Interview with Hannah Rosenberg Gradwohl and John Rosenberg (Part 2)

Why was that?

Well, not grandmother.

Not . . . My aunt, who became a pharmacist, and she never married. And truthfully, I did not like her at all when I was growing up. She was always on my case. And I don't know if you remember that.

I do.

How many years were between the two of you?

Well, I was born in 1935, and John was born in 1945.

But I think she was in high school when they came over in '36.

So she lived in your home on B Street and always with you?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was our mother's sister.

And, you know, as a young child, my grandmother took care of me. And my mom worked in the laundry and dry cleaning company that the relatives owned.

Yeah.

And my aunt was a pharmacist and worked at Gold's in the pharmacy department there. They had . . .

It was a very matriarchal household. My grandmother was kind of the head of the household.

And grandpa, too.

He died before I was born.

Yeah.

So I understand that when they left Germany, they were allowed to bring their items with them.

They could bring household items and, you know, and so furniture and dishes and so forth, but no money.

So did they bring a small lift? How did they get the things here, and what did they bring with them?

Oh, they brought a lot. [laughs] There was a lot of furniture that they brought from Germany. And dishes and silverware, which I have here. They had hammered silver, you know, for 12 people, I think, you know. So they could have big parties, except the silverware had to be washed by hand. It couldn't go in the dishwasher.

So you used that for special occasion?

Yes, for company, yeah.

And I understand there are some very big cabinets that they brought? What are those things?

Trunks. They is the German term for it. And so they brought a lot of trunks, and our basement is lined with them.

Did your family have a special name for the collection there?

Your kids called them Trunkville.

Yes, yes. So if you would like a tour later of the basement in my townhouse, it is filled with these cabinets. And I remember during the off-season summer, there were big cabinets that held all the winter clothes. And we would, you know, we had a tradition of exchanging the summer clothes for the winter clothes. And we would go down in the basement and get up all the summer clothes for the warm seasons of the year. We didn't have air conditioning at all. And so it was really hot in the summer in that house that I grew up in. I remember when we got air conditioning for the first time, it was, you know, a big celebration. Because Nebraska has pretty hot summers, too.

What year did you get married?

1957, I think.

1957, is that right?

I think so.

Yes.

Tell us a little bit about David.

He was very smart. He was, oh, and very organized. He was an excellent teacher. He was the first anthropologist, archaeologist that Iowa State had. So when we came here, he started, he was in the department of...

Sociology.

Sociology and economics, I think. Yeah, economics and sociology. And so he was the first professor that taught that subject. Now, you know, I think there may be a separate department of archaeology, anthropology, and sociology.

And where did he do his graduate work?

At Harvard.

So you were living there for a number of years?

Boston, yes.

After a year at Edinburgh on Fulbright?

That's right, yeah.

Was David in the service?

Yes. And we were so delighted because he was, after basic trading at Fort Hood, Texas, in the summer, it was brutally hot there. He was, the whole unit that he was in was sent to Germany. And we were at a small army base in Kreilsheim, Germany. That's about halfway between, I can't remember, but it was a small army base that no longer exists in Germany, but we moved there and we lived, as they called it, on the economy. In other words, we lived in town and he drove out to the army base every day for trading and, you know, whatever he did. And so we had an apartment in the town and my landlady taught me how to cook. I grew up, you know, in a three-generation household and my mother and my grandmother did all the cooking. And my grandmother took care of me, you know, when I was young. So. But I knew, you know, when I got to college, I took German as my language. As I always mentioned, it was an easy A. I got very good grades in German. But, you know, we got to Germany and my landlady taught me how to cook German foods. And, of course, their weight system was different. You know, they didn't do cups. They weighed the ingredients for, you know, cakes and cookies and so forth. So eventually I had to figure out what that was in cups and half cups and so forth. But anyway, I learned how to make some very tasty German food. So I and I brought back, you know, we brought back some of the equipment that I needed to make spaetzle and wiener schnitzel, which is delicious.

So it would imagine they became some of your family favorites over the years?

Oh, yes, definitely.

Do you still make these items?

Um, hum. Except I have to have a male when I make the spaetzle. You make this very heavy dough and then you press it through a press over a pot of boiling water. So.

It takes a lot of strength.

It does. So.

John, did you visit when they were in Germany or were you too young at that point?

No. I think I was probably too young. I was 12 when they got married and I think then very soon after they got married was when they went to Germany. In fact, I think they took their honeymoon on separate ships. He was on a troop ship.

Well, I think I read in your book that your daughters and grandchildren put together called Just Glorious. I think I read that you mentioned your father was in New York on a buying trip and got very emotional when you left. When you were going to Germany specifically?

Yes, that was the first time I saw Dad cry when he saw me off on the trip to join my husband. I went on Holland American Line out of New York and my dad went to New York twice a year on buying trips. He was in the men's work clothing department at Gold's Department Store so twice a year he'd go on buying trips. And he saw me off on Holland American Line and that was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.

What do you think brought on the emotion for him?

I guess my going, you know, leaving the country and going back to, you know, I would be gone for you know almost two years. So, I'm not, you know, he wasn't a very emotional person as I recall.

Would you agree?

I agree, yes.

And do you think that it would have been different for him if you had been stationed in France or another country?

I don't, it was just my going away so far. No, I think he was happy that we were going to be living in Germany. I mean, I knew the language pretty well and what I didn't know was how to cook and so, you know, that was the big thing about my year and a half in Germany was that I learned how to cook a lot of things. So. I remember my grandmother always saying, I'm not worried about you because you know how things are supposed to taste and, yeah, I knew how they were supposed to taste but how do you achieve that in your cooking? So. And, you know, we did a lot of traveling while he was there, you know. When he had leave time. That was fun.

Did David start to collect items at that point or was it later when he became a...

Well, yes, he was a . . . no the collection of masks that we have came after his retirement. He took early retirement and we traveled the world. I think we were on every continent including Antarctica. We just took a boat down and set foot on the country and then left. It was just to say that we'd been there, done that and seen every continent of the world. So.

When did you start your family?

Um . . .

When you came back from Germany?

Steve was born in Boston, wasn't he?

Yes. Yes. Well, he wasn't born there. I think we were visiting in Lincoln.

So your dad died and you were back for his funeral and then you were so pregnant they didn't want you to travel so he was born in Lincoln, Nebraska.

That's right.

In '61.

And by that time you were living in Boston?

Yes. David was at Harvard for graduate school and, yes, we were living in Boston and came home during the summer and I was pregnant and they didn't want me to travel at that point. I was too far along, so that's right. So.

Who else is part of your family? You have three children?

Yes. Yes. Our son, Steve, he was a doctor and he, it was so sad. He had a condition where he lost consciousness briefly and unfortunately he was driving and he crashed and was killed. And then we had two daughters, Jane and Kathy, Catherine, but she always goes by Kathy.

And you raised the family in Ames after David was in his position here?

Yes, yep. So they graduated from Iowa State.

Ames High.

Ames High. And then went to college and you went, Jane went to Grinnell College for college and Kathy went to Macalester College.

That's Steve.

Lets pause for just a second.