Posted by BDMHistorian

Chapter 11
Family Stories

Hardly anyone had noticed in the woods that the sun had set and the sky had grown darker. There was so much to see and talk about. There were flowers nobody knew, a fox den, a huge ant hill, and foresters who were cutting down a tree. Only at the edge of the woods they saw that a blue-black sky stood over the moor, which looked quite suspiciously like there was going to be a downpour. "Let's go, quick time!" Kathrin said. "Who runs the fastest might make it to the house dry."

What? It was not even five minutes to the youth hostel! But Christel nodded understandingly. She'd once visited Grunewald with her parents, at Krummen Lanke. When they'd gotten out of the subway, it hadn't rained -- not even a single drop. It had only been four minutes to the restaurant. That's what the sign at the station said. "And suddenly, it started! You can't even imagine how bad it was. You know, it ..."

But Christel didn't get any further because now it started in real life, and the Heidersdorf rain was guaranteed to be just as thick as the Berlin rain. "You don't need to tell us the rest, we know," Irm laughed when she started to run along the path, through the grey wet curtain that suddenly covered the forest and the youth hostel so that you could barely see anything.

The den mother clapped her hands over her head when she saw the wild hunt tearing into the hostel. Water ran from hair, arms and skirts and formed small puddles on the stone floor under the overhanging roof. "Devil, devil!" Kathrin said and shook the water off herself. She always said that when something appeared half serious and half funny to her. "Now we'll need to hang all the Jungmaedel onto the laundry line until tomorrow morning." But everyone else didn't think this was a very good idea and they agreed that only their wet things should hang on the clothing line under the roof, and their shoes, stuffed with newspaper, should stand in the kitchen to dry. The Jungmaedel themselves were to put on their sweat suits and come down into the day room. "Make sure to towel your hair dry," Kathrin called after them. "And hurry up! We'll sit and tell our family histories!"

Irm got a bit of a fright. She hadn't thought about this at all. There was a specific to do about family stories. After Inge's nice ghost story from the other day, they'd been reading more and more from the Heidersdorf palace chronicle. There were many nice stories in there. Some that were funny but also really serious ones. Some about brave men and intelligent women from the von Halden family.

"Such a duke has it well," someone said back then, "at least there's interesting stuff going on in the family." -- "There's lots to tell about your families," Kathrin had said then. At first they'd thought Kathrin was kidding, but she was serious. And then they'd agreed that they'd take one afternoon to tell stories about their families.

But Irm had forgotten all about that, and now she couldn't think of anything. While she towel-dried her hair and re-braided her hair, she thought. What was there to tell? Aunt Agathe and uncle Helmut weren't interesting at all, and there wasn't much to tell about the grandparents either. Well, and the cousins? Irm sighed. What boring relatives she had!

Most of the others didn't fare any better. Only a few were among them who were laughing happily, they already knew what they would tell. Interestingly enough, among them was Lotte Peters who was normally so quiet that you didn't notice her at all. Her parents had a farm in the Lueneburger Heide, and Lotte lived in Berlin with her aunt to attend school there.

Downstairs in the day room, Liese had meanwhile put a fire in the fireplace. The birch wood crackled, and sometimes whole groups of sparks flew out at them. It was beginning to get really comfortably warm already, and the Jungmaedel sat around the fire in a semi-circle. Now they could get started, it was just right for telling stories, thought Irm.

There were a lot more great stories than Irm had expected. A whole parade of old gentlemen and ladies passed along, with dignified long beards and pompadours, and clattering knitting needles. About nearly all of them, they were laughing, but in a way that they were still well liked, that they were a part of oneself, and that one generally was even a little proud of them.

There was Ellie's great-aunt Sophie, who was a right old maid and extremely suspicious and always expected the worst of people. One day, she was visiting Ellie's grandparents. They were having dove for lunch and Ellie's grandmother, who knew aunt Sophie well, found the largest and fattest dove and put it onto the old lady's plate. Silently, aunt Sophie reached for knife and fork and started to work on the bird.

Suddenly, her face lit up -- yes, aunt Sophie was actually smiling. "Dear Amalie," she said to grandmother's horror to the whole table, "You thought that was an old one -- but it's an especially nice, young, tender..." Yes, that was aunt Sophie...

Or the stories about Inge's grandparents, who were on their first trip to the Harz mountains. It was said to be so nice there and after all, they could afford it. There was no shortage of money.

So the grand journey was undertaken in Sunday best, with umbrellas, travel bags and many lunch sandwiches. The next day, around quitting time, the neighbors came to ask how the old grandparents liked their journey to the Harz. Grandmother liked pretty much everything -- Harzburg, the castle mountain, the restaurant where they'd had coffee.

But grandfather shook his head: "That's what it is," he said. "That we've spent so much money on this. If I'd sat outside my door and watched Schulten's Christian work, that'd have given me much more pleasure than this trip." -- And grandfather had not gone on a trip since.

Lastly, it was Lotte Peter's turn to tell a story. "But it's nothing to laugh about," she said. "Our farm is in the Lueneburger Heide. It looks just like the farm houses in lower Saxony always look in the pictures. Except it no longer has a straw roof. Two years ago, father replaced that with a tile roof. He said it's more practical and also looks nice.

When they redid the roof, they also redid the spackling on the building. In the process of that, they realized there was something written on the large beam above the main door. The writing had been painted over, so nobody had noticed it before. The letters were really fancy. But dad could read it anyway. It was a saying that was carved there, "Gott die Triuwe, aller Werlte Trutz." Dad said it means, "Be true to God, no matter what the rest of the world says." He said that fits well to old Bernd Peters.

Bernd Peters is our oldest known relative. His name is first on the family tree that hangs in our living room. It was him who built the farm in the first place. And then dad told us the story of Bernd Peters.

He'd lived during the time of the Thirty Years war and had been a captain to one of the many dukes that existed in Germany back then. One day, they were told the Swedes were coming. So the duke called Peters to him and said, "I know that you're a brave and courageous man. Therefore, I'm ordering you and fifty men to guard the road that leads through the moor and not let any enemy pass. It's for the Kaiser and country. Do you understand, Bernd Peters?"

The captain shook the hand of the duke that was offered in an almost surprised way. Why would he speak about things that go without saying? -- For three days, Bernd Peters held the road with his men against the Swedes. It was not too difficult because to the right and left of the road were swamps and the Swedes did not know the area.

Then, in the third night, came a messenger from the duke, ordering him to clear the road. The duke had negotiated a peace with the Swedes. Bernd Peters remembered the words, "for Kaiser and country" and thought this was a trick. In the middle of the night, he rode through the forest to the city to get the real orders.

There he was told that a peace he really been brokered, and that the duke was not to be disturbed because he was holding a banquet in honor of the Swedish negotiator. The citizens sat in the bars and were celebrating as well, because their land was now free of worries and war.

"What about the Kaiser? What about the country?" asked the captain. Then they shrugged and said, "The Kaiser's far away. And the country? Where's that? It exists only in the minds of idiots and big children. The country is dead. Everyone should see that he survives himself!"

So the captain rode back and in the morning, his men gave up the road and let the Swedes pass.

But Bernd Peters put in his resignation to his duke the same night. The document is still in the archive in Osnabruck today. In it he wrote that he followed orders like he was required to as an officer. Then he asked to be relieved of his duty: ... "because I have sworn an oath to the Kaiser and the country, and such an oath cannot be broken without compromising my honor."

That was the end of the document. We all know it by heart because we're so proud of our ancestor Bernd. Then he moved to the Lueneburger Heide. There was only heath and moor back then, and if someone wanted to settle there, he was welcome to. Nobody asked where he'd come from or who he was.

There, Bernd peters built our farm. It's still there today and the family still lives there today. For three hundred years, the farm was given from father to sun. And the inheritor's last name was always Bernd. My big brother, too. It can't be any other way."

Proudly and seriously, Lotte stood in front of the fireplace. The fire lit up her face and her bright hair, and she had such a defiant look on her face that you could well imagine Bernd Peters had looked the same way.

"That was very nice," Kathrin said and nodded to Lotte. "Thank you very much." She'd not said this to anyone else, but nobody else had told such a great story, either. It was quite alright this way.

"There's so much going on with the family," Irm said when she walked next to Christel to the dining room for dinner. "When I get back home, I'll ask Mom about everything. Strange that I never thought of this myself!" But Christel was hardly listening. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts. "I want to draw Bernd Peters, standing in front of the citizens," she said and reached for the pocket of her sweat suit. Her colored pencils were clattering inside.