[This is the second
installment of three in the collection of correspondence from my father to my
mother in the month he was alone in Germany while waiting for my mom to join
him. You’ll read about the swirl of activity,
the preparation for the change in my family’s lifestyle plus the introduction
of Dad’s new responsibilities and obligations. This section of the
three-part series covers the second week of Dad’s new adventure. (I’ve also included here the translations of
the two local newspaper articles that introduced my father to the citizens of
Koblenz and the Rhineland-Palatinate.).]
My darling,
No letter from you this morning so I
am a little disgruntled. You spoiled me
the last few days by providing one each day.
There was one from Doug (a carbon) which had all the warmth and charm of
his personality. I could just picture
him as he was writing it. I am sure that
he is devouring his school experience at his point.
I had my first official meeting with
the Oberbuergermeister this morning and of course it was very formal, proper
and each of us said the required things.
He is fairly new at the job and appears to be well thought of in the
city. I am sure we will both see more of
him during the next three years.
It occurs to me that this being the beginning of the month, there will be bills arriving at home. I don’t intend that these should be paid by
you out of the funds left for you.
Forward them on to me and I will pay them all.
I have taken some pictures of the
house, but I’m not sure they will be very satisfactory. There are a couple of trees in the front that
tend to block the view, and in the back, the yard is so small that I couldn’t
get far enough back to get a shot. There
are fences separating us from the adjoining houses, and it would have meant
climbing a fence and getting into a neighbor’s flower bed—not [a] very good way
of meeting them. I still have about
seven or eight exposures on the roll, and as soon as I can use these up I will have
it developed and send you the pictures.
Still no word from Rick—I envy you your visit to him this coming weekend
G
* *
* *
Thursday,
Oct. 4, 1962
My dearest,
Again no letter from you this
morning. My day doesn’t start out very
well if I have no mail from home, especially from you. I suppose you must be up to your ears in all
sorts of transactions and details. By
the way I am somewhat amused by the sudden interest of B. Nicholls. You know, I listed the house with him way
back last summer when we first decided to list it with other than Sophia. He was actually the first outside agent to
have it.
A few things of interest . . . . the
shoes worn by German men have points as narrow as those worn by Italian
women. They even go in for highly styled
colors such as beige, gray, green, etc.
[Q]uite unattractive. On the
whole I don’t think it can be said that the Germans have a great sense of chic
or style in anything—clothes, furniture or decorative arts.
In Koblenz there are bottlers for
Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Canada Dry and a domestic bottler named Ass-Brunnen. They put up a series of bottled beverages
such as orange soda, and they are generally referred to as Ass. So when you ask for a little Ass in Koblenz,
you are apt to get a bottle of soda and a glass—not what you would normally
expect in the States. [Ass
is the German for ‘ace’; Ass-Brunnen literally means “ace fountain.” (This is like the French soft drink Pschitt:
it’s named for the sound the bottle makes when it’s opened, but to English-speaking
ears, it sounds an awful lot like ‘shit,’ to the amusement of Americans, Brits,
and Aussies!)]
I neglected to bring with me the
copy of the contract with Girard Trust Corn Exchange Bank of Philadelphia
providing for the monthly payments of Doug’s tuition. The first payment is due this month and since
I am not sure of the correct amount I sent a check for what I recall the amount
to be and asked that they notify me if it is wrong. If you should see the envelope from this bank
lying around conveniently, please forward it to me.
Speaking of banks, the deposit I
made for you of $1,000. before I left was acknowledged to me here—I assume you
credited it to your account. I am
sending you the deposit slip for your information. [It was
enclosed with the letter. $1000 in 1962 would be worth about $8000
today.]
If my timing is correct, you should
receive this letter right after you return from visiting Princeton for the
weekend. [I was in boarding school in Princeton, NJ.] I hope everything is as well with Rick as it
appeared to be when I left. I still have
had no letter from him. Here are copies
of the newspaper articles which appeared over the weekend concerning my
arrival—how good is your Deutsch. [The two clippings were enclosed with the
letter: “Eugene K***** leitet AH Koblenz,” Rhein-Post (Koblenz) 29 Sept. 1962;
“Amerika-Haus hat einen neuen Direktor,” Rhein-Zeitung (Koblenz) 29/30 Sept. 1962.]
By the way, as a result of this
article I received a letter yesterday from a German who described an incident
which took place a year and half ago in which he was involved in a fight with
some American soldiers. The soldiers
were arrested, turned over to the M.P.’s and properly tried and punished. He claims, however, that he suffered the loss
of 400 marks ($100) in various unspecified damages. He has tried unsuccessfully to get this money
and he asks me to help him. If I don’t
help him he threatens to write to the newspapers in the Soviet Zone [i.e., East
Germany] and tell them what liars we are in telling of the friendship of
Germany and the U.S. and how the NATO agreement is a partnership etc. At the very end he tells me to please contact
his wife, since he is at present in jail for some totally different offense.
I miss you tremendously and I love
you even more—
G
P.S. Congratulations on the Kreeger
deal. [I don’t know what this refers to.
My parents did know David Lloyd Kreeger, Washington philanthropist and art
collector, but I don’t know into what “deal” they might have entered in 1962.]
* *
* *
[Below
are translations of the two newspaper articles that covered my dad’s arrival
in Koblenz.]
Rhein-Post [Koblenz] Saturday, 29 Sept.
1962: “The Koblenzer Page: Eugene K***** heads A[merika] H[aus] Koblenz: He was
introduced yesterday — First post in the diplomatic service.”
koblenz
– “I am pleased to be in Koblenz because I know that here the city and the
people have a good relationship with the Amerika Haus,” explained Eugene
K*****, who has just undertaken the leadership of the Amerika Haus Koblenz and
the German-American Library in Trier.
In the next weeks, the new head will
make himself familiar with the situation and improve his German language skills
somewhat. On the basis of his personal
interests, he will expand the AH program without altering it in principle. “It won’t be easy for me because my
predecessor, Rosinus, did such a good job.”
Eugene K***** was born in New York, [and]
studied at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he
graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the School of Journalism. Afterwards he worked as a reporter for
newspapers in New Jersey and Virginia.
During the war, he served in the American army and was assigned as a
captain of artillery in Europe. In the
years from 1946 to 1962, Eugene K***** worked in the American film business in
Washington, Baltimore, and Virginia. At
the same time, he operated a radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas, and ran
the leading gallery for contemporary art in Washington.
The Amerika Haus in Koblenz—K*****
called it “my new adventure”—is his first assignment in the diplomatic service.
Rhein-Zeitung [Koblenz] Saturday/Sunday,
29/30 Sept. 1962: “Amerika-Haus has a new Director: Until now, Mr. Eugene
K***** was mainly active in journalism.”
“I hope to be able to continue the
good relations that have been established between the people of Koblenz, the
local authorities, and the Amerika Haus,” said Mr. Eugene K*****, the new
Director of the Koblenz Amerika Haus as he presented himself yesterday to the
public.
For the 43-year-old New Yorker who
has been named as the successor to former Director Rosinus, who has been
transferred to Bonn, the Koblenz position is his first in the diplomatic
service of the US. Mr. K***** was until
now active in journalism in the United States.
After journalism studies at Washington and Lee University in Lexington
(Virginia), from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, he was a
reporter for newspapers in New Jersey and Virginia. During the last war, he served in the US Army
and was for some time a captain stationed in Europe. From 1946 to 1962 Mr. K***** was active in
the American film business in Washington, Baltimore, and Virginia. At the same time, he ran a radio station in
Little Rock (Arkansas) and headed the leading gallery for contemporary art in
Washington.
Next, the new Director of the
Koblenz Amerika Haus awaits his family, with whom he will occupy the house
on the Rheinanlagen. Both his sons are
still school-aged and they will attend a school in Germany. Before he took up his Koblenz post, Mr.
K***** took a German-language course for several weeks and hopes to perfect his
German language skills here. Since his
interests lie mainly in the area of art, he is considering possibilities, within
the framework of the Amerika Haus programs, perhaps to treat such topics. In addition, the appointment of the new director means that the Amerika
Haus will be continued in the same manner as it has up to now, for as you know
in the spring a new form of organization was established involving the city,
the Federal Government, and the central Rhine economy. The numerous friends of this [Amerika] Haus will
certainly welcome that.
* *
* *
[Friday,]
Oct. 5, 1962
Sweetheart,
Have you finished your shots? [We had
to get passport immunizations before traveling overseas in those days.] Please don’t let this go until the very
last minute. It occurred to me last
night that I had better remind you about it.
Also, has Joe Mona [handyman and
carpenter who worked for my dad’s former company, District Theatres Corp.]
picked up my golf bag and refinished it for me.
If you haven’t heard, please call him and remind him about it, I understand that there is a very lovely golf
course at Bad Ems about 20 minutes from here, and I think we will want to take
advantage of it. [Bad Ems is a spa town across the Rhine from Koblenz. Coincidentally, I went to a German army
school there later when I was stationed in Berlin in 1972.]
This morning was really a dilly—not
hard or confused, just busy. I am
getting into the schedule of official calls, and I had three of them to make by
noon. One to the head of the local Stadt
(city) bank, who is our landlord [I
presume Dad means the AH office is leased from the Stadtbank; I think the U.S.
Government owned the house we lived in—but I’m not positive]; one to the
Regierungspraesident (the head of the regional administration); and the third
to the Commanding General of the Army in this area. [That
would be the German army, the Bundeswehr’s
Third Corps, headquartered in Koblenz.] You
can imagine what procedures are involved in making an official call on a German
lieutenant general at his headquarters—all the formalities and escorts and
salutes, everything short of a twenty-one-gun salute and a fanfare of
trumpets. He was quite amiable, spoke
good English, and appears very interested in the Amerika Haus and its work.
Yesterday afternoon I was invited
for drinks (after work) by an English lady whose husband (also English) runs a
rather important factory in this area.
She read in the newspaper of my interest in an art gallery [that would be Gres Gallery in Washington of
which my parents were part owners in the late ’50s and early ’60s] and she
is an amateur painter and is leaving next week for N.Y. She asked if I could give her an introduction
to any galleries to whom she could show some of her work—guess who I sent her
to see. [I have no idea who the British lady was, but I can only guess that the
person Dad sent her to was Beatrice Perry (1921-2011; Mrs. Hart Perry [1918-91]), who’d been the managing partner of
Gres and moved to New York City after the gallery dissolved. (For confirmation of this guess, see Dad’s
letter of 16 October.)]
Over the weekend I shall be able to
give the furniture in our house a closer inspection. The painters have finished now, and we are
awaiting the go-ahead from Bonn to have the floors refinished. Mr. Rosinus called me yesterday from Bonn to
say hello and wish me well. [Gunther Rosinus, Dad’s predecessor in
Koblenz, was Cultural Affairs Officer at the Bonn embassy in 1962, responsible
for all Amerika Haus programs in Germany.
In 1965, Dad was promoted to that job himself.] He and his family have just returned this
week and are in process of getting settled.
They would like very much to see us both when you arrive here.
No mail from any one today. Ah well, it’s tough when you’re gone and
forgotten too.
All my best love, all my strongest
love, all my existing love,
G
* *
* *
[Monday,]
Oct. 8, 1962
My dearest,
It’s Monday morning and I am waiting
impatiently for the mail to be delivered so that I can absolutely devour the
letter or letters that will be coming from you.
In the meantime I will give you some ideas about the furnishings in the house.
First, as a general statement the
furniture is not very attractive. At
best it represents fairly typical modestly priced German stuff, and the use and
wear over the last few years have given it a hard time. I would definitely suggest that you plan to
bring over just as much as you can that will seem to fit into the rooms which I
sketched for you and will not exceed our weight allowance (allowing for the
crating, etc.)
I spent some time in the bedrooms on
the second floor and was a bit unhappy and surprised to find that in the master
bedroom and guest bedroom which adjoins it at the front of the house there are
built in identical headboards for Hollywood beds which cannot be removed from
the walls; they even have electrical outlets in them. They are shaped and sized as follows: [There follows a pencil outline of the
bedroom showing the built-in headboards, with measurements indicated.]
The indent that is shown is simply a
shelf indentation in the headboard. The
thing that bothers me is how are we going to use our beds in the master bedroom
with this thing against the wall. By the
way, it is against the far right-hand wall in the master bedroom as you come in
the door, and the far left-hand wall in the guest bedroom as you come in the
door.
The mail just arrived and I had to
take time out to read it—I had a jackpot.
Two letters from you, one written from Baltimore and postmarked Sept.
30, and the other from Washington marked Oct. 1. A silly card from Viv [that would be Vivian Rabineau, the wife of the couple who were my
folks’ best friends back then, and often my brother and my second parents],
and a lovely letter from Rick. The glow
will last all day. You spent the weekend
in Princeton, I guess; and I watched the time over the two day period tracing
your progress—now you are on the road, now having lunch, now with Rick, now
having dinner, etc. It made the weekend
palatable. You know, they are the worst
times. The office is closed Saturday and
Sunday and having no car and nothing to do I find time hangs very very heavy. I take long walks (weather permitting) in
order to tire me, give me some exercise, and pass the time. In addition, I read, and am completely
absorbed in “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” [William L. Shirer’s 1960
history of Nazi Germany]. I find it
absolutely fascinating. This
weekend just passed was a little
better. First I met an American naval
lieutenant who is here at a German Army School as an exchange student for a
couple of weeks. He happened to be
making a telephone call from the lobby of the French Club, so we struck up a conversation
and spent the evening (Sat.) chatting.
He came back at noon on Sunday for lunch as we sat together and had some
more conversation. I suspect I will see
him again (misery loves company, you know).
In addition to that, I had a complimentary ticket to the Ballet on
Sunday night. You see, on Friday night
we had a lecture on ballet in the U.S.A. (in German) at the A.H. It was my first public appearance, and I had
to make the introductory speech in German.
[See Dad’s letter of 2
October.] It was a little
frightening to stand up before a German audience and address them in German,
but it went off all right and the directress of the Ballet and head
choreographer, who was present, sent me a ticket for the performance. [Nearly
every German city or large town has at least a municipal theater, ballet,
opera, or orchestra, and many have two or more of these. Koblenz has all of them, and in many of these
companies across Europe, American artists come to get their starts since we
have so few starter troupes in this country.
Many of these American artists were the subjects for AH demonstrations,
American musicians, singers, or dancers showing their skills.] I went last night and thoroughly enjoyed
it. Obviously it was not “The N.Y. City
Center Ballet,” but a lot better than I imagined, and most enjoyable. I must say, however, that with very few
exceptions the German female is not well constructed for ballet purposes. One of the ballerinas looked more like a
Valkyrie than a dancer, and one had a slight resemblance to a Knackwurst tied
very loosely in the middle. None were
ungraceful or ungainly.
To get back to the house and
furnishings: the master bedroom is painted a light blue and contains the
following items of furniture. All are
dark wood.
1 hollywood bed frame 53″ wide (¾ bed
I think)
2 chests of
drawers
2 bureaus
2 night tables
2 green
upholstered chairs (slipper chairs I think)
2 chiffarobes (for
hanging clothes)
1 vanity or
dressing table
1 odd chest (must
have come out of another room, looks like a captain’s chest)
The adjoining dressing room is peach-pink
in color and contains no furniture as such.
I suspect that several of the items in the bedroom belong in this
room. If you place both chiffarobes in
here, I doubt that your day bed will fit.
The master bath is also the same shade
of peach pink above the tile, and where there is no tile, the lower part of the
wall is painted light gray. [Most German homes and offices were painted
in light and pastel colors. When I got
to Berlin later, the BOQ’s were painted in the same shades—unless, as I did,
you painted them yourself and didn’t let the quartermaster dilute the base pigment
with white paint.]
The guest bedroom is light yellow and
contains the following:
2 chiffarobes (not
matching)
2 hollywood bed
frames (singles)
1 small upholstered
easy chair (green)
2 night tables
The bathroom adjoining the guest
bedroom is the same light blue as
the master bedroom. It has no second color since it is tiled
throughout to normal tile height.
The other bedroom facing the back of
the house is a pale green color has 1 single bed; 1 chiffarobe; 1 bureau; and
one night table.
The downstairs furniture seems to
line up as two separate sets of green upholstered nubby living room sets (two
sofas, and about four chairs); a large dark wood living room piece which I
can’t define. [We ended up just calling it “the Schrank,” the generic German word for “chest.”] It isn’t a breakfront and it has no display
area. The dining room is dark wood
consisting of a table, a sideboard, a breakfront or china closet, and numerous
chairs which have blue leather panels on the seat and back. No furniture for the breakfast nook. Haven’t gotten to the den yet.
As I said before, there are no
fireplaces in the house, and no shelves for books. There are two book racks in one of the small
bedrooms, but they are like office racks or the unfinished racks that we buy at
home and paint. I suppose they could be
repainted and placed in the bar alcove on the first floor. In short, don’t plan on shipping too many
books. Just enough for our own immediate
use. We do have the use of our own
library [meaning, I presume, the AH
library, which contained only books on America—many in German—or books by
American authors (i.e., no Dickens, Fleming, Shakespeare, Proust, Schiller,
Cervantes, and so on!)].
All for now—much much much love,
G
* *
* *
Monday
afternoon [8 Oct. 1962]
Darling,
Just a short note for an errand to
charge you with. I had a call from the
embassy (sounds important, doesn’t it) telling me that I would have to have
personal calling cards. Please order
them for me, and bring about half a dozen with you when you come.
The cards should be 2½ x 3½. They should be engraved in script and read
Eugene
Monroe K*****
You might also bring a few of your
own cards or Mr. and Mrs. cards, either will do.
In haste but not without much much
love and loneliness.
G
* *
* *
Tuesday,
Oct. 9, 1962
My darling,
Another jackpot this morning. Two letters from you and one from Rick, the
second one from him this week. Yours are
absolutely breathless and left me panting and exhausted after reading. His was delightful, witty and completely
HIM. [Who,
me? Musta had a ghostwriter.] I gather he is having a good time. Have no
fear about Doug and algebra; he’ll manage fine and take it in his stride I am
sure. When you can, have school keep us
informed of his progress in this one subject.
Now about the house and furniture. First off, in your letter of Friday, Oct. 5
you mention 8100 lbs. gross weight. I
hope this is not what you’re planning to ship.
It was a bit vague as to whether this was the weight of all the
furniture or just what you plan to take.
Remember we are limited to 4000 lbs. to be shipped and the balance for
storage. The first thing that strikes me
is that in view of my letter of yesterday in which I discussed the built in
headboards in two bedrooms whether it makes sense to bring any beds at all, and
also the night table. I would
concentrate, as you mention, on the things for the first floor. There are plenty of chests and bureaus and
other bedroom items, albeit not the most attractive. I would think the green chest, the provincial
chest (is this 450 alone or along with either your or my chest, I didn’t quite
understand)[. I]f it is only about half
the 450 lbs. by itself, then I would bring it and the china cabinet, and leave
both of our chests home. I think you are
going to need space for storing your china, linens, and crystal. The cabinet space in the kitchen is just
barely adequate for your regular everyday things. Again, as a general rule, concentrate on
furniture for the downstairs, and we’ll make do with the bedroom things.
[What
my father was suggesting to my mother was that they deemphasize the appearance
of the residential areas of the house, that is, the second floor bedrooms, and
focus their attentions on the entertainment and “public” parts of the
house. A large part of my dad’s job, and
the part that would concern my mother most, was socializing with and
entertaining the local power structure, everything from formal dinners to less
formal (there was no such thing as “casual” in those days!) Weinabends and Kaffeeklatsches. It was more important to my
parents that the part of the house which would be visited by Dad’s “clients,”
as it were, be presentable and functional than the private parts of the house
that only the family would use. In the
end, of course, we learned to adjust to the house and the way things were done
in Germany and we had a terrific and successful three years in Koblenz, as I
recounted in “An American Teen in Germany.”]
Now about your departure date. The 26th [of
October, I presume] is perfect. I
can meet you in Frankfurt without any difficulty and come right to
Koblenz. My mention of the conference [see the letter of 25 September] was
intended for you to arrange to come after it.
I would not be available during those two days. Check one point. In your letter you speak of arriving TWA, it
sounds from your schedule that this is the same PAA flight I took. Verify this with Mrs. Lewis. [I
don’t know who Mrs. Lewis was, but I suspect she was someone in the USIA office
in D.C. who handled transportation arrangements.] I hope you did get your shots and everything
is complete.
Slight emergency. Do you think you can find the passport photos
we had made, and which I placed with other papers to be shipped with household
effects. If you can, send yours and mine
immediately. I need them for driver’s
permits and identifications papers. [Dad was talking about the international
driver’s licenses and the German Ausweiß,
a kind of internal passport we all had to carry.] Otherwise have to wait until things arrive or
have new ones made. No great crisis,
just damned thoughtless of me.
Do me a favor. Write and mail two letters or envelopes at
the same time. Address one as usual (c/o
Amer. Cons. Gen. etc.) and the other one direct to me at Amerika Haus,
Schlossstrasse 51, Koblenz, Germany (.15 air mail postage). I am quite sure the latter will save at least
one day, and maybe two. I’m anxious to
find out. [The first address was the APO address which went through the U.S. and
army mail systems (for 7¢ domestic airmail postage) but got delivered to the
Frankfurt Consulate and then sent by courier to Koblenz. (Since the office was closed on weekends and
American holidays, there’d be no APO mail delivery on Saturdays and holidays.) The other was the German mail address and
would have been delivered directly to Dad’s office by the Bundespost.]
Now that I have a target date for
your arrival, the days will go much faster and I will have something definite
to which to look forward.
Adoringly,
G
[Well, that’s Dad’s second week in Koblenz alone
without my mom. I hope readers plan to
return to ROT for part 3 of the series, bringing Dad’s introduction to the town and
his new job up the eve of my mom’s arrival at the end of October. I‘ll be posting the third installment in a few
days, and you’ll read about the last week before my mother’s arrival in
Germany.]
