MOTHERS BIRTHDAY

Today is, was my mothers birthday. She was born in Altona, Germany, in 1923. My mother died in 1995. She and her parents emigrated here to the USA in 1926. My grandmothers brother, August, was already here, I do not know much about him or why he came. I do know that he had died at an early age also. There was another brother but I do not know his name. My grandmother did talk about her sister, Johanna, who was 13 years younger than her. I know she married a man with the last name of Reimers and had two children, Crystal and Egon. Egon came to the USA for a visit sometime in the 1960's, I remember his visit but nothing much about him.

I guess it was the economy in Germany after the war My grandmother said that the Mark was worthless and they would go shopping twice a day because of the super inflation the prices were raising daily. She had said that people would carry the Marks in a wheel barrow and not be able to buy a loaf of bread.

My mother was an only child, her father died when she was about thirteen. Strangely I never asked why her parents did not have another child. She said she could remember bits of the voyage on the ship. One was she was on deck and eating a lollipop and there was a bee who tried to land on the lollipop. She said she scream and tried to get it to leave. The other memory she had was when they were on Ellis Island she had a cold and was coughing. Her mother told her not to cough because they would send them back.

Can you imagine how difficult it would be to be in another country and all of a sudden be a widow? I know she was employed by the school system and cleaned the classrooms in an elementary school. She would bring discarded library books for the grandchildren when the school would be throwing them away. My grandmother died in 1969.

I still miss her very much.

Emily told me that her grandmother, Gerda, had told her about watching the dolphins jumping in the water on her voyage to the USA when she was four.