How Herbert met Theresia

OK folks, we are going back ninety years now! 1923 in Berlin, things are grim. Hyperinflation is raging and common people have little joy, even less to eat. My Dad, being one of eight children and one of the oldest one decides to leave the parental home. For one to reduce the burden on his parents to feed him and secondly to try his luck in the country side to get a decent day's feed for a decent day's work. Out there money was not the going currency , money became worthless by the minute. Good honest hard work in exchange for food, and sometimes clothing, was a more equitable exchange.
He proceeded at a rather slow pace from Berlin southward, eventually ending up in a little village in lower Bavaria called Wemding. It's grown quite a bit since then, if you are keen here is a link to their current website: wemding.de - but currently it is only in German, maybe you can find a translation somewhere.

Massey Furguson eat your heart out!

 

Anyway, Dad arrived there and found it quite a quaint place, plus he met this handsome maiden who was living on the outskirts of Wemding on her ancestral 'estate', well a few acres of farmland. Her father, the sire of 48 children from two wives, was both a farmer and a builder - see, even in those days one had to be multi-tasking and adaptable. Here is a picture how he was tilling his land, the good wife controlling the oxen - she got all the good jobs - he wasn't going to risk getting kicked in the crown jewels.
Dad stayed for quite a few weeks in Wemding, securing day labour jobs,  most times in exchange for lodgings, food and some clothes. It gave him a chance to serenade this handsome maiden - Theresia.
Once he returned to Berlin in late 1923 the two of them kept in 'passionate' contact by mail. It came to bear that the handsome maiden had the hots for the lanky lad and devised a plan to be with him. He had made it quite clear to her that Wemding was nice, but he could only take so much of it. After all, he was a city boy.
Mum, I don't know how, secured a job as a live-in domestic in Wilmersdorf and proceeded to travel there by train in mid-1924. She had written to Dad about this and given him her arrival details. Dutifully, he picked her up and took her to her employment.
Any time Mum got off on the weekends they spend together. As it turned out this was  a rather unsatisfactory arrangement, so my Dad suggested marriage. He was very cautious about it, not believing that the country girl would cherish city live. She did - and with a vengeance! Country life was not for her, she declared and stuck to it for the rest of her life.

Dad, friends and Mum in their 'spacious' livingroom ca. 1933

Well, they married in July 1925 and moved into a small flat in central Berlin, Zorndorfer Strasse 76 to be exact. Here is a picture of their living room - if you can call it that. They had a kitchen, living room and a cupboard for a bedroom - accom wasn't that flash in them days if you had little to no money.
Mum found work at Siemens and Dad worked at Schwarzkopf (not the hair product guys) a heavy machinery builder, then known as Berliner Maschinenbau AG. Over the years he rose to the rank of department manager for the final assembly of rail cars.
Mum found life in Berlin with my Dad sometimes 'challenging'. Dad had a very strong family sense and insisted on either visiting siblings at weekends or have them visit.

The enthusiastic hiker and his 'drag along'

Dad also insisted on annual holidays, which consisted of a trip to the Saechsische Schweiz (Saxony Switzerland). It is about 200 km south-east of Berlin and has, at it's highest, a staggering elevation of 644 m above sea level. Of course mum was always tickled pink about going to the countryside and hiking in the 'mountains'! She could have stayed in Bavaria if that was what she wanted to do.
Dad was also very much engaged in politics, having joined the social democrats (SPD) at an early age. He would attend their weekly meetings,  go the pub on Fridays to debate issues and have like-minded comrades come to his place at the oddest hours.
Dad also insisted on a yearly vacation, taking the form of a rail trip to somewhere south of Berlin where there were some 'mountains' and spending a week in basic lodgings with daily hiking tours being the norm. Here is a picture of an 'over-excited Mum with my Dad on one of those trips in the Saechsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland) www.saechsische-schweiz.de/ - fancy name for some moderate hills (max. 644 m) just under 200 km south-east of Berlin.
Must have been the mountain air, or the trolls, by the next year (1926) my  sister, teacher, tormentor was born. The world would never be the same again!