Tag Archives: healing

happiness

Edna’s Story 3 (FGK 120)

Our mother had taken a tailoring course when she was a girl and she used to make nearly all our clothes. I remember one Christmas she made us each a beautiful navy blue velvet dress, the neck piped with pale blue satin. I also remember white lace stockings I loved and a white fur muff and cape.

When the 1918 flu epidemic was raging I had to wear a mask when out playing with other kids. My mother fumigated our house every morning by putting sulphur on the stove. We had to go out for an hour or so and it was a very cold winter but we didn’t catch the flu. Mrs. E.C. Johnson, a nurse, was a very dear friend of Mom’s and she certainly was busy. She just opened her home to any victims that needed care. Every room in her house was full of beds and her husband Dad Johnson did the cooking and laundry. They were both extremely kind people. I think you could write a book about the service Mrs. Johnson did for the whole Cochrane district through her years there; but she would scoff at the thought of it. To me, she was beautiful. One memory I have of her, she was all dressed up to go to town. Her hair was always shiny black, even when she was ninety years old. This day it was done beautifully as usual, piled up high on her head. She was always very kind to me and I loved to visit in her home. For a while Dad Johnson ran the butcher shop in Cochrane. I was too young to know but I wonder if he didn’t run himself out of business, he was so generous. Just about everyone and his dog got a big plump turkey from him as a Christmas present. They had the restaurant for a while. They were both excellent cooks. Copithornes always shipped cattle from Cochrane then and one day when Percy, Claude, and Charlie all walked through the door to the restaurant, Dad bellered out to the kitchen “Ma put the soup pot on now, here comes eighteen feet of Copithorne to feed.” (Donna Butters is her granddaughter).

My uncle Robbie Brown built and lived in the house R. E. Moore lived in for years. He had to move to Cochrane from his homestead that was later signed over to the Crawford’s so his children could attend school. His daughter Jessie was my age and we had a great time together as children. She had a buckskin mare called “Fairy”, it was just a darling, so intelligent and gentle. One day Fairy nearly cut her hind foot off. I remember the men packing her foot in a sack of flour to stop the blood flowing. She got better and raised a magnificent palomino colt called “Monkey”. Later Jessie and I had a lot of rivalry over “Monkey” and my horse “Kit”. She was trained for a show horse and loved to be ridden in the ring. She was Ruth’s horse but the apple of my eye and a few years after we moved to the farm I persuaded Ruth to trade her to me for my Welsh pony “Polly”. I rode Kit in the Cochrane Exhibition Ladies Saddle Horse Class several times and although there was usually a large entry she always won first prize. But she was always a very flighty craggy nature.

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Edna’s Story 2 (FGK 119)

I remember when Grandpa took out the stairs to the hay loft at the barn here because too many people were coming in off the highway and sleeping in the loft. As a kid I spent a great deal of time being blissfully unaware that people (not always good ones either) would wander in looking for food, shelter, and very often gas (which I always found bizarre since were just three miles past a gas station). Playing in the loft was one of my favourite things to do and I’m awfully glad I never encountered anyone else in there. Random highway traffic pretty much continued until we got our security gate a few years ago – what a game changer.

Every so often the Indians would ride down from Morley and camp up on top of the hill, sometimes a couple dozen tents and teepees. Now – not then – I wonder why there? And where did they get their water? We were a bit afraid of them and their children were shy of us too. Our house had a nice big dining room window. One day when Mom had baked a big scrumptious layer cake for dessert, we looked out and there were a couple of families of Indians just sitting down to a meal beside their Democrat which was parked in an open lot outside our fence. My Dad persuaded me to take a plate full of cake out for them. It took all my courage and when they snatched it off without saying thanks, I ran home plenty fast. Most of them spoke little English in those days.

When I was quite young, three or four years old, we had a French lady, Mrs. Moses, working for us and she taught me how to count in French, also the alphabet, and a few sentences. I loved her. She gave me a little fox terrier pup called “Teddy”, my constant companion. Tempanies lived next door for a year or two and there was a gate in the fence between our yards. Louise and I played together. She had a lovely gentle saddle-horse called “Merrylegs”. We always had a couple of pigs and butchered one every time the salt barrel got empty. One time someone who helped my Dad butcher, cleaned out the pigs bladder, put some beans in it, and blew it up like a balloon or large rattle. It survived for ages and was fun to kick around.

In the winter sometimes our yard would jut be a moving mass of snowbirds, especially those little red-caps. I used to put feed out for them and loved to watch them from the kitchen window. One time my Dad put our bird cage out and caught one but it didn’t live very long. He also had a pet magpie for a while, it wasn’t a very nice pet.

Ruth found owning a pony quite a responsibility. Putting it out on new grass all summer, then putting in the the barn and feeding it hay at night. She had a bad habit of putting it off until it got so dark that the hay loft was spooky (tramps used to sleep there) and she coaxed me to go up with her for moral support. One night she stuck the fork into a cat sleeping in the hay. What a roar that was! She nearly ran over me getting out of there, but I don’t think I touched the ladder coming down and hit the floor running.

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Edna’s Story 1 (FGK 118)

So, I was in the basement this morning looking for my winter boots because eventually winter will show up and I know I shoved them in a mouse proof (haha) container in the basement sometime last spring. I didn’t find the boots, but I did find another random box filled with Grandma’s memories. It’s got old newspaper clippings, photos from the 1920s to the 1970s, photos of her 80th birthday, a gorgeous painting that she must have done, and the complete version of her life story!

I know I shared the abridged version earlier – I had given up on finding the complete story. But now that I have it I’m going to share it in its entirety. So there will be parts that repeat what was shared before- but I think sharing the whole thing again will make the story flow better than trying to chop it up.

Enjoy!

“Ouch”, that was me when Dr. Park spanked my bottom when I was born in our house in Cochrane. What a difference to the soft touch the babies have now when born. No wonder we’re a hardy race, it was survival of the fittest. Then I remember my mother trying to talk to me into an afternoon nap a few years later. My father rocking me in his arms in the rocking chair and singing to me to ease the pain of an earache with a bag of warm salt pressed to it. The rocking chair had a coyote skin draped over it, a big hide tanned and lined with red felt with scalloped edges.

These dear old hills of Cochrane provided endless fun and adventure for a child living in the village. Picking flowers in the spring, building playhouses out of stones just a laid on the ground in a pattern, etc. And galloping around on my stick horse. Then when the winter snows came there was nowhere could compare with the marvellous speed of a bobsleigh coming down the Cochrane hill, then hitting the road and flying on down nearly to the front street. The only traffic was horse-drawn and they panicked from us, not us from them.

It was awful having only one sister and she was six and a half years older than me. I just couldn’t keep up to her, hard as I’d try, and she tried equally as hard to leave me behind. So I amused myself with whatever was handy and nearly always was a horse. My dad had an old black race horse loose in the yard and I would often crawl up on his back from the fence or the back porch or a pile of boxes placed on top of the other and I could ride him around the yard when I was three or four years old. One day when I was playing quietly in the shade of the house, Father Hermes rode by on a spirited horse which suddenly dumped him off on the dusty road and jumped the fence into our yard, racing around with dad’s old horse.

We milked a cow. I remember her well, she was mostly black with a bit of white and we called her “Sloppie”. Bought her from Bobbie Butler. My mother churned and I used to take a pail of fresh buttermilk over to Mini Bailey (Now Mrs. Allan). She loved it and I loved to visit her mother “Granny Bailey”, the dearest Scottish lady anyone could ever wish to know. Jean Russell, Granny’s granddaughter used to spend much of her time with them and she and I have been the closest friends ever since we were five years old. Jack Bailey was the baker in Cochrane and he had a confectionary store and ice cream parlour. Jena and I spent many, many happy hours down in the store with Uncle Jack.

Ruth and her friends used to spend hours racing around with a stick, letting a small wheel roll down the stick then controlling it with the cross bar of the stick and racing as hard as they could go. I don’t remember ever doing that much myself. Ruth walked around on stilts a lot more than I did too. Our father built us a marvellous swing in the yard. The poles seemed like telephone ones to me they were so high, and then he put a long pole across the rope with handles to hang on and you sure could swing high. One day when Ruth and Dot Johnson were swinging, a man came up behind Ruth and spoke rather harshly to her while she was down and Dot up. Ruth jumped off, raced to the house, and let poor Dot down with a plunk.

All the girls Ruth’s age had lovely ponies to ride so our Dad bought quite a beautiful colt from an Indian. It was extremely quiet but also extremely thin. She called him “Spider”. Of course I rode it around the yard every chance I got, but my… it became mean! The fatter it got, the meaner it was and even Ruth couldn’t handle it finally. There is nothing much meaner than a mean horse! It always ran under the clothes line and got rid of me quite easily and my neck had quite a scar on it. Then it would charge us with its mouth open. How I envied Ruth going out riding with her friends, Amy Cook on her lovely pony “Snowball”, Dot riding old “Pod” etc. My favourite dream when a child was me riding an extremely beautiful big white horse, and I’ve never owned a white horse.

I’m adding what has to be the weirdest photos – but goodness they look like they’re having fun. And also the actual meanest pony that ever existed.

I love this photo. Massive weirdness. I think Grandma is the one ‘riding’
At the front on the left is me on Tango – the actual meanest pony to ever exist. Don’t let his chubby cuteness fool you.
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Woodland Club (FGK 116)

Everything about this letter cracks me up. I love that they had a meeting and made a motion to write a thank you letter, I love even more that this appears to actually be the thank you letter. I’ve never heard of the Woodland Club, and this is the first time it has come up in these letters. Anyone?

RR#2 Calgary

Alberta, Canada

March 25/55

Dear Margie,

At a meeting of the Woodland Club on March 21st, the following motion was unanimously passed: moved by Lynn, seconded by Raymond, that we send a note of thanks to Margie Copithorne for the lovely box of chocolates sent to use on Valentine’s Day. The motion was carried with hearty applause.

Yours Sincerely

Woodland Club

Sec. John Sibbald

Pres. Jim Bateman

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Letter from the Post Man (FGK 115)

I really wish we had mom’s letter back to this man, and kind of wish that he’d sent more letters – he sounds like quite the character. The first letter was more of a note, written on a torn green piece of paper. For perspective on time, 1908 was the year my grandma was born, and my grandpa would have been 9 at the time.

Correspondence Branch

Feb 18

Dear Margaret

I wonder if you are related to a Copithorne family who I knew in 1908-1910.

They lived in the Jumping Pound just north of Bateman’s Post Office. I was working for Mr. Byron at the time. He lived just south of the Post Office. I drove the mail occasionally between Jumping Pound and Calgary.

I expect since oil came the ranching country has changed.

Let me know re the family.

Cheerio

Very truly yours

Leo L Piercy

I was in Holy Cross Hospital Calgary about 1911

This is his second letter, presumably in response to the one mom wrote to him.

March 31

My dear Margaret

It was nice of you to answer my letter in such an interesting manner. Jumping Pound indeed must have changed sine I knew it. I drove the mail at times for Bateman – with horses of course. One day he gave me a team of broncs. Try as I would, I reached Calgary ahead of schedule. The Post Office refused to accept the mail. My horses wouldn’t stand. I drove to the Pacific livery barn on 8th ave and 4th (?), could attract no one’s attention so had to unhitch myself and put the horses in. I did not take long, but on my return my precious mail bags were gone. I was distraught, in panic, expecting to be sent across the line.

Just before mail time, a man sauntered up with “are you looking for mail bags? They are under the pile of hay.” The joke was on me. Best wishes for a speedy recovery

Sincerely

Leo L Piercy

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Mom’s Tour de France 23 (FGK 114)

This is the end of mom’s letters that were published in the Cochrane paper. I”m kind of disappointed, I wasn’t ready for them to end- what happened? Did she get to stay and keep travelling? Check out the price of her little punchbuggy!!

About 6 o’clock we went searching for the Youth Hostel. It was a quaint little cabin in a groove of trees run by a darling little man who spoke no English but seemed to be accustomed to this situation. By this time we knew enough German to tell him we were cold and wanted to stay only if there was some heating. He showed us the room with a usual row of bunks and with a little coal stove in the corner. He soon had a roaring fire going and we were huddled around trying to get warm for the rest of the building was like a refrigerator. As we were finishing up our supper of bread and cheese, four other girls came to spend the night with us. They were from Manitoba and had just finished university there. The four of them were going all through Europe in their Hillman for a year. They had already been to England, Spain, Morocco, etc and had some fascinating stories to tell.

Thursday morning, Pat, Carol and Jeannie visited the old fort which overlooked the town and I went for a drive in the country. It had stopped snowing and i could see the mountains which surrounded us. There are many interesting little villages in this area. I had all sorts of fun poking around them and trying to talk to them in my inadequate German vocabulary of about five phrases. We met again for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the shops. It was tempting but since we were all in the same financial situation we helped each other resist it to mostly window shopping. Thank heaven I’m not a skier or it would have been irresistible.

We planned to spend all day Friday driving to Vienna but road conditions were so good that we arrived there in the early afternoon. Our meals of bread and cheese which we ate in the car also helped save time.

We were fortunate in the fact that the Youth Hostel was along the route which we took into town so we were able to find it comparatively quickly – ie., after asking two gas station attendants, a man in the street, and a postman. We were completely overwhelmed when we saw the building. It was built two years ago, has an elevator and heating!! We really couldn’t have asked for a better place. I have to go to lunch now so will write more about the trip later.

If you’re interested I have some of the costs of the car broken down so you’ll know where some of your steers are going. The car itself totalled $1,361.00 US dollars, the insurance $120 and about $40 for the transportation etc. From what I’ve heard I should be able to get a fairly good price for it at home. It’s really nice to have something to ride down to the restaurants in now.

We are going to London for three or four days next month for a field trip. It should be interesting, I’m very excited about it. If it’s ok with you I think I’ll stay out of Stanford Spring Quarter and travel over here with Gail for a while and go home about the first of June and then to summer school. Let me know what you think about this ‘cause I have to let Gail know soon, her mother is coming over next moth too.

Lots of love

Margi

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Mom’s Tour de France 22 (FGK 113)

I had to laugh at mom’s speedy driving. I come from a family of speedy drivers – I remember white knuckling it a lot when I was a kid and Grandma was driving me somewhere. Dad always seemed to be one demerit away from losing his license (but swore he needed to drive that speed just to keep up with everyone else on the road). As a kid, I always tried to get in the back of the suburban my uncle would drive when we would do family visits to my aunt and uncle in Arrowwood, partly because it meant I could hang with my cousins and partly because it meant the long trip would take about half the time. If it took my parents an hour and a half to get there, it would take my uncle about 45 minutes and we would have stopped at allllll the feedlots along the way as well. I am speedier than my kids, but remain a family disappointment on trips as I hold up the line with my relatively slow driving). Mostly I’m cheap and don’t want to pay tickets.

We found a little restaurant near the hotel where we had one of our best meals in Germany. We ordered rindsgulasch in the hopes that it would turn out to be something good – and it was. Hence, another word was added to our growing German vocabulary. I think “rinds” means beef, at least it tasted like it.

We ended the day by doing some window shopping and going to the bahnhauf (which had finally appeared again) to have milkshakes. It tastes so good to have milk products again that we each had two helpings. It’s the first time I’ve made such a glutton of myself, usually I stopped at just one! We got lost again when we stepped out of the bahnhauf and it took us almost an hour to find our hotel which was (in the book) a ten minute walk from the station. Someday I’m going to solve the Great Mystery of this city. As we were entering our hotel we heard someone calling our names – it was Bob, Tim, Bill and Denny, some boys from the Centre who were staying in the hotel just across the street. They had just arrived as they had taken a longer route. I was able to get their advice on the roads, my car, etc as they are all quite experienced in that sort of thing.

We left the next morning for Salzburg. As there is an Autobahn all the way it was no time at all until we were in Austria. As usual we were completely lost as soon as we entered the town. I, who happened to be driving at the time, chalked up some sort of record for the trip by being stopped by three different policemen within fifteen minutes. Since we had such an obvious problem of communication, they never bothered giving us a ticket.

Salzburg is a fascinating town and is one of the places for which I would enjoy returning in the summer. It is noted for its beautiful scenery which we could not see because of the snow, its music, history, and of course Wienerschnitzel. From the moment I discovered a taste, this meant I ordered it for almost every meal in Austria. As you can see I’m really turning into a gourmet.

The streets in Salzburg are of the small narrow and twisty variety. It’s very easy to find parking places in Austria which was fortunate because everyone walks in the middle of the street, a situation somewhat frustrating for a driver.

It was a snowy afternoon – perfect for museums, so we went to the place where Mozart worked and some of the churches. One of them was particularly interesting as it had something from almost everyone period. Romanesque to late Baroque in it. We also tried some of the Salzburg coffee made with mounds of whipped cream. I think it’s the best I’ve found in Europe. I like it even better than the Italian.

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Mom’s Tour de France 21 (FGK 112)

This is the last letter of mom’s that was published in the paper. I am really hoping that we discover the rest of them and I can read about the remainder of her year abroad. Thank goodness Grandma kept everything. This letter is a long one, so part one is today and there will be at least one, perhaps two more instalments before I go digging through boxes again (there are still a few more letters sent to mom while she was in the hospital).

It’s weird for me to think of how drastically mom’s life was changing. 10 years ago she was still a healthy and rambunctious kid, getting into everything, riding her horse, and playing with her siblings and cousins. 5 years ago she was working her way out of a long hospital stay and then moving to Florida for school. Not too far in her future she would graduate from Stanford, move to Toronto, go to law school and meet my dad. 10 years in her future she was just about to give birth to me (taadaa!!)

I remember mom making this cake and wanting so badly to become the Queen. I have no idea whether or not I ever did though.

Tours, France, January 15, 1961

Dear Folks

I’ve just returned from Suzanne’s having done nothing but EAT all day. She invited Gail and I over for lunch today but asked us to come early if we wanted to help prepare the meal.

I made a cake!! It is my failure kind so Suzanne taught me how to make it – you won’t believe how domestic I’m getting! We also helped with the other things. It’s so much fun in the family now because we feel free to play with her little sisters, tease her brothers, and gossip with her mother. They are extremely patient with our French so we don’t mind making lots of mistakes. Since we are still celebrating the feast of the Three Kings, we had a galette (a type of cake) for dessert. The prize was in my piece so I was the Queen. The suspense while everyone bites into their piece is terrible. After lunch we drove out to Suzanne’s aunt’s in the country. They are having a special celebration there to taste the wines in the caves which line the hillside. Everyone in the village was there with venders at every turn calling crepes, roasted chestnuts, etc. I was amazed once we entered the caves to find it exactly like an exhibition at home. Lining the walls of dirt were washing machines, television sets, and I even saw in one cavern a car!! I was driving so I didn’t taste the wines like I was supposed to, but it was fun watching all the others. After we went back to the aunt’s house where we had another galette – this time Gail was the Queen.

I think I left off in my last letter just as we were entering Munich. We got there after dark so were able to see the brilliant Christmas decorations. The main streets were lined with huge lights in the form of stars etc. It is possible to sense the quick tempo of this city the moment one enters it. It is alive and growing in the sense that all of Western Germany seems to be moving forward and looking to the future instead of the past. This is especially noticeable if you see it compared to some other European countries. We managed to find our way to the famed Rathskeller in the basement of the town hall where we had a dinner composed of a variety of German sausages. I ate so many I never felt quite the same towards them again and started ordering other dishes from then on. The Rathskeller itself was a fascinating place with its huge German style of architecture and costumed waitresses. You could practically feel yourself back in the Middle Ages. We had the name of a good but cheap hotel which we found in our “Bible” ie “Europe on $5.00 a Day” but in spite of the directions which were given in the book we found it impossible to pick the right route. We were told to start at the Bahnhauf (railroad station). This was a formidable task in itself for it always failed to show up when we expected it but on the other hand, we kept running into it at the oddest places. It continued like this during our entire stay in Munich and we always found our way home more or less by chance. This lead us to the conclusion that the Munich bahnhauf has the astonishing ability to disappear underground for hours at a time only to appear later at the other end of town. That is The only explanation I can give. The first evening we gave up in despair and finally stopped at a gas station to ask directions. We were so baffled by the German answer that was given us, two travellers who had their car there offered to lead us to the hotel. We turned so many corners and got so throughly confused that we decided we were being led on a wile goose chase. Just as we were going to turn and go in another direction their cart stopped right in front of the hotel! We felt rather guilty of being so suspicious of people who were simply being kind.

The next day we prepared to see the Glockenspiel when it went off at 11 am. We spent so long over breakfast that we barely had time to get down in front of the city hall to watch the big clock. Pat was driving when the car with four confused jeunnes filles made their left turn in its main intersection on the wrong light. Imagine our horror when we saw the policeman blow his whistle and flag us down to the curb. He stomped over to the car to find four frightened faces peering up at him and babbling away as fast as they could in French. When he found out we spoke no German, he went around to the front, saw our French license plate, got a resigned look on his face shrugging his shoulders, and said helplessly “La va!” We thanked him profusely in French and made our escape quickly before he discovered what terrible accents we had. By this time it was almost eleven so we decided that Carol and Jeannie should go watch the clock while Pat and I tried to find a parking place. We soon discovered that we had set ourselves an impossible task. We were all the more nervous because we were stopped by another policeman – that made two intersections we had to avoid henceforth at all costs! We finally found Carol and Jeannie a half hour later. We were told that for the first time in years the Glockenspiel hadn’t gone off. After the big airplane crash, which you probably heard about, there was no singing or dancing in Munich for a week. The whole city went into mourning for the dead. We spent much of the afternoon riding around in the car and looking at various buildings. We visited Maximillian Palace which was so huge we couldn’t get through it all. It is still furnished in late baroque and rococo style. The grand ballrooms with enormous chandeliers, lavish furniture, and magnificent carriages make one wonder how the princes lasted so long without a revolution. Their wealth must have been incredible. We couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the gardens as they were covered with snow, but they surrounded the huge central building for acres. One needs a lot of stamina to live in a palace like that as the rooms are so far apart.

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Mom’s Tour de France 20 (FGK 111)

December 1960

Hi:

We are now in a youth hostel in Salzburg. There are also four other Canadian girls who are driving through Europe for the winter and staying here. The is place seems like sheer luxury because the one we were in at Neuchatel didn’t have any heat. This one has a lovely little stove right by my bed.

It has been snowing here all day so we haven’t had much of an opportunity to see the scenery which is supposed to be lovely. We are trying to economize because we stayed at a hotel in Munich and they charged us far more than we thought they would – not a very nice surprise.

We have been having all sorts of adventures. We are constantly lost in the cities and usually end up going the wrong way on a one way street. The policemen have been very patient and nice (mainly because we couldn’t understand them). People have helped us out on the street and in the stores. Every time we hit a new town we head like homing pigeons to the nearest Shell Station, which has maps of the city. We now know the German terms for left, right, etc.

The weather hasn’t been nice enough to take any pictures. I was foolish enough to put slides in my camera instead of black and white. I was so enthusiastic over the results of the ones I took in Rome that I got carried away.

(The next night)

I did some shopping today and spent my spare money. Austria is as bad as Italy, it is a terrible temptation to pass a store.

I wandered around some of the mountain villages this morning. They still use horses on many of the farms. It looks very Christmassy to see them pulling sleds full of firewood.

If people have sent me letters etc but haven’t heard from me, tell them not to worry, because we left on December 17th and won’t pick up our mail until the 9th of January. It will be nice to have that pile waiting for me!

I also haven’t mailed all my Xmas cards yet – so some of them will be New Years! I usually cannot get very much writing done while we are travelling. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. I’ll be thinking about you then – in Venice I think. From what we hear, it is going to be a white Christmas which is something new for the kids from California.

I’ll try to write again soon

Love

Margi

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Mom’s Tour de France 19 (FGK 110)

I continue to be impressed with the kindness shown by the people mom encountered on her travels. Was it a safer, kinder time? Was she just incredibly lucky (her guardian angels always worked overtime)? Whatever the case, she encountered some pretty remarkable people.

Part two

Pat and I remembered a marvellous restaurant there which served excellent meals for about 60 cents. We spent 3/4 of an hour searching for the youth hostel where we could stay for 50 cents (I’m sure we burned up more gas looking for it) and finally discovered it beyond the railroad track which we had been crossing all the time. It was a charming and picturesque little building, lacking only one thing – a stove. There was only one other person staying there and the lady was quite shocked to see so many people descending on her this time of the year. I don’t think any of us took very many clothes off that night and we were very speedy in getting out to the nice warm car the next morning. The drive through Switzerland was very pleasant in the morning when we could see the sun shining on the snowy mountains and the little villages which looked like Christmas cards but it clouded over in the afternoon so we were unable to see much of the Alps. We got lost at one point so we decided to stop and have a bowl of soup for lunch at a charming little hotel which was along the road while we found out where we were. It was a warm friendly little dining room with several people in there gossiping over cups of tea and glasses of wine. We were somewhat of an oddity and got several curious stares while eating. As we were leaving a man and his wife asked if they could buy us a cup of coffee. They were so very nice we couldn’t refuse and sat down again. No one spoke either French or English so we stammered out our few phrases of German and hoped that our smiles and nods conveyed some of our appreciation for this gesture. They were very concerned about us and stood waving at the door until we were out of sight.

We climbed through may mountains that afternoon getting into more and more snow. We could see the skiers returning to their lodges and I envied Gail who was spending her vacation with some French students learning how to ski. We stopped for the night at a little village near the boarder. Pat and I had a lovely room with a balcony. There was a lighted Christmas tree on it and we could see the snow falling on it all night. It really gave one the feeling of Christmas.

The next morning, after the usual continental breakfast of rolls and cafe au lait, we set out to find Liechtenstein. Since this country has a treaty with Switzerland, there is no regular border between the two and before we knew it we found ourselves in the tiny capital city with the Prince’s castle overlooking it. Liechtenstein’s main industry is postage stamps and we aided the economy by each sending off two or three post cards. Since the country is so small it was only a few minutes to the Austrian border. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we would be travelling on a big wide “autobahn” ie. a freeway. Needless to say it took no time at all to zip over to the German border. We did no shopping as we knew we would be returning in a few days. Germany is loved by us all as the land of the ‘Milk bars” and we stopped at the first one we found in a little town not too far from the border. There was a great big jolly German sitting in there who watched us with an amused and kindly expression on his face as we tried to ask the waitress if we could get a lunch there. Imagine our joy when we found out he spoke French and was able to translate for us. He ran out and bought the cheese for our sandwiches and made sure that we all got what we wanted. This was just one of the many times our limited French was a big help to us. We decided that Jeannie would drive for a while in the afternoon. Since she is very short it was necessary to push the seat of the VW up. It is rather sticky and we all got behind to shove it forward. To our consternation we pushed so hard it came completely out of the car and we were left in the middle of the street with a loose seat in our hands! We tried valiantly for several minutes to put it back but were unable to repeat our past performance of strength. Finally the waitress saw our trouble and sent out three big boys who soon had us all put together and ready to race off towards Munich again.

Love

Have to go to classes now, will continue at a later date

Margi

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