each family member had their own bag to hold their belongings. When they boarded the enormous ship, Frank carried his bag and Emma’s. Father and Mother each carried two bags. Grandmother Millerberg was freed to hold tightly to the rope of the gangplank as they boarded the ship. She didn’t say a word. And she would not have much to say to her son during the crossing. They found their way below to three small adjoining rooms in a sterile white hallway with rooms on either side. Emma and Etta were in one room; Frank and Willie were in the next room, with Mother and Father in the third. As soon as the boys put their bags away, they asked to go up and watch the ship leave the dock.

It was not long before the men were climbing about moving ropes, often bigger around than Willie’s waist. With the aid of smaller ships, the big ship, their first temporary home, was slipping out of the Hamburg harbor and making its way toward the open sea.

The intense boredom of the first two days of the crossing was broken near mid-morning when uniformed men in white hurried about the ship politely ordering all passengers to return to their rooms and remain there until the all clear was given. It was explained to the new Milton family that the ship was headed into stormy waters. The final words they heard from this ship’s officer were, Mind you have a bucket in your room in case things get too rough.

Karl Milton reminded the family that everything would be all right since they weren’t putting on their life jackets. Still, Emma wanted to be in the room with her parents. Frank asked his grandmother if she wished to stay in the room with him and his brother; she just shook her head and gave them both her usual stern look.

What seemed like torturous hours for the boys were only some forty-five minutes and the rising and lowering of the ship accompanied the howling of the wind. There was no way for the boys to look out or they would have seen an ocean boiling with twenty to thirty foot waves, and crests whipped into a wild froth by the wind. A mean rain only added to the discomfort of the crew on deck.

In her parents’ room, Emma had already struck her head trying to stand with the unsteady footing. Her father was holding Emma in his lap and trying to comfort her. In the boys’ room, Willie was feeling the effects of this angry environment and when the muscles of his stomach involuntarily rolled towards his neck, he made it to the bucket just in time. The spray mostly made the intended target. Frank held Willie’s body and told him to try and relax. Soon Willie was breathing normal and tried to wipe his face with his hand. Just when Willie thought he could talk, the remaining contents of his stomach raced to the roof of his mouth. Willie stopped the movement of the bucket just in time.

When he thought he could talk, Willie just said, That hurt.

Why don’t you try to lie down, the new Frank said. Willie was only too happy to comply. He felt a new kind of exhaustion. And his eyelids sank. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there when his stomach started rolling again. An alert Frank slid the bucket over to Willie just as he lurched toward it but there was nothing there but a new pain. Frank knew what was happening. He’d helped with a few of the men at the woodshop in Berlin who had too much to drink. He encouraged Willie to try and sleep. This was an easy suggestion to follow if his stomach would leave him alone. He was asleep in minutes.

Frank slipped out the door and knocked on his grandmother’s door. Following a faint Come in, he entered to see her sitting on the bed.

Are you all right?

Is everyone else OK?

Willie’s been sick but now he’s sleeping. I heard Emma crying from the other room earlier. It’s finished.

Sit.

Frank obeyed her command. She reached out for his hand and said, Thanks for looking in on me.

A knock came on the cabin door and a voice from the other side announced, We’re through the edge of the storm. You may now move about the ship.

Looking about, Frank noticed a handkerchief covering the room bucket. Lifting it up, he nodded to his grandmother, I’ll take this out.

Thank you, was all she said.

In his cabin, Frank found Willie sleeping. He picked up the bucket and took them both to the washroom.

Two poor meals a day, the steady thump of the ship’s engine, and watching the passing water from the deck became the routine. And each day, Frank found himself in his grandmother’s room listening to a tale from her life.

Did I tell you how your father’s limp came to be?

No.

"He was born with a clubfoot. There was a suggestion of surgery, but I was told that he would never walk. Finally, young Dr. Hellman Castle — who was specializing in these problems — talked about an apparatus he had developed that would be attached to your father day and night to straighten and strengthen his crippled leg. After having the treatment explained to him, your grandfather, who was a very good doctor in his own right, agreed that it seemed to be sound medical practice and told me the young Dr. Castle’s outcomes were promising.

Dr. Castle came to our house weekly to make adjustments to his contraption of metal and leather. Using Karl’s good leg as a guide, the doctor twisted and pulled in what I was sure was a new agonizing position. In the early months of the treatment, I was sure that Dr. Castle judged the success of the leg’s latest position by the level of howling from your father. Or maybe it was based on my own tears. Dr. Castle was always polite and explained what he was doing, but I’m not sure I ever really heard what he was telling me. I was always too eager to hold little Karl and the apparatus attached to him so I could comfort him and, with luck, get him to fall asleep."

How long did this go on?

That was my question to Dr. Castle, so the next week he showed up at the door with a slight boy of no more than three or four, who was still wearing one of Dr. Castle’s braces, but walking on his own. The doctor demonstrated that the boy’s legs were the same length and he was doing everything in his power to reduce the nasty twist of the boy’s right foot. I asked how long that might take and he would only say that it would take more time. With renewed hope, I continued to do the exercises the doctor recommended for Karl and comfort him when he was distressed, which was many of his waking hours.

How did you manage?

I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and fixed the meals when you father was asleep. It worked out. I’m not sure how. Maybe because I never doubted your grandfather’s support.

How long did it take before Father could walk?

He took his first steps, with the braces of course, at eighteen months. It was terrifying and exhilarating. He needed help, but his efforts showed determination.

How long before he could take a step alone?

It was more than a year later. From that time forward, your father was almost insistent that he not be helped. My support was verbal and emotional, while my own emotions were on edge, worrying that whatever he might attempt would hurt him more than physically. And there were plenty of those times. I had to learn to deal with your father’s temper. I came close to shaking him many times until your grandfather pointed out that he was just frustrated with himself. Once I understood that, and didn’t match his anger with my own, his progress was really splendid.

It’s hard to imagine my father as a little boy.

I’m not sure in his mind that he ever was a little boy. I do know that his determination in every particle of his life was born at that time and it has served him well.

The next day, Frank had Willie in tow as he knocked on their grandmother’s cabin door.

We want to know how father became a tailor.

Their grandmother invited them in, asked them to sit down and she began.

Before Karl was off to school, he asked me to show him how to darn a sock. I was happy to show him the darning patterns. He did it again and again until he was satisfied with the work. He repeated this near-compulsive process as I showed him how to sew on buttons, hem a dress, or cuff your grandfather’s trousers. On his own he would do and redo the work until it met his own standard.

Didn’t he want to go out and play, asked Willie.

He couldn’t go out because of his leg. And I think he would rather find things to do with his hands. I do remember it was only a few years before he was asked for some help making doll clothes for little Agnes next door. Once I helped your father with a pattern for the dress Agnes wanted, he asked a few questions and accomplished his first dress in a few days. It wasn’t long before little Agnes had friends who wanted your father to make them clothes for their dolls. He was excited to do the work.

I think it would’ve been a problem with some of the boys in school, Frank said.

Yes, yes. One of the girls at school told her brother, a ruffian named Claude, who made her new doll clothes. Once he knew of your father’s skill, he could hardly wait to confront him in the schoolyard. Just as he was starting to push your father about, little Agnes, with a violent swing, hit the ruffian in the head with her lunch pail. And standing beside her were the other little girls who had been the beneficiary of your father’s work. You father was never bothered on the playground again.

How did he go to work for Mr. Springmeyer, the tailor? Frank asked.

By your father’s eleventh year, he had a little business. Then a girl named Patience came to your father with a boy doll for a commodore’s outfit. Without any help from anyone and only a drawing Patience gave him, he fashioned everything, including a splendid little cap. It took time. First of all, it had to please your father. There were several alterations. Once the doll and its outfit were delivered, it was just a day later when Mr. Springmeyer, Patience’s father, came to the house to meet with your father and grandfather. Even at his tender age, your father was offered an apprenticeship at Mr. Springmeyer’s tailoring shop.

Did he work every day? Frank wanted to know.

Every day. Just like you worked at the cabinetmaker. He went there after school. He learned the craft and then came home and practiced what he’d learned. He was a great student of the art. By his teen years, he was working on suits for some of finest gentlemen in Berlin.

I heard he made uniforms for officers in the German army, said Willie.

God forbid, he did. At first Mr. Springmeyer, and therefore his staff, were paid well for the special work. In the end, many of these men were killed and their accounts were unpaid. But Mr. Springmeyer’s shop survived, thanks in part to your father’s talent and until a few weeks ago, this was your father’s noble work.

Etta’s eyes began to swell with water and turning her head, she opened the door to her cabin as an invitation to the boys to leave.

Thank you, grandmother, the boys spoke in unison. They raced down the passageway and were gone before the door was closed.

Willie had found a sailor who was teaching him the skill of bouncing a ball into a bulkhead with the slap of his hand, so Frank was alone when