Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

Life On the Farm ... German Style
by Louise Dubrule

When my husband, Moe, met us in Frankfurt February 1, 1966, we were excited to begin our first European tour of duty. What surprises awaited us!

We were on the waiting list for quarters on the Bitburg Air Force Base, but in the meantime Moe had found us an apartment in the little town of Balsfeld, just below the radar site where he was maintenance crew chief. We found ourselves in rolling farm land in the Eifel Mountains just a stone’s throw from Luxembourg. The area had seen plenty of action during World War II, with the American Army marching through westward on its way to Berlin, and then eastward again when the war ended. There were the remains of bunkers scattered in the fields and many of these were used for storage by the local farmers.

The little village of Balsfeld was laid out along the highway that led from Bitburg to Prum. The houses lined the road and the fields stretched out east and west. The houses were plastered and painted cream or white, and the roofs were gray slate tiles that rattled in the wind. The farm houses were joined to the barns into one building to conserve precious land space, and it meant that the farmers didn’t have to go out in the cold and wet to tend their animals. We were amazed to see the manure piles in front of the houses, for all the world to see, and we joked that the size of the pile indicated the wealth of the family. Actually, the piles were insulation for the cisterns that lay below the cement slabs. No matter how cold or how deep the snow, the water didn’t freeze.

The apartment turned out to be the upper story of a farm house, and the farm family welcomed us warmly. There was the tall, gaunt Opa (grandfather), comfortably round Oma (grandmother) with rosy apple cheeks, and their only son, Michel (Michael) who closely resembled his mother. They, too, had been touched by the war. Opa had been a soldier in the German army, was taken prisoner by the Americans and then spent three or four years as a migrant worker in the fields of the western states in the U.S. He said he had been well treated, and his proudest possession was a pair of sunglasses that had been issued to him. In the latter days of the war, Michel was 14 years old, and Oma was very frightened that he would be conscripted too. They contrived to hide him out in the woods behind the farm for months before the German surrender allowed him to return home.

The Bruer family kept cows and sold the unpasturized milk to those who didn’t have cows. Because milk was a source of income, new-born calves were separated from their mother before they had a chance to nurse. The babies were fed skim milk mixed with a powdered grain, and they learned to drink from a bucket. The family grew sugar beets, white field corn, and they had fields of hay. Oma had a couple of dozen white chickens that ranged unrestrained, and she had a large vegetable garden with flowers flanking the roadside. To make a little extra money, Michel had remodeled the second story of the house to rent out to American soldiers and their families. We were the second family to move into the little apartment, and we were the only Americans in town.

The Bruer’s first floor consisted of a long, tiled hallway with the rooms opening on either side; the doors remained shut to conserve heat. The girls remember that the house smelled of baking and sweat. I recall the aroma of the polish Oma used on the wood floors. The kitchen with blue and white ceramic tiles was always warm from the big wood-burning stove. Across the hall from the kitchen was the entryway to the barn where Opa kept a dozen or so Jersey cows. Oma raised a huge sow who had had 13 piglets just the day before we arrived, and the pigs were in a separate section of the barn.

Our apartment upstairs consisted of a living/dining room, a little square kitchen, a rather large master bedroom, and a tiny bedroom that had just enough room for two little cots for the girls but nothing else. There was a wardrobe armoir in our bedroom, but no closets at all. The bathroom was long and narrow, and it featured a bathtub at least seven feet long. To fill the tub, it was necessary to light the diesel water heater and wait an hour or so. The process was repeated each time, for it would take too much fuel to keep it going all the time. It was the same idea to heat the apartment. There was a big square cabinet in the main room that we had to prime with diesel and then we’d toss in a match and hope. As often as not, it backfired and belched great clouds of vile-smelling fumes. The girls were quite frightened of this apparatus, and its blinking red light convinced them that it was evil. The kitchen was directly over the calf pens and we could hear them bawling for attention. We had a tiny stove that was just 24 inches square, and none of my cookie sheets fit in the oven. There was a one gallon electric water heater over the sink, and it took careful planning so that we didn’t waste a drop in washing and rinsing dishes. Even so, we learned to make the best of things; after all, we were together and every day brought something new.

The girls adjusted to farm life quickly. They were eager to join in the hunt for eggs that the hens laid in strange places, including the seat of a piece of farm machinery. They were fascinated by the piglets and spent much time in the barn on a swing that hung from the rafters, or following Opa. He, in turn, taught them simple phrases in German. He called Monique “little mouse” and said that she had farmer in her blood, a prophetic statement: she’s a published botanist and avid gardener. We took daily walks to the spielplatz (playground) up the road and our blond girls blended in with the other children with no problem. We developed quite a vocabulary, but I confess that our grammar left much to be desired. Even now, 40 years later, the girls remember little songs they learned.

One of the first things we learned was to separate our garbage into three bags: the paper that could be burned in the big 55 gallon drum, the cans and glass items that were collected weekly by a dealer, and the food scraps that could be fed to the dog or the pigs. One day, Oma looked at the bag of food scraps and noticed corn cobs and her face fell with pity. “Oh, Louisa,” she said sadly. “Corn is not people food.” We discovered that the only corn they knew was the white field corn they raised as livestock food.

It was the same look on her face when I asked if I could have a couple of stalks of the rhubarb that grew at a corner of the garden because I wanted to make a pie. She insisted that this plant was strictly for pigs….but I could have some if I really wanted it. In hindsight, I wonder if she thought we were destitute. I did make pies, two of them, in fact, mixing the rhubarb with strawberries. I took one down to Oma for their afternoon coffee, and with great trepidation, they tasted my offering. Slowly, their eyes lit up with delight and they plowed through the first narrow slice and cut into a larger, second piece. It was not long before news of this spread through the village, and soon other households were baking desserts of rhubarb mixed with strawberries or other berries.

We were responsible for introducing other foods. At the time, the dessert topping “Dream Whip” was quite new on the market and our new friends felt that it was convenient to have it on hand instead of depending on real cream that might spoil before they got to it. Pumpkin pie was a revelation, and we found that there was no word for pumpkin in their local vocabulary. One evening the family came upstairs for a visit while we were having popcorn, and that was an immediate hit with the three of them. When I couldn’t find any in their grocery stores, I brought them a package from the commissary and gave basic instructions for popping. When Oma did open the package, she dumped the whole bag into an open sauce pan with a large dollop of their own fresh butter. When the kernels started popping, they were startled to see them explode with such force. There were a few frantic minutes while they ran around with bowls and other pans, trying to catch the white puffs before it occurred to them to simply remove the pan from the stove. They finally did taste sweet yellow corn when they came for Easter dinner, and they exclaimed at how good it was as they took seconds.

In return, Oma shared her recipe for the most delicious macaroon cookies ever. She taught me to make the great open tortes topped with fruit, and her waffle iron turned out light-as-air heart-shaped confections that we gobbled up with clotted cream and a spoonful of her currant jelly. The local baker came by with “soldier bread”, a dark, fragrant rye bread with no seeds, but with a crusty exterior that felt substantial in the mouth. I’ve tried a couple of dozen recipes in an attempt to duplicate the taste and texture, but without success. Molasses? Raisin water? Lard instead of butter or other shortening? Beer? I’ve tried them all.

The area saw fog nearly every morning and that burned off by eleven. When it rained, it poured, and the roads ran full. I wondered how people managed to do laundry when it was so damp much of the time. There were no connections for an automatic washer, so we bought a wringer washer that we used in the bathroom. We also bought an electric dryer to install in the attic, but the first time I used it, the wall outlet charred badly: it was too heavy for the wiring. Instead, I used clothes lines strung across the attic, and it could take two or more days to dry Moe’s Army fatigues or the girls’ corduroy overalls.

The attic also held the smoker for their home-grown bacon and hams, and Oma had mint and various herbs and hanging from the ceiling over an old bedstead. The farm cat hung out up there and she hid her kittens for safety. I sometimes fixed a plate of meaty leftovers for the cat but I wondered if that prevented the cat from earning her keep by catching mice. (Does a full cat still hunt?)

Oma introduced us to other villagers, including the postmistress, Frau Lichter. We were the first Americans she’d ever met. The people across the road invited us to a party for their daughter’s first Holy Communion, and their little girls came to our apartment to play. It was interesting to see the children invent games that didn’t require much language. It wasn’t a matter of turning on the TV either. True, we had brought our television, but on the farm all we could get was the sound. In essence, we had a console radio.

We entered into the life the village in other ways. This was a heavily Catholic region and they celebrated the feast day of every major saint with a party, or an open-house coffee with plenty of pastries, or a traveling carnival. We sampled it all. They had their own pre-Lenten festivities called “fasching” when folks dressed up in costumes and visited their neighbors. The volunteer firemen showed up in our apartment, and it was understood that we should give them a drink while I danced a little with each of them to music they brought with them. The coming of spring was welcomed by teenagers with the burning of a large wooden cross on the hill behind our house, something that gave us a moment of anxiety until it was explained. On the Sundays that Moe had to work, we went to Mass with our farm family. Inside the little church, we found the men sitting on one side, the women on the other, and the children sitting in the front on backless benches.

When Moe could get “off the hill”, we drove over all the little back roads, exploring the other small towns. We tried the specialties of the various gasthouses and we were seldom disappointed. We admired the neat forests and were told that disabled veterans were hired to clean out the undergrowth. Then someone used the dried branches to make brooms for stables or courtyards. On the roads we passed long barrels on wheels, often pulled by two cows. These held the fertilizer for the fields, and that fertilizer was sometimes septic tank contents. It was accepted policy that one family would have a particular piece of machinery while another would have a different one, and a third would have yet another. These expensive machines were shared without problem so that everyone had the use of them all. Barter was the means whereby a family could get something they could not otherwise have afforded. For instance, Michel was a master at wrought iron work, and he traded his gates or railings for extra diesel oil or grain for the animals.

It was actually sad when we were told that quarters had opened up on the base. True, it would be so convenient for shopping, medical care, and schooling, but we were giving up a great deal too. We had led a peaceful life where we were not judged by how many stripes were on Moe’s sleeves, and we had learned so much.

All this was nearly forty years ago, but I’d like to think that nothing much has changed in that area. Some things should remain unchanged, even if that’s only in our minds.

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