Family Stories: my father's eary years

This post is not so much to necessarily tell my father's life story - I don't really know enough to do that - but to write down the little stories and anecdotes I have picked up over the years. Maybe they'll build up a bit of a picture of what my kids' grandfather's life was like, who he was, and what shaped him. I've already written about his parents, as far as I know about them.

Young Robert

Robert grew up in Vienna, the first son and an only child until he was 11 when his sister came along unexpected, and unwanted (at least as far as their mother was concerned - she told me she had really wanted to abort, but didn't tell me what stopped her; perhaps my grandfather did). His father Ludwig and his mother Hedwig had stable jobs, and so his early life was certainly very safe and, on the outside at least, reasonably comfortable. That said, his mother was overbearing to the extreme and he remained, resentfully and seethingly, under her every whim for the rest of his life. I never managed to get much of an insight into the relationship his parents had to one another, although my grandmother certainly did make clear that she loved her husband very much and that he was a womaniser. Whether he stood up to her overbearing manner or just avoided her or went along, I just don't know. 

Robert was a deep thinking youngster who also loved Elvis, and would have loved to study philosophy - his favourite philosopher was always Wittgenstein - but there was no way his mother would allow this. He needed to get a "real" job, one that would mean he was financially secure. He became a technician of some sort, later in IT support (as far as that went, in the latter half of the 20th century) - a profession that meant he hated every minute of his working life - and helped to build the first and only nuclear power station in Austria, in Zwentendorf. This power station was built very much against public resistance, which kept growing throughout the project, until when it was ready to be opened, chancellor Kreisky had to bow to public demand and announce a referendum. The outcome of this yes/no vote, just under 50.46% against the power plant, meant it was never opened. As my father saw it, Austria became the laughing stock of Europe for building a nuclear power plant just to dismantle it again. After this he began working in Seibersdorf laboratories, where he continued until his early retirement on "health grounds" - more on this when I write about my own early years. Suffice to say that they couldn't fire him because of his lengthy years of service, but at one point officially asked him to drink no more than 4(!!) glasses of wine while on duty...

First marriage

Robert & Renate

His first wife was named Renate, and that's about all I know about her. I believe, but can't remember clearly, that she left him for another man before they had any children; this may have been related to his alcoholism, which was growing throughout his adult years, or simply his personality.

Relationship with my mother

My father was 6 years younger than my mother; he was 33 when they married because she was pregnant with me. The way my mother spoke to me about their relationship I was under the impression that they had no relationship as such, but that a drunken night led to my conception (which is why my mother never drank again; it wrecked her life) - but in recent years, speaking with people who were her close friends prior to my birth, this seems not to be quite true. They did have a relationship, possibly for a few months, before the pregnancy. I don't believe for a moment that my mother was serious about him - she was perhaps somewhat desperate to prove to herself that she was not a repellent to men, as the two men she had loved before had both come out as homosexual and ended the relationship. More about that in the write-up about my mother, of course. 

Left front: Renate; 
at the back: my mother
They were all part of the same friendship group of accordion musicians

Robert could never be on his own. If my mother wasn't the next relationship after Renate, there may have been others, but I'm fuzzy on the timeline - but one thing he never was, was single. And if my mother was willing, he would be as well: he was never choosy if a woman was available. But that didn't mean he wanted to be with her and father children! So when she turned up pregnant, he was desperate to convince her to abort. As was his mother, and my mother's family as well: but because my mother was already 39, she felt this was her one and only opportunity to become a mother, and she would not terminate. This meant that both of them came under tremendous pressure from their families, and surely from society at large in the late 1970's, to do the decent thing and marry. And so in August of 1980, they married in a civil ceremony and I was born in October.