The last leg of our trip through Germany brought us to: Munich to celebrate Oktoberfest; Weinheim to find the house and explore the town Bill’s mom, Margareta, grew up in; Heidelberg to see a castle and the oldest university in Germany; and Frankfurt where we stayed for one day before flying to India.
Munich
The primary focus of our trip to Munich was to experience Oktoberfest. We learned that Munich was where the original celebration began around 200 years ago. Here’s the description we read in the handout from our hotel. “On 12 October 1810, a great horse race took place in honor of the wedding of King Ludwig and Prince Therese on a meadow outside of Munich’s city walls. Since then, the ground is called Theresienwiese, which led to the Bavarian name “Wiesn” for the Oktoberfest.” The fairgrounds that it takes place on is reminiscent of a state fair…but with gigantic beer halls where the main festivities take place.
Mannheim
After Munich, we set off to visit the hometown of Bill’s mom, Margareta. We stayed in Mannheim, and then took a short tram ride to Weinheim, in search of Margareta’s childhood home. What we didn’t expect was to find family still there; but that’s exactly what happened! And what a wonderful, magical time we had.
We took some photos and were looking around the back buildings. An older man was looking out a balcony a few houses down on the opposite side of the street and Bill tried to ask if he knew the Randolls who lived in the house at Untergasse 23. The man didn’t speak English but tried to tell us something that we couldn’t understand. Then two people came walking down the street and Bill asked if they spoke English. The woman said she did “a little.” We managed to find out that the woman who lived in the house used to have the last name of Randoll, and she was 88!
We tried ringing the bell, and we heard someone stirring in the house, but no one came out. After waiting a little while, the man in the balcony said something else and we understood that he was going to try to call her, as we could hear a phone ringing. There was apparently no answer and he said something to the effect that we should go get some coffee and come back in a little bit to try again; so, we did.
After looking for a restaurant that served breakfast, we asked a man on a walk with his child who told us which direction to go. We ended up walking about a mile to the old town center where there are shops and restaurants and a Saturday market. We ate a huge meal for brunch at a restaurant next to the market (and Maria had a piece of cake, as it was her birthday).
When we got back to the house, we happened to see an older woman in the yard of the house. Bill started to talk to her, and we told her that his mom was born there in 1925. She immediately began to tear up and said something about Margareta and that he (Bill) looked just like her – and we hadn’t even said his mom’s name yet. She said she was very fond of Margareta – she called her “Maik” (which is pronounced like “Mike”) – very well. Right away, she invited us to come into her house. It turned out that she lived in the back house; not the front one (to which we would have knocked on the door and never met her). It was a wonderful coincidence that she was outside. We asked her name and she said Ingeborg (Inge).
She brought us upstairs to her living room and we were trying to talk even though we couldn’t understand too much of what each other were saying. She called someone on the phone to tell them that Maik’s son was there. Then we found out that of her three daughters, one lived in Canada, one in another part of Germany, and one lived in Weinheim – who was apparently going to come over and help translate. We did the best we could to understand each other in the meantime. It was obvious that Inge was thrilled we were there and loved Maik very much. She asked if Maik was still alive and was very sad to hear that she had died.
A short while later we were joined by her daughter, Jutta, and granddaughter, Talisa. We all sat down and started to have an extended conversation. Inge talked about how Maik was so kind and nice and that everyone loved her dearly. We heard that there were eight siblings in all, and they all lived in the three-room house next door. Some of the siblings were Margareta’s half siblings, as her mother had died and her father, Karl, had remarried and had more children.
Through the conversation, we came to understand that Wilhelm, who was Margareta’s half-brother, is Inge’s father. So that makes her the niece of Margareta. We also heard that their father, Karl, was a very stern man; that Margareta and Wilhelm were very much alike and were very close; and that the sister, Analisa (Aunt Ann who lived in El Paso) was not like Margareta at all and no one liked her much. She reinforced this many times for some reason. She also said that Aunt Ann wanted Maik to pay money to fix up the house in El Paso, and when she couldn’t do it due to lack of money, Ann made her move. Inge told us that all of Margareta’s siblings have died.
Inge told us that her house that we were in used to be land where the Randoll family had a farm and some horses. She also said that under the house was a wine cellar, and until they died it was still owned by Wilhelm and his wife; but now it is owned by someone else who has fixed it up some.
Bill told various stories that his mom had told him about Germany and Inge was able to verify all of them. When Bill asked her if she went dancing with his mom, Inge said she was only 12 when they would go dancing and couldn’t join in. We found out that Wilhelm was a great dancer and danced all the time; he may have even won an award for dancing.
Inge told stories about how Maik was very hard-working and a time when she had a job to deliver bread to a restaurant at the train station. He asked about when they took their grandfather to a cave in the mountain, and she said yes, they went to a bunker on the hill. But Inge only went once because she didn’t like it there and it was very stinky! Bill also said his mom had told him that they once helped some Jewish neighbors during the war, and Inge said that they hid them in a shoe shop that one of the family members owned.
Bill said his mom had also told him that there were a lot of gypsies around and they verified that Inge’s father, Wilhelm, had a lot of “Roma” friends. They said some Roma friends had scrapyards and some were in the circus. They told about one Roma friend of Wilhelm’s that was supposedly poor. Wilhelm helped him as much as he could financially, only to find out after the friend died that he had $100,000 in the bank!
Inge also talked about how they were very poor and how hard it was after the war had ended; that they had nothing, including no food to eat. She told of one time when she had to go down the street and steal some potatoes from someone’s yard just to have food. She also said they had gone down to the train station where there was a broken car and they were able to scavenge some pasta noodles to take home and cook.
All told, we were there for about five hours. During that time, we also found out that Talisa rode horses in competitions (jumping and dressage) all over Germany, and her family had horses and other animals in a house a few blocks away.
At one point, Paxton was getting a bit antsy (as 9-year-olds are apt to do), so Talisa took him over to meet all the animals. We were able to get Inge’s recipe for the German Potato Salad she said Maik loved (it has mustard instead of vinegar). Later in the visit, Paxton went on an errand with Jutta. We later got to walk to Jutta and Talisa’s home and see all their animals too, as well as meet her husband.
It was such a wonderful visit and so special to be able to meet cousins in person. We will treasure this as the best part of our world-wide trip.
Heidelberg
The day after our visit to Weinheim, we went to Heidelberg, which we read was mostly spared from the bombings during WWII. Not only is there a beautiful castle there, but Germany’s oldest university.
Frankfurt
Our time in Frankfurt was very short; just a day and a half before we flew to India. It was hampered by Maria getting sick, but we managed to walk to the center of the old town where the historical buildings still stand.
