Pearls on a String: The Women of My Family

Pearls on a String: The Women of My Family

Prologue – Where It All Begins

We inherits many things: eye colour, a dimple, a smile.
But also silence. Longings. Humor – and sometimes those little quirks that make us unmistakably ourselves.

Families are treasure chests: filled with secrets and stories, with what is told, and what is better left unsaid.

The women of my family are like pearls on a string. Each with her own radiance – some shimmering quietly, others sparkling boldly.

Their paths led from East Prussia, the Sudetenland and Vienna – my grandmother’s dream city – to Bavaria and Northern Hesse. Between timbered houses and apple trees, the bond was woven that still connects us today.

Great-Grandmother Rosa – the Bavarian Grandma

June 27, 1960 – 80th birthday: a life of hard work – and still a smile for this moment.

 

Rosa Quest (1880–1966) – a name that sounds as if taken from an old chronicle, yet for us she remained more of a feeling than a figure of flesh and blood. After fleeing the Sudetenland, today’s Czech Republic, she found a new home in Bavaria with part of the family. To us children she was simply the “Bavarian Grandma.”

She carried a greater secret anyway: she never revealed who the father of her two children was. Her lips remained sealed like a vault. Even MyHeritage offered no clue.
Thus I shall never know where the line of my great-grandfather leads.

But at Christmas she came very close to us: with parcels full of hand-knitted gifts – socks, sweaters, hats. No toys, no fashion – but warmth. Perhaps that was her way of speaking: stitch by stitch her hands told what her mouth kept silent.

Omi – the Shining One from Vienna

Marie (“Mizzi,” 1912–1972).

August 11, 1934 – A white dress, a beginning filled with hope.

She arrived by train from the Sudetenland with my mother, settled in Datterode, a small village in Northern Hesse’s Ringgau, and made do in the basement of an old house – furnished with whatever was left: dressing-table chairs around the dining table, a white-painted bed. Improvisation became everyday life.

Later my mother told me of the day she saw a Red Cross poster. It was a search notice from my grandfather Hermann, returned from the Eastern Front, looking for his wife and daughter. Omi read it, shook her head, and said coolly: “We won’t answer that.” She did not want him back. Only when my mother, then eleven years old, cried and screamed, “I want my Papa back!” did she relent. And so Hermann returned – to a flat sparsely furnished with dressing chairs and tension.

Omi was a walking contradiction. Head held high, she never missed a chance to emphasize that she came from a world city – Vienna. And her tone left no doubt about what she thought of the villagers she now lived among: nothing. At the same time, she had no hesitation in showing her earthy side: sharp-tongued, direct, sometimes theatrically over the top. She played two roles – the Viennese grande dame and the improvised village survivor.

I witnessed it myself: during a quarrel with her cousin across the yard, words failed her, so she let deeds speak. She turned around, lifted her skirt, and shook her backside. An exit like a clap of thunder – vulgar, comic, unforgettable. Vienna’s spirit at its cheekiest.

Her gifts were always special: a guitar, roller skates. She brought me culture before I could barely walk. As a toddler she dragged me along to the operetta Der Bettelstudent by Carl Millöcker – three acts of pure boredom. Today I am grateful. She probably also sparked my love of hats. Only the hatpin I left aside.

From her I learned that one may keep a touch of glamour – even in everyday life. Perhaps a little of her Viennese melody still lingers in me.

And: Mizzi insisted on being called “Omi” – never “Oma.” Long live the subtle difference.

A Quiet Contest of Wills

But where there is one Omi, there must also be the other – Oma.
Mizzi, the Viennese, and Lisbet, the Northern Hessian, considered each other rivals.

One carried the airs of a world city, the other a farmer’s apron and geese. Outwardly, Lisbet scoffed at Mizzi’s “fine manners,” while Mizzi spoke every sentence as if to make clear that Vienna reigned above all.

Even we children were unconsciously assigned sides: I, the Omi-child, grew up with her until I started school. Lindi, on the other hand, was placed with Lisbet – and it seemed to fit. Already as a little girl she helped with chicken slaughtering and received from Lisbet that life-extending advice: “If boys bother you, scratch, bite, or throw an apple at their head.”

The Other Grandma – Lisbet

Elise, known to all as Lisbet (1899–1978), was Northern Hesse through and through: a farmer, forthright, down-to-earth, never having traveled more than ten kilometers from home.

“Her gaze speaks of strength – and of quiet sacrifice.”

She was the one who rang the church bells on Sundays – petite, yet hanging with her whole body weight on the ropes. Always accompanied by her geese, who followed her in single file to the church door and waited patiently until she came out again.

She had her fixed spot in the first row of pews. What the sermons stirred in her? Hard to say – at home she merrily gossiped about neighbor Emma and “friend” Martha.

Unforgettable was her coffee ritual: pouring the hot brew onto her saucer and sipping it with relish. To cool it, of course – but perhaps also to bring a hint of Viennese chic into her village world. For once upon a time, drinking from the saucer was indeed considered proper and socially acceptable.

Her gifts too were unforgettable – salmon-colored bloomers, brushed on the inside, or collectible teacups.

My Mother – Forever a Girl

June 23, 1951 – Between duty and longing: a summer day, captured forever.

Isolde (1933–2024).

She was seventeen, my father nineteen, when I was born. A wanted child, as they both liked to stress. For her, I was the beginning of her own life – a way out of the confinement of parental homes.

My mother remained a child, at least on the outside. She turned cartwheels and somersaults to show us how it was done.
On Thursdays we had a secret ritual: while my father was playing skat at the village inn and my siblings were asleep, she quietly lifted me – six years old – out of bed. Careful not to wake anyone, she set me on a chair in front of the stove, my feet warmed by the oven. For an hour we listened to the Schlager radio show, each melody a small pact between us. She loved to dance – and with me she danced through the kitchen: waltz, cha-cha-cha, tango.
To this day I know the lyrics of the ’50s and ’60s Schlager songs by heart.

Of course, she had her quirks. She believed in every miracle cure advertised. That her herbal tonic at breakfast contained 40% alcohol didn’t trouble her: “I only drink half a glass – so that’s just 20%.”
Her standard reply: “It’s good for EVERYTHING.”

My Sister Lindi – the Fragile One

“A child’s laughter defying heaviness.”

I was the eldest of four children. My sister Gerlinde, Lindi, the middle one, was born four years after me. Only later in life did I discover my love for her.

As a child she wanted nothing to do with dolls. The ones my father brought her, she promptly dismantled. Outside, in the barn, was her world. Catching chicks – even if she sometimes squeezed them too tightly. Oma Lisbet showed her how it should be done.

She was fragile, often fainting, and we siblings were merciless: “She just wants to skip school!” Children can be cruel.

Yet despite her delicacy she was brave. While I came home from school crying because the boys had teased me, she faced danger without flinching. She had internalized Lisbet’s advice: “If boys bother you, scratch, bite, or throw an apple at their head.” And she didn’t just threaten – she acted. One afternoon, the mother of Klaus-Dieter, a rather chubby boy, stood at our door, loudly complaining that Lindi had beaten up her son. My mother, caught somewhere between indignation and amusement, only shrugged: “Well, and what am I supposed to do about it?”

Later in life, many years of silence separated us – not quarrels, just different paths that life had imposed. But now we are connected again. What remains is the memory of a sister who seemed fragile – and yet was braver than I.

“Lindi and I today – sisterhood that endures. With a glass of rosé and the feeling of being reconnected.”

More Women

Of course, these are not all the women in my family. There were others too: aunts, cousins, quiet companions. Some shaped me directly, others only made me reflect later on.

Their stories are only hinted at, and yet they too belong to the chain of women who have touched my life. Some loud, some quiet – each a pearl with her own shimmer.

There was Hildegard (1900–1941), Rosa’s daughter and Omi’s sister-in-law. She died at only forty-one, a year after the birth of her daughter Hiltrud. I know little more. Her photo with her husband looks like a frozen promise that life never kept.

September 1, 1928 – Hildegard with her husband – a young couple, caught in the glow of a moment that passed too quickly.

 

And then Änne (1930), my father’s sister and my godmother. She had my cousin Bernd (1949–1964) out of wedlock – from a relationship with a married man. A scandal and a stigma at that time, for how was a woman with a child ever to find a husband? She did find one – another man – married him, and had six more children (five sons, one daughter). Life was not easy. When I visited her a few years ago, she nevertheless seemed at peace with herself. Perhaps, in the end, that is what matters most.

“Änne – my godmother. Strong, despite all adversity. A life that left its marks, but also found serenity.”

The Legacy

“A garden full of faces, carried by women’s hands.”

One thing unites all the women in my family: they were hardworking, they pitched in, no matter how adverse the circumstances. Only with men – that seemed to be the difficult part across all generations.

Lindi appears to have broken the spell: married for 48 years, to the same man. I wonder from whom she inherited that?

But in the end, we are all part of a longer chain. Our daughters – Lindi’s as well as mine – are already writing their own stories. Perhaps one day they too will speak of secrets, of radiance, of quirks. Each generation adds its own pearl. And the string that connects us remains unbroken.