Monday, April 29, 2013 at 4:35 PM
Dear Opa,
Do you happen to have any very old pictures of Emi, Helde, your parents, or Emi's parents?
For
Evie's birthday I bought her these 2 antique looking picture frames and
hoped to put an old picture of someone from the family, preferably old
enough to have that yellowed effect.
Do you understand the look I'm going for?
If you find any
pictures that match this criteria it would be great if you could scan
them and send them to me, if not it's no big deal.
Thanks again,
Love, Olivia**********************************************************************************
Monday, April 29, 2013 at 7:32 PM
Dear Olivia,
Here, by e-mail, comes my first part of my response. My problem is that I have here one of those newfangled air-printers, which did just fine last year, but now does not want to scan. Says it cant' find the computer! And neither can the computer find the printer and I can't even print! So, you get this text explaining the pictures I am going to mail to you by snail mail and perhaps you can do the scanning. I would like to have these pictures back, because eventually I want to use at least some of them in a family album of sorts. I send you a bunch of pictures so you may chose what fits. Scan and print whatever you like. Share all of them perhaps with your family, after the surprise to Evie. I am sorry that we have no pictures of Emi's family up here in VT. They are all down in NC. I have included pictures of Tante Lulu and myself, because, after all, they are very, very old, too.
I have numbered the pictures I'm sending on the back and what's on these pictures is in the text here. There is no time line in this line-up, so you may choose what you can use in any sequence you like:
1) This is my dad's dad, Wilhelm Heinrich Sitterding. The picture dates to around 1925. He is shown walking on his property in Padenghe, northern Italy, where he retired after he came back from South Africa. Here is a brief CV He learned the trade of lock smith and settled in Zurich, Switzerland. He became a member of the Lock Smith's Guild and built a small plant in a suburb of Zurich, where he built strong-boxes in small desk-top sizes to built-in walk-in constructions like they have in baks. In the middle 1930's he sold this plant and with his wife moved to Bloemfontein, South Africa, where he established a brick manufacturing plant. The South African Republics at that time were booming and construction of all sorts provided him with a ready market for his product. The second Boor War put an end to the productive life in peace. His wife was sent to Frankfurt in Germany for health reasons and she took their two sones - my dad and his older brother - along with her. My grandfather remained in South Africa until after the war, then sold his outfit there and retired to Italy.
2) This is my mother, Tante Lulu and myself around 1938.
3) This is I, riding a white donkey, in about 1940. At that time, Tante Lulu and I we staying in Switzerland in a children's home. Our parents had sent us there to be away from the second World War, which was going on there. The donkey was part of the establishment. Sometimes, he was harnessed to a wagon and we took a tour of the town. This was great, because it was not often we got out of the fences of the home.
4) This is I, sometime around mid-1940
5) This is Tante Lulu, in the 1950's
6) from left to right: our mother, I, Tante Lulu, our father. This picture was taken in 1944, which was just when we all got back together after the years of separation during the war.
7) From left to right: Tante Lulu, our mother and I, ca. 1950
8) Tante Lulu, modeling an evening dress, ca. 1959. She had taken courses in fashion modeling and her stance conforms very much to what was the standard at that time. She was such a beautiful woman!
9)Tante Lulu, having a conversation with her grandfather, our mother's, father. This would be sometime close to 1938, around the time we left for Switzerland. We were then living in Stuttgart, Germany, our mother grew up in a suburb of Frankfurt, Germany, and this would be where this picture was taken.
10) A snapshot of me, ca. 1938
11) our mother changing a wheel on their first car, ca 1930
12) I in my first car, ca 1937 This, of course, was a pedal powered car, which I had gotten for Christmas around 1937 or 1938. It was made of sheet metal and apparently was very noisy on the road. The store goes that I was one day having an outing on our road -- a dead-end, no traffic - just rattling up and down with no evil thoughts. It got a bit too much for one of the neighbors and she came out on the road and asked me "Richard, don't you think your car is getting a little tired"? "No" I responded laconically, and rattled on.
13) From left to right: our mother, and our father, on their motorbike, ca. 1925. They traveled with that from Frankfurt to Italy to visit our dad's father. The roads were not as good then as they are now. Most of them were still gravel. If you look closely, you can see the spare tire on the far side of the bike in the rear. Your dad may want to take a guess at the size motor this bike was carrying.
14) Tante Lulu and I searching for "easter eggs" in our garden in Frankfurt, ca. 1937, before the family moved to Stuttgart in 1938. Lulu found almost all the eggs, but in the and she shared with me.
15) Our parents crossing the Alps with their first car. This was after they had "grown out of" the motorbike in very lat 1920's, before even Lulu was born. Note the road. That's what even major highways were like most of the way from Frankfurt to Italy, where our parents went every year to visit our father's dad, after he had retired there. I vaguely remember those trips before the war. Lulu had more lively memories and we talked often about those tours we made with our parents. After things turned more normal again in the late 1940's early fifties, we took that trip in more modern vehicles on better roads, but it was still and adventure.
And that is that. I hope you find some keepers for that album for Evie. Good luck. I apologize sending the pictures without comments - no printer and time's a-wast'n.
Love, Opa
********************************************************************************
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 7:19 PM
Dear Opa,
Thank you so much for doing this
for me! I can't wait until the photos arrive so I can compare them to
the descriptions you listed. I will be sure to take cautious care of
the pictures and return them to you soon after the scanning and printing
is finished.
Thanks again and hope to see you soon.
Love, Olivia
********************************************************************************
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 7:43 PM
Howdy, Olivia,
I mailed those pictures this morning
by priority mail. The postoffice promised delivery in two to three days;
so it is going to get tight for the birthday. I'm sorry. They also
offer express delivery and that would have been over night, but the
price they quoted is so out of this world I waived that. And please
don't even think of mailing them back to me. Better you pack them up
safely and bring them to me :-)
It is beautiful up here. The
spring is slowly pushing its way in. The maples have that early season
red sheen, and the willows by the pond were yellow when I came here and
are turning green and greener by the hour. Tante Lulu's daffodyls are
blooming, the daylilies are pushing up through the ground and the lilac
at the corner of the deck has big fat buds. I put some of the garden
chairs out on the deck and enjoyed lunch out there today and I can't
wait to get in the garden -- the ground is still too cold to do any
seeding or planting. I won't do much, anyway - I bought basil seeds and
spinach seeds. With the basil I'll make some pesto, like Emi and I did a
couple of years ago. Mix that in with the pasta and cheese - HEAVEN!
and the spinach is gong to be 'my daily bread' - with Catalina dressing
or just salt, pepper, olive oil a few drops of lime and the main part: a
good balsamic vinegar. I'm so sorry I left that one at home that I got
last year at your little olive oil specialty store. Spinach fresh picked
out of the garden mmmmhhhh! I do hope you will get to take a trip
sometime this summer!
Love, Opa
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at 8:49 PM
Good evening, my dear Olivia,
Love, Olivia
According to records on
USPS Tracking, the pictures should be delivered to you tomorrow
(Thursday) by the regular mail carrier. If you want to, you can look it
up yourself: Search-word usps tracking. Tracking number of the envelope
is 9114 9010 7574 2637 2221 18. Enter this number without the spaces in
the place on the web site. It looks like we will be "on time". What fun
we can have with computers . . .
Love, Opa
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Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 7:26 PM
Dear Opa,
The pictures arrived today!!! They are
just what I was looking for and I now just have to choose which ones to
use. Thank you again and I can't wait to show you how they turn out in
the frames!
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