Gisele was born in Emsdetten,
a small town in Northern Germany.
Her father owned a lumber business.
She was the oldest of three,
headstrong, energetic and bold.
George was born in Berlin.
He was the son of an attorney.
He was an only child,
shy, intelligent, and gifted
at the cello.
Gisele and George are my grandparents.
Their love is my inspiration.
This is their story
George, like many other German men at the time, was drafted against his will and almost lost his life fighting a war he did not believe in.
When it ended, he was released from a Russian prisoner of war camp because he was injured and not expected to survive.
He traveled by foot back to his home in Berlin to learn that his family had been relocated to a small town in North-West Germany.
Gisele’s all girls’ school was made into a co-ed facility because the boys’ school had been destroyed during the war.
George noticed Gisele on the first day of class
but he didn’t introduce himself right away.
One day, as Gisele was picking gooseberries, George came up to her and asked if he could help. She laughed at the way that he clumsily cut up his hands on the bushes.
Weeks went by until George asked Gisele to the school dance but Gisele already had a date. He said, “No matter, I’ll go on your other arm”.
So George also took Gisele to the dance. That night he stole Gisele’s time on the dance floor and insisted that he walk her home. They stayed out past her curfew, so she had to sneak back into the house through the bathroom window.
Before she shut the window he asked her to bend down
so that he could tell her a secret.
And then he kissed her.
A couple months later George was offered a scholarship
to attend a university in the United States. There were not many opportunities for young men in
Germany at the time so he decided to accept the offer.
Saying goodbye to Gisele was hard but he promised to write often, and he did.
They wrote love letters back and forth for six and a half years.
At first their letters were in German, but little by little George wrote to Gisele in English.
She was impressed by his intellect and wit.
He was charmed by her kindness and spirit.
After six and a half years George wrote a letter to Gisele’s father, asking for her hand in marriage because that’s how things were done at the time.
Her father approached her and said,
“You really love him don’t you?”
She nodded yes.
Gisele’s father was an old man at the time, and even though he knew he might never see his daughter again, he gave her his blessing.
Gisele packed her belongings with tear-filled eyes
and said goodbye to everything she knew
for a man across the Atlantic.
She didn’t return home for eleven and a half years.
Gisele took the SS. United States to New York and the train to Chicago, where George waited.
He took her to the basement of a Walgreen’s
where they shared a cup of coffee. He didn’t have more than eleven cents in his pocket.
George went on to become a lawyer
and Gisele the mother of their two children and grandmother of their six grandchildren.
We carry their stories with us.
