Your Worst Nightmare

Every other year we have Erika and Conley Bailey for dinner sometime during the holidays.  Every other year we go to their house.  It doesn’t seem possible, but we’ve known them for 50 years now.  We were Farmington neighbors in 1964-65.  We’ve kept in touch ever since. 

Last night as we were chatting while I was dishing up, I asked Conley if he still raised a garden.  He’s probably 83 or more.  “Sure,” he said.  “DeRay raised 85 butternut squash this year,” I brag.  “We don’t raise winter squash,” Conley reveals. “They didn’t have squash in Germany when Erika was growing up so she doesn’t like them,” Conley explained.  “You don’t like squash either,” Erika shoots back.  Oh, no, I shuttered silently.  Baked squash was our main course, along with smoked turkey/rice casserole and a frozen salad.  Oh, yes, and DeRay’s fresh black German bread. We’re in big trouble.  What are we to do?  We go ahead and serve it, cutting the pieces even smaller.  They each asked for seconds and Conley says he’s going to raise squash next year.

After dinner when we couldn’t get the German Christmas Pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide – that Brooke sent home with us from Germany when he was on his mission) with candles to twirl, Erika again told us the story of her escape from East Germany in 1953-4-5.  In order to work or go to school, you had to join the Communist Party.  The Church advised its members not to join the Communist Party.  On this particular day, a woman at her work put pressure on her to join and told her that she must join tomorrow or she would lose her job.  That night, her mother took her to the train station and sent her to Berlin.  She only had the double set of clothes on her back and a small bag or purse. When she gets to the East/West Berlin border, the train stops and the announcement comes over the loud speaker that everyone must get off.  She just sits there. “Were there other members of your branch with you?  How did you know not to get off?”

“I was alone but I had been told to stay on the train when it went into West Berlin.”
They talked about a train that made a loop around Berlin, which at that time was divided by the Four Powers.  The conductor would slow down at a spot in West Berlin and the passengers could jump off.

Erika went to a refugee camp with her papers and they arranged for her fly out of Berlin to Frankfurt and onto a French Refugee camp.  They helped her find work eventually and then she was able to move into an apartment.  She ended up in Karlsruhe (where Brooke served part of his mission).  It took her two years to earn enough money and get a Visa to travel to America.  She had a great aunt in Salt Lake who was her sponsor.  Her mother's family actually joined the Church in the early 1920's.  
While in Karlsruhe, with other members of the Branch, she traveled by bus to the dedication of the Swiss temple.  One of the missionaries from Vienna volunteering was her future husband, Conley.  Of course, they didn’t know it then but they would have been in the same room during the dedication.  DeRay, who was stationed in Germany in the Service at that same time, also tried to go to the Swiss temple but he ended up in the wrong town and never made it. 

Erika’s folks tried to get permission to travel to West Germany to see her, their only child, before she left for America but their request was denied.  Later, after she got to America, they again requested permission to travel to West Germany.  This time they said they were celebrating their Silver Wedding Anniversary and wanted to go visit her father’s sister in northern Germany.  With no luggage, only the clothes on their backs, they left their homeland forever.  It took them a year to get a Visa and earn enough money to travel to America and be reunited with their daughter. 

When Erika first arrived she lived with her great aunt along with another relative of her aunt’s husband.  “I guess she got tired of us because we moved to an apartment across the street.”  This girl was very bossy and wouldn’t let Erika go in the living room or the kitchen without permission, even though they were paying equal rent.  Her room was up the back stairs and the other girl had the main bedroom.  They worked at a garment factory, earning $1/hour.  When her parents came, they shared an apartment.  Her dad worked as a janitor for Auerbach's until he was able to get a job welding and doing iron work.  Her parents always attended a German Branch and really never learned English. I remember them.  She met Conley at a church dance.  He had been home from his mission three years and was just looking for her, so they say.  They have four kids; nine or so grandkids.

   Several years ago, Erika and Conley went back to Germany to her class reunion. Even though they all went to the same school, the boys and girls held separate reunions. They first toured the school (still standing?  Both my elementary and high school have been torn down for years.  How wasteful Americans are.) and then went to a hotel for dinner.  Conley said he felt a bit out of place.  "Were you the only guy there?"  "There may have been one other."  "We left early because I couldn't take the cigarette smoke in the room any longer."  They planned a few more reunions but Erika and Conley never went back. Then no more.  Erika figures they all died from lung cancer.  She said she thinks the women smoked because they held men's jobs and were out in the work force just like men. They were mechanics, construction workers, and did everything the men did.  "How did these women look who stayed in East Germany all these years?  Were they happy?"  "They were well dressed, clean, and looked good. They seemed fine." 
   What interesting friends we have who now like squash – or at least pretend!