The Garage, Part II

LHS '64

Rainer Klauss

In the early 1960s, we added a room onto our garage. Windows made up much of the new, simpler structure and less work was required than for the original construction project. A teenager by then, I could lend a hand with all of the labor.

It started as a family recreation room—many ping pong battles were waged there—but it gradually became my father’s study and library. When he wasn’t watching television with us, that’s where he spent his evenings-- reading, drinking beer, and smoking.  He sat in a simple plastic chair at a make-shift desk. 

My father left NASA in 1970, forced into premature retirement by one of the RIFs (Reductions In Force) that had threatened Marshall Spaceflight Center for several years. It is a bitter irony of history that just as America achieved one of mankind’s most profound and cherished dreams, landing on the Moon, the nation was being torn apart, politically, socially, and economically, by the Vietnam War. Although there were other factors at work, it wouldn’t be hard to argue that the burden of the war changed NASA’s Apollo goals and ultimately cut them short. As a consequence, many careers were changed or lost. (In a different sense, the same is true for the American soldiers and personnel whose lives were changed irrevocably—maimed or killed-- by the war). 

 Not ready to give up his working life at the age of 56, and reluctant to cast about for a job somewhere else in the country or overseas, my father fortunately found a position with a company called Federal Electric in Huntsville that served as a NASA contractor. That enabled him to continue to utilize the technical and managerial skills he had mastered.  He stayed there for two years, as the aerospace job market in Huntsville continued to shrink.  In 1972 he gave up his job so that a younger engineering manager could take over and continue his career. Afterwards, to occupy some of his time in a beneficial way, he began volunteering with the Red Cross.

My father’s great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and brother all died before or shortly after they reached the age of 60. As that significant birthday approached, my father discussed the worrisome family history with my older brother. Doing his best to buoy his spirits, Dieter emphasized my father’s generally sound condition and pointed out the far poorer quality of health care in earlier times. Perhaps our forebears had not taken care of themselves or had led hard lives.  We knew, for instance, that Uncle Hans, my father’s only sibling, who had lived in East Berlin, had never been a robust fellow.

As his response to a possible untimely death, my father decided to write the story of his life, hoping to finish it before his birthday.  He had not been a reticent, uncommunicative father, but he was also not a storyteller. We had heard bits and pieces of his life as we grew up, but did not have a treasury of stories to remember or a clear through-line of what he had experienced. That’s not unusual, given the turbulent times that comprised the first 30-plus years of his existence in Germany. (He was born three months before World War I began.) Those could be hard times to talk about and to make sense of.

His life story took the form of a long letter addressed to his grandchildren, at that time the two young sons and daughter of my older brother, family members that would have had the least time with him--barely knowing him, actually--should he die so early. The manuscript stands as an enduring expression of his love for them. It would also be a way for him to come to terms with his life. 

He began writing, in a black ring-clasp notebook, in December 1973, about five months before his May 9 birthday. If he felt any anxieties as that day actually drew near, it doesn’t show up in the narrative. He completed the mini-memoir on the 27th of March, 1975, well past the deadline (which was a good thing, of course). His birthday had been a kind of ominous marker, but I think moving past it in continuing good health gave him a spiritual second wind that pushed him on to another finish line.

My father loved reading, and the lessons he learned by being exposed to good writing are borne out in the record he left behind. He composed an interesting story that is well-written—an excellent job for someone who had never done anything like that before and in a language he had only begun to learn in his late 30s. His love of family comes through, and his sense of humor enlivens his story at many points. You get a good sense of what he was like from his writing-- the confident, articulate nature of his style.

I’m not certain when I acquired the black notebook. He had planned to give it to me, the family historian, right after he finished, but my life was unsettled then. I had left graduate school and was moving around the country as a traveling speed-reading instructor. I didn’t really hit firm ground until 1982, when I got married. I had the book by then, though. Late that year, my father gained another grandson, another potential reader of his written legacy, my son, Lucas.

My father died in Germany in 1986, while on a visit to an old family friend.

While looking at an old family picture several years ago, I had an insight that connected several parts of my family’s past for me. The picture above shows my father, my paternal grandparents, and Uncle Hans standing next to the summerhouse, the Laube, on their Berlin allotment garden in the late 20s or early 30s.

Allotment gardens, which had their beginning in Germany in the mid-1800s, were a response to the country’s increasing industrialization and urbanization. They consisted of large green spaces set aside within major cities that were subdivided and leased to parts of the urban population, its poor and middle-class citizens, for various purposes. They enabled children and adults from an urban environment to enjoy nature in a place that was “their own”; to grow their own fruits, vegetables, and flowers; and to benefit from the socialization such an environment encouraged. The beneficence and benefits of this kind of environmentalism grew beyond Germany and is still alive and well in many parts of Europe and elsewhere around the globe. 

My paternal grandparents leased a garden plot in 1921. First they grew potatoes and planted fruit trees. Later on they built a small summerhouse for weekend retreats. My father wrote of those times: “During the summer we spent nearly every weekend there, enjoying the quietness and fresh air. We had our friends there and would roam through the woods. As city people, we enjoyed the freedom there.”

When my father finished his comprehensive apprenticeship as a technical draftsman in 1932, he wasn’t offered a job by the company where he had trained— the traditional path to vested employment. Because the Great Depression also engulfed Germany, the company simply had no positions available. The Nazis and the communists approached my father to enlist him in their cause, but he wanted no part in their bloody business. Instead, in May of that year, he moved to the summerhouse. Keeping an eye out for acceptable employment, he used the time to make up for the broader learning he had missed in having to withdraw from formal education by educating himself with tons of books from the library. He became an autodidact.  He credits the period with being very important in his life--when he had time to think for himself and to form his own views about what he was learning and the world around him.  He was 18; the major events of his life lay ahead of him.

In early 1933, my father secured a part-time job with the post office. To describe the next phase in his working life, my father wrote: “Finally, in 1936, the government ran out of unemployed Nazis in my field of work.”  He was able to find full employment as a draftsman in the field of locomotive development. In 1939, he went to work at the German rocket development facility in Peenemünde. I’ll resort to cliché: The rest is history, and I’m skipping over a lot to get back to the garage in Darwin Downs).

I don’t think my father ever realized that the room he wrote the story of his life in resembled the Laube, the summerhouse in Berlin, the family refuge from urban stress, the place where he gathered and prepared himself for the future in the midst of significant uncertainties.  In 1973 he had his life before him in a different way. He would be engaged in the solitary process of recalling, recording, and reconciling his past. What had happened? What did it all mean? Would he live long enough to tell his story?  

The Wayback Machine

"Wooden Heart" 

Unlike our parents, our generation had a different view of Germany. One of the early associations I had to the German language was a song by Elvis.

"Wooden Heart" is a pop song recorded by Elvis Presley. The composition is based on a German folk song "Muss i denn" (lit. Must I then) and it was featured in the 1960 Elvis Presley film G.I. Blues. The song was a hit single for Presley in the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 1 for six weeks in March and April 1961.

The Elvis Presley version features two sections in German, the first being the first four lines: "Muss Ich denn zum Städtele hinaus". The second section is towards the end and is based on a translation of the English version (therefore not appearing in the original German folk lyrics): Sei mir gut, sei mir gut, sei mir wie du wirklich sollst, wie du wirklich sollst... ("Be good to me, be good to me, be to me how you really should, how you really should...").

Thanks again to Rainer for sharing his story from his early Huntsville days. It is interesting to read about how our classmates lived back in our high school days. We were certainly a plethora of  beings.

If you have a similar story we would love to read it.

More Roomer Stories

Dianne Hughey McClure, LHS ‘64, "My dad had a boarding house for four men that had been transfered here to work on the arsenal. My aunt cooked breakfast and supper for them. I don't remember how long they lived there. I do remember going to Knoxville to visit one of them after he had returned home. I don't know if any of them actually made Huntsville their home or if they were just here to temporarily to work on the Arsenal during this period of time."

Don Stroud, LHS ‘65, "Good morning Tommy. I certainly enjoyed your Roomer's article last week and in fact brought back many memories of my Grandmother Winkle's rental house on Holmes Avenue,  just one block from Five Points and several blocks from Down Town. Most of the roomer's usually had cars that were parked on the street. The house was a two-story White House with three rental rooms downstairs and four rental rooms upstairs. The rooms downstairs were usually private rooms and the rooms upstairs were double ones. Grandmother lived downstairs in her room that adjoined the kitchen. All her men had to eat their meals at cafe's in town but that never seemed an issue. She always had a large container of water that was available either in the sitting room or on the porch depending on the time of the year. I remember many hours rocking in the swing on the porch listening to the men as they would congregate and talk about their families, or their work. On those very hot days, they could always be guaranteed the coldest water in Huntsville and I can still taste it today. Of course, those summer days and nights proved to be a bit uncomfortable since central heat and air wasn't a commodity as it is today. The hardware stores always had a run on their fans during the summer months! Her house had been heated by coal but just before she moved in the family that she rented from had installed gas heaters in each room. Her house had only two bathrooms, one up and one downstairs. I don't remember if she had a schedule for the use of the them but I suppose it wasn't't an issue?

    Now Grandmother had very strict rules that every man had to adhere to and there were no second chances if they didn't.:

1. No women were allowed in their rooms period.

2. No smoking allowed on the premise. 

3. Absolutely no drinking or alcohol was allowed on the premise.

4. All cars parked on the street.

5.Bathrooms must be cleaned after each use.

6. Furniture could not be rearranged but she on several occasions would switch their rooms if she thought her men would be better suited together. (You see Grandmother was a little lady, 4' 10" tall, but could move furniture better than any Two Men and a Truck movers could.)

7. No food was allowed in their rooms. ( Only allowed on front porch)

       I don't remember much about how much her rent was or how much that she charged her men but she did rent to men for many years until her health prevented her from doing all the chores needed to maintain rooms for her men. She never had any help and did all the housekeeping chores and laundry by herself.

       I do remember on one occasion that Grandmother thought that she had smelled alcohol on the breathe of one of her men and she was waiting in the sitting room until 2:00am for him to return. In his coat pocket was a bottle of alcohol and she pointed to her handwritten rules on the wall just inside next to the entry door, Told him to pack his things and leave immediately! Of course, he responded," Ms Winkles it's two o'clock in the morning, where can I go"? She responded,"that he might go back to the place that he bought his bottle of alcohol." Grandmother was a little lady but quite the disciplinarian. 

      I loved my Grandmother Winkles very much. I learned so many things from her and how much she loved and took care of her men like they were her family that loved her and she loved us! 

Thanks again, Tommy for all you do for us and for sharing your article on your Roomers. It has taken me back several years to some of the best times of my life. 

LEE LUNCH BUNCH

Classes of ’64, ’65, ‘66

Thursday, April 24, 2025 11:00 a.m.

Carrabbas’s Italian Grill

(Upper parking deck at Parkway Place Mall)

Classmates from ‘64, ’65, and ’66, please mark your calendars for the next Lee Lunch Bunch. This begins the 15th year of our lunches together. This is also the 60th year from graduation for the Class of 1965. Hopefully, many of this group will be able to come on this date, share all of the latest from our daily lives, and have a good meal together.

Please do let me know if you are planning to come. I will need to let the manager know how many no later than a couple of days before. Thanks and hope to see you in April.

Patsy Hughes Oldroyd ‘65

304 Wellington Rd.

Athens, AL 35613

H (256) 232-7583

C (256) 432-3396

keithandpatsy@att.net

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Diane Campbell, LHS ‘65, "Many have sent me encouraging and loving sentiments after the passing of Sandy on December 25, 2023. It has taken a while for me to define myself after 55 years of marriage and a long high school and college courtship. Sandy had a stroke on a trip home from the beach three years prior to his death. He was able to fight hard and live almost normally for about a year and a half. He developed vascular dementia for which there is no cure. His family loved him through the difficult times at home on hospice. Thank you for caring."

Pamela Parsley Holt,  LHS ‘65, "A group of us girls from class of '65 and '66 started the dance at Bradley’s cafeteria to raise money for our summer trip to Florida.  I loved the dances we had one of two bands each Friday night,  either Continentals from Birmingham or our own Huntsville group called The Ticks played.  We also tried to sell the candy bars (that the band sold each year)  at school, but were told we could not.  We did well raising the money as well as enjoining  dancing on Friday nights. 

(Editor's Note: The Continentals that Jerry Brewer drummed for actually changed their name from The Continentals to The Ticks. I was told they first were The Fantantics but shortened that the The Ticks after The Beatles became famous. That sounds like a bug story.)