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Sandra Spieker (Ringo)
Wayne,
Yes to both of your questions. When my mother was 10 or 15 years younger than she was when she passed away, her mind and memory were still reliable enough to recall events during the war when she was a teenager. She recalled how the Nazi soldiers stayed in rooms my grandmother rented. The ate at their table. The table where my grandmother hid her silver in the center table leg. She recalled how they went without basic food stables, meat, milk, eggs, flour and other items. My mother's shoes were resoled with cardboard, there was nothing else available. There was also the "soup" story. I related that here years ago. You can look it up. Nazi soup for the hungry....
Dad served in the Navy, in the Pacific, as a radio operater for airplanes aboard ship. Dad was born in Holland, like my mother. He came to America in 1928 when he was 12 years old, his parents left to escape extreme poverty, and a chance for a better life. He volunteered as all his brother's (he had 9 brothers and sisters) did when the war broke out. He later came back to Holland after the war and worked for American Overseas Airways. They met at Schipold (means Ship's Hold) the airport at Amsterdam.
From left to right: My uncle Ben - Infantry, wounded in Italy, uncle Corneilus (Cor) Artillary, served in France, Uncle Frits - Accounting D.C., Mack (Marinus - my father) - Navy, misc air bases VF-16 Squadron, Uncle Pete - Tanks 2nd Armored, served in France, Holland and helped free Belguim.
We laid my mother's ashes and my father together about 2 weeks ago. I read an account my father wrote of meeting and marrying my mother that day. They married on January 28, 1947. He wrote this story a few years before he passed away at 92, Here is that narrative: Note: Chris is my mother.
January 28, 1947 O Frabjous day! Calloo, Callay!
On a cold, snowy day, with a miserable gray sky for which Amsterdam is famous, we were married.
To this day I am not sure how we got there. Chris arranged it all with the assistance or connivance of friend Rita Antink. We picked up our friends Henk and Rita Antink and drove in my war surplus jeep to the Federal Hall of records. Before a panel of three judges who performed the civil ceremony in the Dutch language, we ere legally married.
Convential descriptions of weddings go into details of what the bride was wearing. Nothing is said of the groom's attire. I will not neglect this custom. The picture taken after the wedding reveals all. She wore a borrowed fur coat that somehow survived the war. It was worth little or nothing or the Nazis would have confiscated it long before.
Rita, Dad, Mom and Henk, and a man looking very formal. January 28, 1947.
We met at the airport of Amsterdam. It is named "Schiphol" which is a nautical term dennoting harbor facilities. The airport ste is below sea level and orginally flooded. It was pumped dry to form a "polder" which is the term used to denote a part of the sea bottom converted to farm land. Sorry I degress.
We met while I was at work, servicing one of the very early flights to transatlantic passenger service. I had just disembarked the aircraft when I noticed some of our passenger service worthies and consular light weights gossiping at the fence which separated the public from the aircraft. Customs and Immigration facilities were extremely primitive and people wandered around freely where they did not belong.
Anyhow, since I was finished with my part of the aircraft turnaround drill, I went to the fence to mix in the conversation. Most of these folks were familiar to me because they were newcomers to Europe and were full of questions. Some were political types such a Vice Consul and State Department deal makers. I was the local American who spoke Dutch. Among them was a Dutch girl whose mother rented a room to the Vice Consul.
I spoke to the girl in Dutch to show off my linguistic talent and she understood me, better than I knew. I did not much about girls then, even less now. We were marrieda few months later. Fifity years afterwards I am still unsure how it happened.
Dad died the day after their anniversary in 2008. He promised her the day before he would not die on that day.
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Here is to us all ! "
