My Life in the Slow Lane

Part 3.

After the whirl-wind wedding, Ludwig and Maria settled down in their married life in Spain. Although they had secured a visa to Australia, they had to wait for a ship bound for Australia.

Married life took some getting used to. Maria had never cooked or cleaned in her life, always having servants to do it for her, so she quickly had to get used to cooking and cleaning her own flat and taking care of her husband. Her grandmother, Pillar, had taken Ludwig aside before their nuptials and said to him “You don’t know what you’re getting into, do you boy? The girl can’t cook a thing!” By Maria’s own admission, her grandmother was correct. But with practices comes perfection—she is now regarded by many of her grandchildren to be the ‘bestest cook in the whole wide world’.

Shortly after their wedding, Maria fell pregnant. Six months after falling pregnant, the couple received word of a ship bound for Australia. They went to the consulate to fill out the necessary paperwork to leave immediately to Australia. Upon entering the consulate the staff saw straight away that Maria was expecting. “How long have you been pregnant?” the official asked suspiciously. “Three months” Ludwig lied, in an astounding display of thinking on one’s feet. “Oh yes, sir, only three months” concurred Maria. “Ok,” said the official, breathing a little easier, “It’s just that we can’t allow women who are more than three months pregnant onto the ship. We aren’t equipped to deliver babies on the open sea”. “Of course” nodded Ludwig and Maria in unison, “We understand”.

Shortly after this less-than-truthful exchange the pair packed their few possessions, mostly clothes, into two shabby suitcases and boarded the ship that would take them to their new life in Australia.

As time wore on they sailed from Spain to Australia, and Maria became more and more pregnant until one day her water broke. Three months early, to the captain’s knowledge anyway. Their first child, a daughter, was born with the assistance of the (very flustered) on-board doctor. They travelled in the economy class section (think Titanic), and received, much to their shock, an envelope full of cash collected from the first class passengers equally three months’ salary. Soon after the birth, Ludwig was summoned to the bridge. He entered the room, hesitant, to find the doctor and the captain waiting for him. The captain proffered him a cigar and offered his congratulations. He smiled a wry smile and said “Three months eh?”

Upon their arrival in Perth their daughter, named after her mother, was checked by a midwife and pronounced to be in perfect health. A major newspaper ran a story on the new family, the clipping of which they still have. After the brief stop-over in Perth the ship sailed for Melbourne, where it dropped the new family before heading to its final destination in Sydney.

It was raining, as it so often is in Melbourne. Maria decided she could not live in a city in which it rained so often, so she begged Ludwig to pay the extra pound or two fare to Sydney. He agreed and they travelled forth to Sydney to start their new life with baby Maria.

To be continued.

Part 2.

Twenty years before Ludwig and Maria celebrated their marriage in Madrid, another (seemingly unrelated) young couple wed in Sydney, Australia. Ron and Beryl met at a dance in Sydney in the 1930s and, as for Ludwig and Maria, it was love at first sight. They wed on the 6th of April, 1939.

Ron was the eldest of the three sons of Morton, a travelling salesman, and Vida (who, incidentally, could trace her ancestry back to convict origins—her great-grandfather was transported to Australia to serve a fourteen year sentence for embezzlement in 1818. A dubious claim to fame, yes, but an interesting one nonetheless). Ron grew up in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, attending technical college as a teenager to become a draftsman.

Beryl was the middle child of seven, born in Cooma to Frank, a plumber, and Frida, originally from Germany. Frank was an excellent plumber but not a very shrewd businessman—he was always completing work at cost for friends and townsfolk in financial troubles. Frida called her children her “seven little Australians” because of the rife anti-German racism in the aftermath of the first world war (a tradition that carried over to Ron and Beryl’s own seven children).

Their romance, like that of Ludwig and Maria, was intense and enduring. They had seven children of their own (whether this was a coincidence or a plan I am unsure), and lived in the same house in the inner-west of Sydney for nearly their whole married life, which lasted for over sixty years, ending only by death.

They are both gone now (momentarily). Ron was a hero to many and an enemy to few; Beryl was a beautiful, calming soul. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren remember them. Constantly.

To be continued.

Part 1.

Maria was born in 1934. Her father was a wealthy businessman in Madrid, her mother the perfect trophy wife. They lived in a penthouse apartment in the middle of Spain’s capital—the apartment took up the entire top floor, complete with guest rooms and servant’s quarters in which lived a full-time maid, full-time cleaner and full-time cook. Her childhood was a happy one—she was well taken care of by her nanny and attended the finest schools.

By the 50s she enrolled at university. Maria attended her lectures and classes sporadically, at best—in fact she never attended any classes before midday so that she could sleep in. Here she met a young refugee, Ludwig, and the two began seeing each other. Although she was 18, her father ruled the home with an iron fist (he was, in Maria’s estimation, a “chauvinist pig”) and demanded her be home by 9pm, often meaning their dates consisted of dinner and the first half of a movie.

Ludwig lived in the dormitories at the university and spoke to Maria on the phone every night. It got to the point where the public telephone became known as “Ludwig’s telephone”—other students asked his permission before using it in case he was expecting a call from Maria. He helped her cheat on her exams (for which she had not studied) and she passed with flying colours. He did ok with the same answers.

After a few years, towards the end of their degrees, the two talked about marriage and emigrating to the United States. Ludwig popped the question; Maria said yes. However, legally speaking Maria was a minor because she was under the age of 25 and still living under her father’s roof, meaning that she needed his permission to wed. He was not happy about her marrying “beneath her class” to a peasant refugee who had no money or prestige so he denied her the permission she needed to marry Ludwig. “Ok then,” she said, “I’ll sue you”. “You’ll do what?” her father asked, taken aback. “I’ll sue you—you have no reason to deny me permission to marry—and I’ll call all the major newspapers and make sure that they know that Mr Big Businessman is being unreasonable!” He gave his permission.

The waiting list to get a visa to the US was months long, but they had heard from friends that the waiting list for Australian visas was considerably shorter. They applied as a married couple, although they were still not yet married, and planned a small ceremony (small because although her father agreed to sign the piece of paper he refused to pay for anything).

One day Ludwig received a letter from the Australian consulate saying that the visa must be picked up within a week or two. This was a big problem because in those days, wedding intentions had to be announced in three consecutive Sunday Masses to give the congregation a chance to object. They didn’t have a month, they had a week or two at most. Ludwig went to visit the parish priest and explained the situation. “Well,” said the priest, “We can announce your intention on Sunday. Then, Monday, is All Saints day, so the entire congregation will be there so we’ll announce it then too. And Tuesday is All Souls day, so the entire congregation will be there again so we’ll announce it then too. Then you can marry on Wednesday.” Ludwig was incredibly grateful: “that’s amazing, Father, thank you!” “Well, Ludwig,” the priest replied, “I’m sure St Francis would appreciate 200 pesetas in the poor box on your way out.”

Ludwig gladly paid the 200 pesetas, and he and Maria were wed on the Wednesday and picked up their visa to travel to Melbourne the following week. It was a simple ceremony. Maria looked beautiful in her dress; Ludwig’s outfit had been thrown together by collecting various items of clothing from friends in the dormitories (including an elusive button that he stole from someone else’s jacket with the help of the matron and her master key).

Maria’s mother was present at the wedding but she never saw her father again.

To be continued…
The image on this post is Maria, Ludwig and their grandson Luke. I do have wedding photos at home that I will share when I get them scanned.

On the twelfth of September each year my family celebrates “family day”, the day my grandfather escaped from a communist country in Eastern Europe. This is my history.

It was the early 1950s. Ludwig had been imprisoned by the communist government in a work camp—there was no term of imprisonment, he would leave once he had “changed his mind”—so for countless days he worked in the coal mines. He was imprisoned not so much for his own beliefs but for those of his father, a prolific published author and journalist, who spoke out against the excesses of communism. One night, the night of the twelfth of September, he escaped.

He, along with another prisoner who he allowed to tag along more for the convenience of having someone to look out for him than for any actual friendship, swam across the Danube River into Austria at 10.30 pm, under cover of darkness. He remembers the exact time because his watch stopped in the cold water.

Across the border, there were police officers and army personnel everywhere; they had the power to demand to see identification papers and make arrests for not having them. This meant that Ludwig and his friend had to be very careful not to get caught when they ventured into towns and villages. Camping in the forests of Austria, venturing into villages only for food, the two men lay low before applying for refugee status. During one such trip to town for food, Ludwig noticed a policeman asking to see the papers of several people on the street. Unperturbed, and much to the astonishment of his friend, he approached the policeman with his shoulders back and his head held high. “Do you know the way to the library?” he asked in perfect German. The policeman turned to him and gave him the directions. Before he had a chance to demand to see Ludwig’s papers, Ludwig was off in the direction of the library with his astonished friend in tow.

Once he had received refugee status, he applied for a university scholarship to study in Madrid, Spain. The scholarship was granted and he travelled to Spain. It was in Spain that he met and quickly fell in love with Maria.

To be continued…