If you go to Gerard’s blog via the above link you can find out all about this special woman in her nineties who became Australian Senior of the Year.
It’s immensely gratifying that she received this award..
Author: auntyuta
Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother,
Mother and Wife of German Descent
I've lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com
In Memory of a Great-Aunt Marie (Mietze)
Peter, my husband, has some memory of his Grandmother, who died, when he was only three. Both his parents worked. Peter remembers Tante Mietze, his mother’s aunt, looking after him and his sisters following the death of Grandmother. Tante Mietze was born on the 17th of June 1873. She went into domestic service at age fourteen. She was an important person in his life. He remembers her all the time, but especially on her birthday.
This picture of Tane Mietze’s photo Peter took today. He published a post about her as well. Here is the link to Peter’s post.
More Aunties and Uncles and Cousins
I can be seen with Ursel and Karl-Heinz, my cousins.
An older sister of Dad, Aunt Jenny and her husband, another Uncle Alred, are in the back. On the left is Charlotte, ,my Mum. It is summer 1937
We all love the hammock.
It’s great fun lying in it!
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My two year old cousin Horst seems to like me! It’s not summer yet, but it must be quite warm already.
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There were donkey rides available for children. I was overjoyed when I was allowed to have a ride. A lot of Dad’s family spent the holidays with us in a rented apartment in Zoppot. I remember the apartment was in a tower-like building. We were right at the top. Looking out of the window we could sea far out onto the sea.
In September 1938 cousin Ursula came for a visit to Berlin.
I am just four years old., Ursel just turned eleven.
Mum and Ursel with me in Berlin at a building
in a street called ‘Unter den Linden’[/caption]
This photo was taken at a family party, probably in the 1960s It shows Dad with his three sisters and two brothers.
Cousins, Aunties and Uncles
In June 1935 my parents traveled with me to Lodz, which was in Poland. My father did get a passport for this trip. This one passport was not just for himself, but also for his wife and infant daughter!
I suppose we traveled by train from Berlin to Lodz. I’m sure the journey would have taken something like twelve hours. In Lodz we stayed at the house of Aunt Elisabeth (Tante Lies) and Uncle Alfred. Tante Lies was my father’s younger sister. She was the same age as my mum. Their son, my cousin Horst, was only four months at the time and I was nine months. I had three older cousins in Lodz. They were Georg, Gerd, and Ursula (Ulla). You can see them with little Horst and my little self in one of the pictures.
Uta 9 months
with Charlotte and Alexander and babies Horst and Uta
30th June 1935
with Baby-Son Horst about Jan.1936
Our first Saturday in June 2012
We spent a bit more time on the walking tracks of Mt Keira. The next lookout was totally closed off too. But the sculptures we were looking for were all there. We rested on some rocks. Peter discarded his long distance glasses on one of the rocks while he was busy doing something with his camera. When you have a very close look at one of the pictures, I think you can make out the glasses. But they are really hard to see.
After we had walked back on another very even track to where our car was parked and Peter wanted to put on his glasses for driving, he couldn’t find his glasses. He figured out that he must have left them on this rock near the sculptures where he had been sitting. So he went back all the way. Sure enough the glasses were where he thought they might be. And he assured me that they were awfully hard to see on the rock. Interesting that later on in the photo I could barely make them out. They absolutely blended in with the rock!
Back to the sculptures now. while we were sitting there a man with two kids appeared. The kids were full of beans and straight away started climbing around on the sculptures. They were overjoyed that they had found them. Apparently their Dad had told them they would be looking for the pyramids. And there they were in all their beauty! It didn’t take them long to look around. Soon all three of them disappeared again on another walking track.
So this big lookout to the Five Islands was closed off too. Nothing we could do about this. We sure didn’t want to risk falling down the cliffs!
After Peter had found his glasses again we could leave the mountain. Our way back led us along the Freeway. The Nan Tien Temple is close to where we had to pass. We hadn’t visited this temple for a while. So I suggested we could stop there for a cup of Chinese tea. Reluctantly Peter agreed. But a cup of tea doesn’t cost all that much, right? – Wrong.- We ended up each having a great vegetarian meal as well. The meal was excellent and, I think, really worth the expense. It’s just that Peter wants to save up for our trip to Germany. This trip starts in about three months! We really have to try a it harder to save some more money.
At the temple we took heaps of pictures again. This time we didn’t enter the temple. Walking around the gardens outside there were lots of motifs for taking pictures since the gardens are full of sculptures. We went along a way which leads the the Pilgrims’ Lodge. This is a place were ‘pilgrims’, that is visitors to the temple, can find overnight accommodation.
All in all, we had a truly lovely day. Afternoon coffee we had at home with Danish Apple cake, a frozen cake that we baked for half an hour in our oven. The oven warmed up our kitchen. And the cake was delicious.
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At the cafe at the foot of the Buddhist temple we had a lovely meal.
Today in between uploading these pictures we had a nice soup for lunch as well as coffee and the rest of yesterday’s cake, which was delicious warmed up a bit and topped with custard.
Thanks to Peter for letting me use some of his photos.
Beginning of Winter 2012
Here in Australia the month of June is the beginning of winter. With sunshine during the day the winter can be quite pleasant. However yesterday it was totally overcast and showers were forecast. Early in the morning Peter and I walked up to the newsagent to get the paper for the weekend. I mentioned to Peter I would like to walk a bit in clean fresh mountain air. I suggested to drive up to the highlands. Even if there was no sunshine it would be great to walk for a bit up there. Peter hesitated to agree. Then he came up with a compromise. He suggested to drive up to Wollongong’s Mt Keira. I happily agreed, that yes we could go there for a walk.
One of the tracks up there turned out to be a bit difficult for me. Peter frequently had to help me out along rocky steps. His strong hands gave me support. At one stage he drifted off a bit to take pictures of some wild flowers. I looked around. Suddenly I noticed a huge stick in the bush. It looked like some one had dropped it there for it didn’t seem to fit in the surroundings. I picked it up. It looked to me to be suitable as a walking stick, even though it was a bit long. It was easy to grab. I was very pleased with its very strong white wood. When Peter saw me with it, he wanted to take a picture straight away. Then he said he would like to put it on Facebook.
reminds Peter of ‘Rübezahl’s Stick’
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When we arrived at the top of Mt Keira we noticed that the restaurant/kiosk up there had changed owners again and was still closed. It didn’t look to us as though it was going to be opened some time soon even though a sign told us it was going to be under new management in mid 2012.
As I said the sky was overcast but it didn’t rain yet. We took some pictures from the lookout. It’s difficult on these photos to make out where the ocean is and where the sky takes over. There were some boats on the water but you can hardly see them in the photo.
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We decided we would negotiate one of the walking tracks to another outlook. When we arrived at this outlook we found out it was closed off because of danger!
- Here comes Rübezahl woman!
- Some bush flowers by the wayside
We were looking for these sculptures. After a while we actually did find them! How our day progressed, I’m going to show in another blog. I might publish it in a few hours. So, please, look out for it!
We were looking for these sculptures. After a while we actually did find them!Who is this?
A CONTEMPLATION
Fear, Anxiety and Worry
Feeling free of fear, anxiety and worry: I think this makes for a happy person.
You can still feel lonely at times. But there’s nothing to fear or being anxious about or to worry about. If something bad happens, something good is going to follow. (Eventually!) It has to be like this. For there is change all the time. If there wouldn’t be any change, the universe would be very boring!
APOPTOSIS is a normal cell death. It is programmed and happens continuously. (So we have a totally different body today from the one we had two years ago!)
CANCER on the other hand is an abnormal cell division. It is uncontrolled. A neoplastic cell is a cell that is part of a tumour.
I read about this in DEEPAK CHOPRA’S book ‘POWER; FREEDOM and GRACE’. According to DEEPAK, cancer cells ‘have lost the memory of death; they don’t know how to die, and in their quest for immortality, they kill the host body upon which they are dependent for their life.’
‘Death, therefore, is the ticket to life, and death is happening right now in our body-mind. . . . .’ I find this is a very interesting concept. So why are we afraid of change, when in reality change is happening all the time? Indeed, I ask myself, why are so many people forever afraid of change?
Well, what DEEPAK CHOPRA wrote, made me think. I felt I wanted to write about it in a blog, that maybe some bloggers would have an opinion on it and comment on it. I’d love to read your comment!
It’s only three and a half months since I blogged this blog about pictures as Memory Triggers. Since it created a great response at the time, I want to try and reblog it as a Memory Trigger.
Pictures as Memory Triggers
Two brothers, both students at the University of Leipzig (Germany), went out together to see a movie. Two young girls, who wore identical dresses, in a giggly mood followed the students into the cinema and sat down behind them. One of the students was my father Alexander, twenty-one at the time, and one of the girls was my mother Charlotte.
Naturally, the two young students did get to know the two girls. Soon the four of them went on outings together, and before long the two young men even started visiting the girls’ home, where they were well received by the girls’ widowed mother.
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Five years later Charlotte and Alexander were married. In the meantime Charlotte’s sister Ilse had been engaged to Alexander’s brother Edmund for a few months. Ilse broke the engagement off and later married well- to -do Adolf S.
After World…
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A Visit in 1977
Leipzig, in the 1920s
My father died in 1966 (aged 62 years). At the time we could not afford to travel to Germany. The last time I saw him was in 1959 when we left Germany to live in Australia.
In 1977 we were able to travel to Germany for a visit. One of our stops was Augsburg, where my father’s brother Edmund lived with his second wife, Flora. Edmund had been a widower, so had been Flora. When they married they agreed that when they died they would be buried with their first spouses. They thought that this was a common sense thing to do, because they had married each other when they both were in retirement already. As I recall, Edmund would have been seventy-five in 1977. Flora would have been somewhat younger. She was a retired medical practitioner. However she was still energetic enough to do some part-time work doing medical check-ups on men who were about to apply for a job in the Bundeswehr (German Army).
Some of my relatives had warned me, that Flora was proud to always stick to proper etiquette. ‘Don’t forget to buy flowers for her, when you visit,’ we were told. Arriving at Augsburg Station the first thing we did, was to look for a flower-shop. I think we bought carnations. And I think we arrived a little bit late for the visit. They had of course been expecting us. We were very welcomed and I could see, Flora was pleased with the flowers. We noticed they lived in a superb extremely well furnished apartment. They suggested they would first show us a bit the city, then they would take us for lunch; and afternoon coffee would be back at their place.
Uncle Edmund was always just Uncle E for us. He was the one who had been amused when I told him as a nine year old that I was dancing ‘swing’. He was also the one who had been studying in Leipzig together with my father. One of my cousins thinks my father promoted as Dr. rer. pol. But I think this was Uncle E’s title. I’ve always known my father to have the title of Dr. phil. Anyhow I include here again the photos of Alexander and Edmund from the time in Leipzig in about 1925, where both men met my mother Charlotte as well as my mother’s sister Ilse. (My mother was only fourteen at the time!)
- Alexander, Charlotte, Ilse, Edmund
Leipzig, about 1925
Now back to our visit in Augsburg in 1977. I should mention that the two of us, Peter and I, were the visitors there. Flora and Edmund were splendid in showing us around. Augsburg is quite popular with tourists and we did see a lot. We have some old photos to prove it. What im pressed us quite a bit, was the ‘Fuggerei’, which was established as a low cost housing project some five hundred years ago and is still going. It is very interesting to read up on it and here is the link to the Fuggerei.
the entrance to the Fuggerei
- Here we stand at another Fountain
- This is a fountain inside the Fuggerei
- A street in the Fuggerei
- Somewhere in the city is a beautiful restaurant called the ‘Fuggerei Stube’. We had an enormous lunch there.
- Here I am with Flora and Edmund in their apartment
On this photo we all look a bit grim. But this is not how I remember the visit. Both Flora and Edmund were extremely friendly. We had a really good time with them. By the way Flora talked (and she talked a lot!) we noticed straight away that she had grown up in Berlin. She had fun talking with an exaggerated Berlin accent. Not at all ‘ladylike’. When we couldn’t eat everything that was served to us on a huge plate for lunch, she asked for a doggy bag to take home the left overs, even though she didn’t have a dog. She explained, she wouldn’t let good food like this go to waste. She had paid for it. We had been served for lunch beautiful wurst, schinken and cheeses. When Uncle E passed away a few years later, Flora wrote us a very long letter and told us all about his last days. After this we never heard from her again.
AuntyUta 