Self Discovery – Ingrid Petty

Katharina’s Story – Chapter 22: Roland Returns

Roland returned from America in 1954, two years after he and his family left. At some point we had renewed our “pen-pal relationship” and I learned that he was lucky enough to have drawn a tour of duty in Germany. He was to be stationed in Aschaffenburg, located about thirty kilometers southeast of Frankfurt. IContinue reading “Katharina’s Story – Chapter 22: Roland Returns”

Katharina’s Story-Chapter 19: At Odds

Here was the time in my life when my teenage attitudes started to get me into trouble. I had always been a bit bull-headed, and the tiniest bit of a black sheep. I had the idea that when I graduated, I would be running off to America to join Roland (which I did eventually do,Continue reading “Katharina’s Story-Chapter 19: At Odds”

Katharina’s Story – Chapter 18: Roland

I was sixteen when I met Roland, in the summer of 1951. Our school celebrated its 350th anniversary, and this event included several days of sports and recreational activities for the students. A special train excursion for the upper classes to the cavern in the Sauerland was part of it. This train, the Samba-Zug, featuredContinue reading “Katharina’s Story – Chapter 18: Roland”

Katharina’s Story: Chapter 17 – Growing Pains

Altenstadt. Being a small village there was little offered in the way of entertainment; there was sort of an improvised movie house, upstairs in an older building, with rows of plain chairs. Once a year there was the Kerb, short for Kirmis in the Hessian dialect. The Kerb had initially been, as I had beenContinue reading “Katharina’s Story: Chapter 17 – Growing Pains”

Katharina’s Story: Chapter 16 – Wanderings

I have always been curious about the world around me. Rarely was I intimidated, and if I was, I forged ahead anyway, just to see what might happen. I was eager to learn about anything and everything. I tried to take charge of my environment; succeeding I think, but at the time of the challenge,Continue reading “Katharina’s Story: Chapter 16 – Wanderings”

Chapter 3 – The Podack Women in Conflict

…Nora became familiar with her mother-in-law’s shape; sort of a hollowed back, wide hips, sloping shoulders and the forever corseted middle… Hedwig Clara Hedwig Packhäuser was born early in 1890, on a farm in Pravten, a rural village to the North and East of Königsberg, that capital of East Prussia. She was probably the second-bornContinue reading “Chapter 3 – The Podack Women in Conflict”