Mom had a well-rounded figure, but I never
considered her fat. Cursed with her weighty Dolly Partons, she would be the
envy of today’s generation of bust enhancers. But her bra straps cut deep
grooves into her shoulders and, she claimed, rounded her back. Scoliosis was an
unknown term in her era. X-rays later proved the curvature of her spine to be a
genetic defect as was her too voluptuous torso that often propelled her into
crash diets.
Mutti was a proud German. Her dress, her manners,
reflected that. Though she had left Munich behind, she never really left it. A
cultural mecca of universities, art museums, and high fashion, Munich spawns
refinement, and Mutti knew all the rules. That meant dressing well, which she
always did, being on time to events, which she always was, and knowing the
social graces better than Dale Carnegie. She taught me and my brother Guy
manners. So well had we learned them that during our 1952 trans-Atlantic
crossing we were requested at the
Captain’s table.
Unlike many immigrants who feared their children
would not do well in school unless they learned English, Mother believed it far
worse to lose the mother tongue. She spoke only German in our presence; unless
she was angry over something (we always knew when we’d done something wrong.)
She also taught us to read and write the language, standing over us as we wrote
letters home to Germany—in German. I
still have third and fifth grade readers that she’d brought from the ‘old
country.’ Initially, she read us the stories. Later, she sat beside us to listen
to our reading. She swore she was teaching us High German, the language of
universities. When I took German at the college level, I discovered that the
Bavarian dialect had crept into no only my pronunciations, but also the written
word.
Mutti loved animals and our home had many. Besides
the garter snakes and frogs or polliwogs we kids would drag in from the wild
outback of America, we kept rabbits, hamsters, cats, dogs, and goldfish. She
couldn’t afford the pony I had my heart set on, but all the small animals had
free run of the house. Perhaps it was her farm heritage that made her love the
beasties which she could train as well as the Dog Whisperer or nurse to health
like a vet.
Though born in Munich, her forbears were Austrian.
Her father had left Altheim, a little village in upper-Austria where his family
tilled the soil for generations and still does. But Josef Bauschenberger was a
brewer, and brought his offspring to Munich because jobs were not wanting in
the city that wallows in beer. I maintain strong connections with my Austrian
core family who sheltered Mutti during the worst bombings of World War II.
Having accepted Hitler’s subsidies to pregnant women, Mother left the city for
the safety of the family farm.
In those days the extended family living in nearby
Fraham ,current location of the extant family farm, were worried of the war’s
outcome. Word of Russian brutality had circulated. Mother told me of the
family’s desire to flee as Russian troops and the Allies were about to converge
in the upper Austrian heartland. When our uncles and their wives gathered
around the table to worr, “Let’s hope the Americans ger here before the
Russians,” Mutti got up and said, “I’m not waiting to find out.” She packed up pram and suitcase and headed
for the nearest train terminal. Tracks had been bombed and her fitful journey
back to Munich halted only long enough in Schwaz, Tirol to give birth to this
daughter of a German soldier birth.
Romantic stories of my father abound. Mother’s
meeting with the man who was 13 years her junior happened in Munich. She was on
her way to work and about to board her tram when a hand touched her shoulder.
With it came the word’s, “You almost missed me.”
The tram left a surprised Stephanie standing in the
street staring dumbfounded at the grin on the playful lieutenant she faced. I presume the two made it a day since the
tram was gone.
In the days previous Mutti had gazed down from her
Preysingstrasse apartment with her sister. Fanny had noticed two young officers
on the opposite sidewalk. She’d nudged mother saying, “That one has his eye on
you.” Mutti didn’t believe her until the tram left without her.
