Family Stories: my mother's early years

I've already written a bit about my mother's childhood - she was born in 1941, during the war, and her childhood was defined by poverty. When her misogynist, Nazi father returned from captivity in Russia in the late 1940's, the family's financial situation improved but she always felt that her gender was a liability. Her father didn't see why a daughter should be educated, and basically expected subservience and household management from the women around him.

Rebellion against this came to define her life. My memories of her are that she very much considered all houshold duties beneath her, she wouldn't cook or clean or keep house. Her whole sense of identity and worth was found in her music, the work she did outside the home. We grew up in filth, especially in the later years when my father was no longer around to keep the home somewhat clean; and I grew up eating nothing but packaged food, which may be why I had gallstones at age 16.

I have no stories of her teens, but she graduated A Levels from high school and then went on to study music - eventually in Klingenthal, Germany. One story I remember from this: their orchestra director had the ability to turn his feet backwards. As in, his toes would point completely back and the outsides of his feet would meet. He would amuse the orchestra by standing at the front, directing, facing them, while his feet faced the audience!

Accordion Orchestra

Legendary driving skills

My mother's driving skills are the stuff of legend - as in, legendarily terrible. She was always calm, but would drive like she was the only person on the road. Her driving skills were exactly the opposite of her brother's, Helmut, who actually drove (and won) 24-hour ralleys: she would go slow, but badly! When Helmut helped her move to Vienna after her studies in Germany, he reports he wasn't able to keep up with her as they entered Vienna: why not? Because he would actually stop at red lights....

Then there's the story of how she once missed that the road turned sharp left and carried on straight, following a footpath into a field. The footpath then went under a railway, and because the footpath was designed for pedestrians, it wasn't wide enough for her car - she went in, but got stuck. The car wouldn't go forward or back, and there was no way she could get out of it either (it wasn't a hatchback). As this was in the middle of a field, and before mobile phones, she simply had to wait until after a few hours a walker came by and called the fire brigade to pull her out.

Terrible choices in love

Her first (and probably only) true love was Erich, a fellow accordion musician. They were together for years and began to plan their wedding, until with mere days (possibly a couple of weeks) to go before the wedding, he confessed that he was actually gay and had been in a homosexual relationship with a mutual friend for several months. This broke her heart, but she agreed to remain friends - as in any case they were part of the same friendship group of musicians, there was probably little choice in that. 

With Erich

Some time after Erich, she fell in love again, this time with Tibor. He was an accordion musician as well, though from Slovakia, but through his frequent visits he became part of their group. There, he met Erich... and once again, she lost a lover to homosexuality. This must have dealt her confidence terrible blows - to find that the men she loved not only left her, but left women altogether! I remember her wondering out loud what it might have been she did wrong to "turn" them gay.

My father had been part of their musician group for years, but he had been married to Renate. When Renate left him, my mother was single and he took his opportunity as her confidence was at a terrible low. She may have felt that at least he wouldn't "turn" - as she well knew, he grabbed every opportunity to be with a woman that he could get. This never changed, of course, throughout their marriage and she was well aware of that. I can only imagine she sold herself this short because of how low her confidence was at the time.

With my father. Her body language was quite clear...