Tag: Australia

Out and about in Melbourne

Famous sculpture at the Yarra River in Melbourne.

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Peter, granddaughter Lauren and I had been waiting at Flinders Street Station for granddaughter Justine who was going to meet us there after work. It was a happy meeting after not having seen each other for sooo long!

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Uta and granddaughters at the Yarra River
Uta and granddaughters at the Yarra River

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Dinner at Il PRIMO POSTO, Italian Restaurant
Dinner at Il PRIMO POSTO, Italian Restaurant

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After dinner we strolled to a Gelato shop that was still open. We each had a little tub of this delicious gelato and sat down at a large table with a terrific view of the Yarra.

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This was a lovely night out with the granddaughters. Justine caught the train back home from Flinders Street Station. Peter and I went with Lauren by train back to Essendon where our son Martin was waiting with the car to take us home.

PALM SUNDAY

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Palm Sunday morning was a glorious morning for me. A few minutes after seven o’clock, when the sun had just started coming up a bit, I slowly walked to the church carrying my piece of palm which Peter had cut off for me from our palm tree. I arrived at 7,30. People were already walking towards an outside table where the priest started blessing the palms. After a few minutes everyone assembled in the church for the Palm Sunday mass.

During mass the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke was read. Some parts were read by a narrator, then there were other parts being read by a different person; in bold types was printed out on the overhead screen what the crowd (the congregation) had to read, and Father read the part of Jesus.

Towards the end Jesus said: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
And the narrator said: With these words he breathed his last.

Visiting David

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David’s brother let Peter know that David is in hospital. We went to see him there two weeks ago on Sunday. We traveled by train to Westmead station. From there we walked to Westmead Hospital. We found David in good spirits. He looked much healthier than we had seen him before. We talked for about an hour. He called us ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’. He showed us his leg where it had been amputated. He said he was going to get physio so he would be able to walk better. In a few weeks he was to go back home.

In the meantime the brother sent another message that David was to be sent to a nursing home. So the villa where Gaby and David had lived for the past twenty-three years had to be vacated. We were asked would we perhaps want anything out of the villa that had belonged to Gaby? We said, we would go up to the place on a day when David’s family was to be there too.

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We were glad we left the car at home.
We were glad we left the car at home.

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This was our way back to the station.
This was our way back to the station.

We didn’t take any photos inside the hospital. But David was in a pleasant ward, I think it was on the seventh floor. He had a room all to himself! He was listening to his radio which a neighbor had brought in for him. He had just had his lunch and someone came in to pick up his lunch-tray. He said he didn’t smoke any more and this was going to save him a lot of money. We were very happy David felt so much better after having had good medical care in hospital for several weeks.

Oral History

http://www.nla.gov.au/what-we-collect/oral-history-and-folklore

 

The past week Peter and I have been busy with the telling  of our lives’ story. We had a very lovely visitor recording everything for the Oral History section of the library at Canberra. It takes a few weeks before these recordings are accessible. I understand they are going to be preserved for future generations. This whole project is of course extremely exciting for us.

Frances, who’s interviewing us, tells us,  we as migrants from Germany, having been through WW II  and post war years as children in Germany have experiences to recall which people would be interested to hear about. Also of interest are our experiences in Australia as migrants. In this regard it is of special interest to find out how our lives were shaped by having had a daughter who had been severely disabled by polio.

Neither Peter or I are experienced speakers. Having our voices recorded is something completely new to us. However Frances is very good at encouraging us. She gently guides us into the relevant sections of our lives by asking some questions. Peter and I are always being interviewed separately. Usually we have one hour each in the morning, then a lunch-break, and maybe another hour each in the afternoon.

I found out having to talk for one hour at a time about my life can be rather tiring and sometimes a bit stressful too. But I love doing it especially with such a good interviewer as Frances. By the middle of next week she’s going to be back for the conclusion of the interviews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The “Pioneer Family”

Today I was looking for some more pictures from the past. I came up with two pictures from 1958 and another two pictures from 1960

Peter with Gaby
Peter with Gaby

This pictures was taken in Düsseldorf, Germany, in a park called ‘Hofgarten’, on 17th June 1958. Gaby was not quite nine months yet at the time.

Uta and Peter with Gaby
Uta and Peter with Gaby

This pictures was taken by Uta’s Mum on her balcony in Berlin in August 1958. Gaby was nearly one year old. We were for a visit in Berlin at the time.

Uta with Baby Martin, two months, Monika, eighteen months, and Gaby thirty-three months.
Uta with Baby Martin, two months, Monika, eighteen months, and Gaby thirty-three months.

This pictures was taken near Fairy Meadow Beach, New South Wales, Australia, in June 1960.

Uta and Peter (25) with all three children
Uta and Peter (25) with all three children

This is where the pioneer family ended up in Oak Flats, NSW, Australia, which was ‘the sticks’ at the time. This picture was taken on the 28th August 1960 which was Gaby’s birthday. We were building a garage at the time. One year later the children were stricken by polio; as it turned out, Gaby very severely.

Another Friend gone

This is about an elderly couple, both born in 1933, just a few months older than Peter is and I am. We’ve known them for ages. When we moved, we lost touch for a while. Then we found out they had moved too. It turned out they lived not far away from where we lived. Indeed, what a surprise this was! They had moved into a very beautiful new home in a village for the elderly. From then on we started seeing each other about once a month for coffee and cake and a few games of Rummy. They always enjoyed playing this game with us. We had some good times together. Both of them suffered some ill-health; we thought the husband more so than the wife. We couldn’t see them for quite some time because the husband apparently was in a bad way, so the wife said on the phone not to come and visit. Should we have made an effort to see them anyway? Instead, I always waited for them to tell us when we could see them again. I wrote them a Christmas card. They knew that we had gone overseas for a while and that one of our daughters had died shortly before we left. So I wrote in the card a bit about our overseas trip and that we were now back home again. When we didn’t hear from them, I should have made a phone-call finding out how they were. But I didn’t ring. Why do I tend to put off phone-calls like this?

Then, yesterday, we got a phone-call from one of their sons. “Mum died last Friday,” he said. I thought I hadn’t heard right. “Did you say your Mum died?” I asked. He confirmed it and explained the funeral service would be on Friday at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church in Dapto with the funeral procession going to the Memorial Park in Dapto after the service. And he said all the details were in the Illawarra Mercury if we wanted to have a look. “How’s your Dad?” I asked. His response was that he’s very shocked. But the family is with him. They are of Dutch origin and have a large family in Australia and overseas.

Port Kembla Beach Swimming Pool & Garden Pictures

It was rather hot today, so we decided to drive to Port Kembla Beach Swimming Pool to have a swim. The outside temperature was well above 30 C, however the water temperature was a chilly 19,5 C! Still, Peter and I, we both managed to have a dip into the water.

I remembered I published a post about Port Kembla Pool in October 2011. I am going to copy what I wrote then. I mentioned in this post also our trip to Bowral. Peter took some garden pictures in Bowral. The garden pictures with the tulips are all from October 2011. On the 21st December 2012 we went up Macquarie Pass again to go for another visit to Bowral. We saw the park where they always have tulips in springtime. Since our recent visit was in December, there were of course no tulips to be seen. None the less the park looked beautiful even in summer!

HERE IS THE COPY OF MY POST FROM OCTOBER 2011:

“Last week Peter and I had a look at Port Kembla Beach Swimming Pool. The beach is right next to the pool. It was a bit cool, however there was no wind. It was great for a walk along the beach. There were hardly any people,  even though the school vacation was still on. The pool cafe was open. We sat outside under the umbrella with some good fruit juice.

On the way home we stopped at a Lagoon Reserve and watched some pelicans. For lunch we had grilled fish with salad and chips as well as tea. Delicious meal in a hidden away cafe in a close by shopping centre. The shopping centre was full of people including lots of children. I wonder, why some of these people weren’t on the beach on a beautiful springday like this?

I must say for swimming in the pool the water still seemed a bit cold. I prefer our solar heated pool in Dapto where the temperature is never less then 24 Degrees Celsius. I went with my feet a little bit into the water at the beach. This was very enjoyable!

On another day last week we went up the escarpment along Macquarie Pass and then all the way to Bowral, a lovely township in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. There are some lovely gardens in Bowral and most of the tulips there were still in full bloom. Peter took the chance to take lots of pictures on both our outings. We had a lovely time!”

I am sorry I cannot copy the pictures at present. Please, go here for viewing of the pictures!