I got a call tonight that just crumbled me. Our friend, Reinhard was on the line, from his lovely home near Reno, NV, to tell me that his beloved wife, Margarethe, had died in October after battling cancer for more than a year. He’d received our ‘seasonal’ card – the one we never manage to get out before Christmas – and wanted to let me know the news. I was crushed as I heard his voice, struggling not to break, as he told me of the passing of his wife of more than fifty years.
Reinhard and Margarethe were once strangers in this country. They had met at a tuberculosis sanitorium in Germany; he from the former East Germany – as a youth he had been forced into the Hitler Youth movement – and she from the Black Forest. She had tales of going outside with her mother to bury the dead English soldiers on their property; stories of what the second world war was like as a child and youth – a terrible time. Together they had decided to make a new life in America. Reinhard was a chemist and worked for Dow and other large chemical companies; Margarethe was a bookeeper and met my mother at the real estate agency they both worked at. The social connections grew; my father – son of two Orthodox Jewish immigrants – quickly developed a close friendship with Reinhard and Margarethe.
As a child and a teen, I found them fascinating. Margarethe taught me how to make gooseberry and currant jam and homemade spaetzle; Reinhard taught me how to decorate a Christmas tree with real candles, which they carefully lit. And then I would listen to my father and both of them sing “Stille Nacht” in German, as the tree sparkled with magic. We’d sit down to a supper of homemade baked beans (New York-style, as my mother made them) and German sausages and later, enjoy shots of homemade bootleg brandy (made by my mother’s uncle in a copper still during prohibition) to chase the food down.
When I married, I introduced my husband and my children to our friends, and some years ago, we took my mother on her final airplane trip, out to Nevada for a lovely German Thanksgiving in the mountains. It was smashing.
And now, Margarethe is gone, leaving me with these memories and all of us with the footprint of her life, well-lived, in America. Reinhard and Margarethe came to this country for a better life – in search of stability, democracy, opportunity. They received it, were sponsored into American citizenship by my parents, and have loved and supported this country. Their story, of course, is one that has been – and hopefully will be – repeated, over and over again. I say this, while knowing that the new American President is busy building a wall that we are all going to pay for – not just in money but in so many other devastating ways.
Margarethe lived a life of love, of generosity, of friendship. She embodied the warmth that one hopes will come of any friendship. She shared generously of her life, her culture, her perspectives which enriched my own. I loved her. Tonight I just might pour a small glass of some clear liqueur and raise it to her memory, and to Reinhard, her beloved husband. Downstairs in my pantry there is still a jar of Kiwi and orange jam that Margarethe made…a jar I had been holding on to, waiting for some really special occasion. Maybe that time is here. Maybe tomorrow I’ll open it up, and remember her sparkling smile, her warmth, her friendship – the second mother I always adored. It’s a legacy that will live on in blessed memory.