Thomas' Early Childhood Memories

Dear grandchildren,

I only have a few things to add (left-justified copy) to this excerpt about my father's early childhood years from his book, The Rim of the Volcano.

I unfortunately have no idea about how my parents met, anything about their courtship, or anything about the circumstances of their early years.

I managed to be born the day before my brother Rainer’s fifth birthday. That five-year age difference was huge to begin with, and it stayed with me as hero worship until the day Rainer died in 1996.

Typical of German child rearing methods of the time, all privileges were handed out strictly by age and birth order. The older you are, the more jealous your younger siblings feel - jealous of your privileges and jealous of what you’re sure is more parental affection.

I was brought up in a sheltered and loving home with the help of nannies and servants. Rainer and I shared a bedroom next to the children's playroom, where my mother also had her sewing machine. I remember sitting on the rounded wooden cover of the sewing table, playing with a button box Mother kept. I remember the cook coming in to discuss with my mother the menu for the coming week. There must have been times when I sat on my mother's lap, but I don’t remember them specifically. I know now that close physical contact between mother and child was generally not considered proper in those days, mainly because it might not be hygienic. Disease and superstition were all around, and I can still hear Mother telling me not to wrap a banana peel around my wrist because that would give me a cold, or even polio. The fear of newly discovered bacteria at the time made physical distance between children and adults safer for both. What a high price to pay!

Oddly enough, I do remember sitting on Father’s lap, trying to get away from his cigar smoke. In those days, when I was still a small child, he could still buy what he considered “good” Cuban cigars. Sometimes, while I sat on his lap he’d open the huge Schnorr "Bilderbibel" (picture Bible) from his collection cabinet and tell me stories from the Old Testament -- never the New Testament. The Old Testament is what he knew from his own childhood. Of course, none of this struck me as the least bit odd at the time, in spite of the fact that I was brought up Protestant – definitely an influence from my mother.

One very strange difference between an America childhood and my own is this: before I was ten years old, I do not recall ever being in another child’s house or a friend coming to my house! Can you imagine? I very rarely played with children my age. It was strictly my nanny, my parents, and I, plus tagging along obediently with my big brother and, after 1932, my baby sister. No children my age. This continued from elementary school all the way through high school. I essentially grew up alone - safe from measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, and all those nasty things for which the immunizations were just beginning to be invented.

I must describe some vivid memories of that house!

What I really remember are the images from when I was older, but my impressions didn’t change much over those years. Occasionally there would be a change in wallpaper: the laborers would arrive with their big long tables. First they wallpapered the children's playroom with old newspaper called "Makulatur,” and then they’d add yellow wallpaper with happy fairy-tale figures. What a nice, sunny room it became, even in winter!

We heated our house with coke, a gray, porous leftover from heating coal to extract gas from it. That gas, consisting of a combination of carbon-monoxide and hydrogen, is highly poisonous. In fact, its noxious odor is what still warns us of a gas leak today. Coke was used widely at the time to burn in central heating systems. Of course, during the war it became increasingly more rare, to the point that use of the central heating furnace in the basement became impossible.

My brother, Stephan, the “geekiest” of Dad’s four children, just sent me a text, correcting Dad!

One problem with the lack of central heating was that we no longer had running hot water circulating in the radiators. When that happened, we had to use the instant water heater in the bathroom, even in the winter, for our once-a-week baths. From the time our fuel ran low, to the day I arrived in America, hot running water was a rarely known luxury for me!

When I was less than a year old, I developed eczema all over my body. Mother consulted several doctors and tried all kinds of cures, including taking me to the local coke plant because its fumes were said to cure skin problems. Can you believe it? Of course, it didn’t cure anything in my case. Eventually Mutti took me to an experimental doctor in Dresden who wrapped me in coal tar from head to toes. In a letter to her mother, Adele, my mother Irmgard described the surroundings as “the most primitive ‘clinic’.” She was comparing her own privileged life to the scene at the clinic, where people were struggling to choose between Communists and National Socialists. “One has to give some credit,” she wrote, “to the poor, unhappy, and hateful people whose fate it is to look into such a grim backyard all their lives. Mankind cannot improve until living conditions do. Why did the first tenants in paradise have to become so uppity? Now all the world must suffer!” Nothing punishes you as promptly as hubris!

The tar wraps finally did help “her little black boy,” as she called me (or perhaps I just outgrew the eczema), but it left me with skin problems for life.

Summers in Germany are short, so we spent as much time as possible outside in the yard when the weather cooperated. In one corner of that yard stood a little tree called the Thomas-Bäumchen (the little Thomas tree), an almond tree that was planted by my godfather in the hour I was born on September 25^th, 1928.

That little tree grew up faster than I did!

To get to our house from the street, one first needed a key for the front gate. Then you’d climb a flight of outside steps to the front door, where you’d enter into a tiled "Garderobe" (wardrobe room) where my father would change from his street jacket to his house coat. In this entry, stenciled above the door to the house, was a quote by Philipp Melanchthon that I believe served as a guiding principle for my parents’ marriage and their idea of family: Translated it said “In essentials unity, when in doubt liberty, in everything charity.” So simple - and so difficult!

My most vivid memory of the Garderobe room was that I was not to leave my school pack in there after hanging up my jacket. If I did, Vati would dump everything from the backpack onto the floor. He did that only once, but I do remember!

Yes, our parents did punish us, but it was usually the "guilt" type, rather than the physical kind. "WE don't do that. I am disappointed in you.” "Don't," “No!” and "Stand in the corner!" were said often and clearly. Disobedience and protest on our part were unthinkable. You did as you were told, without question. We were not awarded for good grades, but we did get an allowance, complete with -- and under the condition of -- keeping a complete written record of how we spent it. Debits on the left, credits on the right. And yes, I must admit to my children here - I knew of no different way to raise a child. I must have used the same parenting practices, at least when Michael was little. We all experiment on our first children with our recollection of “the” methods of upbringing!

I vividly remember my father using the “I am so disappointed in you” line with me. I had recently gotten my driver’s license. My parents had gone to Sausalito to spend the weekend on our sailboat and gave me the explicit directions not to use the car unless there was an emergency. Of course, the left the keys with me … in case of said emergency. What did I do? I took the car to go to my friend Terrilyn's house and paint rocks! On the way home, I of course stopped at the gas station to cover up my tracks fill the tank with gas. Upon pulling up to the pump, my foot slipped and I backed right into it, damaging the bumper of the car (but fortunately not the gas pump). When my parents got home the next day, I confessed my crime (there was physical evidence; I pretty much had to!), to which my father responded, calmly… (you guessed it), “I am so disappointed in you!”

I would have preferred a whippin’ (which my parents would never have done)!

I did go on to use this on my own kids a few times…

WHAT?! It’s extremely effective! Thanks, Opa Carl!