I don’t remember when we moved from Schreufa to Frankenau, a town a bit larger at 1330 residents, but it was sometime prior to my sister being born in September of 1952. The flat we lived in was in the center of town, on the second floor. There was no central heat, just a big stove in the middle of each room. My bedroom was always cold, as I remember having a large, feather blanket to keep me warm at night. There was no indoor plumbing, and going to the bathroom out in the courtyard was always an adventure. Everyone knew when I was using the outhouse, as I would whistle going and coming back into the house.
My dad had solidified his position with the local electric provider, a job that was quite dangerous as one of his co-workers was electrocuted while working on a power line. Going out in ice storms and snow storms during the winter was no picnic.
I was very excited when my sister was born, as my parents bought this really fancy carriage for her. It had fenders and hubcaps, I recall and I could run with it very fast. Monica loved the trips, laughing as we zoomed up and down the town streets.
In the summer before leaving for America, a group of us would go out into the fields and climb hay wagons, riding up on top as they came back to town. We also played tag on top, jumping around trying not to get caught. One time I jumped right off the edge and landed down on the ground, hitting the deck so hard, I hit my chin really hard.
One of my friends screamed about blood running from my chin and it was when I put my hand up to may face I realized I had opened a huge cut on the bottom of my chin. My mom took me to a doctor who cleaned it out and put a bandaid on it, no stitches.
A few weeks later, I could feel some throbbing where I had hit my chin, but I didn’t think much about it. My mother was usually quite busy with my sister, so she didn’t see any issues as well. One night, I was dreaming and rolled off the bed, fell on the floor and cut open my chin again. This time there was a huge amount of puss all over the floor from the cut, which had gotten pretty infected. I was very fortunate that I took that second fall and opened the wound a second time to drain it out.
I started school in Frankenau and liked it very much, but don’t remember anything about going there. I do have a class photo. Around 2003 I received a copy of that photo in the mail with a letter from a former classmate, Doris, who was now living near Chicago. We reconnected and continue to keep in touch to this day.
In 1993, my brother and I went back to visit friends in Frankenau, walking all over town and through the town gardens just outside the town limits. It was the first time back since leaving in 1953.
The population of Schreufa during my living there was about 550 people, while Frankenau had about 1330. When we moved to Paterson, NJ, the population there was 139,000. Talk about culture shock.
