I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last entry here. I would like to think it is the holidays but there are all sorts of other things that typically sneak in and confound my writing. More things than I like to think about….
It is perhaps time to tell some of your family history. The photo that you see here is of your great grandfather, Hugo, your grandfather Hugo in the middle and me, your father, Hugh -- the goofy-grinned kid (in his favorite sailor outfit) in front: three generations of Schulze.
Your great grandfather came to the United States in the late 1920s just after the Great Depression began. Before that time, he had been a waiter working in restaurants in the south of Europe during the winter months, and then heading north to work when the weather was cooler in the summer.
The story goes that while working at a hotel restaurant in Switzerland, he and a friend were approached with an opportunity to go to New York City. They did -- and there are stories I could tell some time of there arrival in the U.S.
But before we leave Europe, we should talk about how he had left home when he was just a teenager. His mother had remarried (I'm not sure if his biological father died or if his mother had divorced him) and he did not get along well with his stepfather. When he was not quite 18 he was conscripted into the German army to enter World War I.
From the documents I've seen, he worked a machine gun on the Western Front -- one of the most bloody theaters of the war, fighting IN France on the side of the Germans. But because he was younger, he came into the war in 1917 when the war was winding down.
It was an ugly war -- where chlorine gas was used and scarred the lungs of those who did not die from it. The trench warfare was something I can only imagine (and is stunningly described in the novel Birdy, where men tunneled underground in close quarters in total, claustrophobic darkness.
One of the only stories he told my father about that war time was the end of the war….
When a cease fire was announced, all of the soldiers got up from their positions, turned around and walked home. Somewhere along the walk back to Munich (or perhaps Passau, where his sister would ultimately come to live at the confluence of three rivers), he traded his sidearm, a Luger, with a farmer for a night's lodging and food. (I always assumed this was the reason my own father (your grandfather) was so fascinated with guns.)
After the war, he became a waiter -- and eventually his travels would take him from Switzerland (most likely in German-speaking, Zurich) to New York City where he would meet my grandmother.
My grandmother, your great grandmother, was also an immigrant from Scotland who worked as a maid. After they met and were married, your great grandparents had your grandfather in New York.
This was the mid 1930's when Detroit was the fifth most populous city in the United States -- home of the booming auto industry, and your grandfather LOVED cars. [But because he was an adult during the Great Depression, he bought NOTHING on credit: not his car, not his ultimate home. He saved and bought everything in cash.]
Your great grandfather came to Detroit and became Head Waiter at one of the most prominent restaurants in downtown Detroit (I believe it was the Pontchatrain) where the auto executives would come to magnificent lunches.
Your great grandfather (on your grandfather's side) died when I was six or seven. I remember the morning my mother received the call: she had me run out to stop my father who was getting in his car to go to work. It was very sudden, a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
This year, 2013, just before your grandfather died, I asked him about his life with his father, your great grandfather. Because he worked as a waiter most nights, he came home at three or four in the morning. Apparently, my grandmother would be up to welcome home and cook him breakfast before he went to bed.
When my father and his brother would wake up, she would make them breakfast and send them on to school while your great grandfather slept. Of course, it wasn't always like that and they spent time with their father and mother too. Your great grandmother and great grandmother loved going for rides in the country; they loved the fresh air.
In the early 2000s, my father -- your grandfather -- received a call that the last remaining relative in Germany had died and that he and his brother (your great uncle) had inherited an small amount of money.
Being the child of immigrants, I don't think either one of my parents, your grandfather or grandmother (whose parents were from Ireland) had any nostalgia or interest in Europe. For their parents, it had been a place to get AWAY from and both of them had lived low-to-middle income lives. (In your grandmother's case, they were Irish poor, a whole 'nother story.)
I say all of this because I happened to be traveling through Europe at the time and took a train to Passau, where the lawyer handling the affairs of the estate eyed me very cautiously. I was taken to my great aunt's house where the few remains were there.
The grass in the side lot was very tall and it was a beautiful home where you could see a sliver of the Windorf-Passau river below. As I walked through the side lot, my pant leg was roughly scratched by a bush. When I bent down, I realized the bush was full of raspberries.
It is hard to describe how I felt lifting one of these raspberries to my lips and tasting it. You see, when I was very young, I remember your great grandfather growing raspberries in his backyard too.
I would learn after I went into the house and found a box of photos and letters that my grandfather, your great grandfather, had kept in touch with his sister who he dearly loved in all the years he was traveling across Europe, and to New York. They managed to stay in touch off and on through the war years -- and I learned later he sent her money after the war.
And in the bottom of one of the boxes in that house, below layers of summer vacation photographs and postcards, photos from the First World War -- when someone in the family (his stepfather perhaps) was an eye surgeon and was shown with regiments of bandaged men -- through photos of some family member who played clarinet for Goebbels, to some of the first color photographs showing meaty, older German women beside bright pink and red bougainvillea…. I found a black and white picture of me, in a cable knit sweater.
I am holding the little plastic bucket I used to gather raspberries in, staring a little bit surprised (as if I've been interrupted in my berry harvest) -- and on the back of the photo written in what little German I can still read are the words written in my grandfather's hand in pencil: My first grand son.
That is (more than) enough for now. I'll return to tell a few more stories about your great grandmother, about your grandfather, and your grandmother too.
