Paquette

=Frieda Paquette=

Podcast
media type="custom" key="12081241"

BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Frieda Paquette immigrated to the U.S. because her husband was an American citizen and was living in the United States. She grew up in Munich, Germany during World War II. She and her family were bombed out of their city home in 1944 and went to the country to live with a farmer. While she was in the country the war ended and the Americans came to the village. She has four sisters and two brothers who all still live in Germany. She emigrated from Germany in 1953 on the Queen Mary; the journey took three and a half days from France to the U.S. From there she met her husband at the port and moved to Ohio. She taught herself English by translating magazines and books into German from English. She now has two children, one girl and one boy and four grandchildren all living in the U.S.

Germany is located in central Europe. It is the 16th most populous nation in the world. It is the 63rd largest country in the world and is slightly smaller than Montana. The official language is German. The major religious groups are Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim. The official name of Germany is the Federal Republic of Germany. The capital is Berlin. Some of their agricultural products are potatoes and wheat. Their main exports and imports are machinery, vehicles, and chemicals. Their main export partners are France, the U.S., and the U.K., while their import partners are the Netherlands, France, and Belgium. In Germany the branches of the military are Army, Navy, Air force, Joint Support Service, and Central Medical Service.

=Creative Writing=

By: Shari Gordnier
They say it will be soon That we will be freed soon

The Americans are on one side The Nazis on the other

They are fighting Over this little German village

Mother goes one last time to beg For an egg here, some bread there

She comes home with ten eggs The most we have seen in a long time

She conceals them under a bed As we go to hide

Whizz, Thud, Crash They are here the Americans have come so fast

We wait below in the root cellar While the men fight above

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Hoping and praying <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">For the Americans to win

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Silence, the quiet is overpowering <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The fight is over

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">We come up and into the house <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The Americans are still inside

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Oh, oh no mother’s eggs <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">They are cooking them

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">They came and found them <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Mother’s eggs

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Mother is crying now, beside herself <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">He asks us why she cries

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Sister tells him why she is crying <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">When he hears he looks forlorn

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The soldier comes again the next day <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">With his helmet full of eggs

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">We shout with joy and jubilation <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Mother has her eggs ten fold

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The soldier smiles, bright and kind <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">At our joy of simple things

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The debt repaid <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">We have our eggs

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Your Name: Shari Gordnier

Your Interviewee's Name: Frieda Paquette

Gordnier: Can you tell me your full name?

Paquette: Frieda Preek, that’s my maiden name Paquette.

Gordnier: Where did you immigrate from?

Paquette: I came from Munich Germany.

Gordnier: When was that, what year?

Paquette: December of 1953, I came to the United States.

Gordnier: What was your life like before you immigrated? What were some of your hobbies?

Paquette: My hobbies were soccer.

Gordnier: Soccer?

Paquette: Yeah.

Gordnier: So you liked to play sports?

Paquette: Sports, I liked to sew, eh that was about it.

Gordnier: Did you go to school while you were there?

Paquette: Yes, In Germany you go eight years and after eight years you go twice a week in a Buroschaliki, What do you call it, a jobs school but you were already working. I was fifteen years old I already worked from 9 to 5 o’clock everyday but two times a week I had to go to school because at the end of the three years I had to go and take a test, because I was in for textile and retail and I had to go take a test if I hadn’t have passed that test I would have had to have gone back to school.

Gordnier: So you worked with textiles?

Paquette: Yes, Yes, Yes in yard goods and domestics.

Gordnier: Where did you live in Germany again? Munich?

Paquette: Mhm.

Gordnier: And what was your life like there?

Paquette: Well, I grew up I was nine years old when the war started (World War II) in 1942 There was, there started to be a lot of bombing so I was allowed to go into the mountains where there is no alarms you know that you have to go to because before we would go to school maybe two, maybe three hours and then we had to go down into the basement and we came up and then and so our education was interrupted so I went into the mountains, for about four months or so and then I got really home sick and I wanted to go back home. In 1944 it was really bad was when we had to move, well we lost everything our house was demolished and we had to go to a place out in the country we lived with a farmer and it was kind of hard we had to go to the woods and get our wood and my mother had to go from farm house to farm house to get maybe an egg or maybe a slice of bread so I know what hunger was (laughs) and then in 1945 the Americans came in May and then in December we went back to the city because my father he had an apartment over there because he worked in Munich and my oldest sister

Gordnier: Do you have any friends that you still keep in touch with?

Paquette: Oh yes yes.

Gordnier: What was your family like? Who did you live with?

Paquette: My family life I had four sisters and two brothers and every Sunday we went either to a relative or went for a walk and that was our so we be together with my parents especially with my dad.

Gordnier: What do you remember most about Germany? What’s you favorite memory?

Paquette: I just love the country side the mountains because every opportunity I had we went to the mountains because from Munich to Austria or you know to Austria it’s maybe only a forty-five minute drive so I really enjoyed that (pause) that’s what I miss here in Ohio I would like to live in Colorado I guess (laugh).

Gordnier: So you really miss the country side?

Paquette: Yeah at first I really I missed the city life but you get used to it.

Gordnier: How did you come here, like in a plane or…?

Paquette: I met my husband in 1949 in 1952 he had to go back to the states because our marriage papers weren’t done yet, so he had to go back to the states and then he came back in 1953 so we got married in February 1953 and then I had to go to the consulate and they said if I would like to go by a plane and I said no I’d rather go by boat well then the Korean war was over and then of course they pushed it out and pushed it out so finally I say I’ll pay my way and it on the Queen Mary I came here and it took three and a half days and then when I got to New York I was petrified because I didn’t see my husband and I’m in a strange country and I finally I looked over and there was my husband but I couldn’t move I was just (thinks) petrified I couldn’t move.

Gordnier: So you came here because your husband lived here?

Paquette: Yes.

Gordnier: Did you have any trouble becoming a citizen?

Paquette: No, no because my husband was already gone back in 1957 he went back to France and I had to make my citizenship in 1957 and that was in Albany, New York.

Gordnier: If you could change the process of how you immigrated here would you and if you would how?

Paquette: I really don’t know (slow head shake)

Gordnier: What has been better or worse in America from Germany?

Paquette: Well when you get older you miss your family you miss your country especially the family because when I first came over I was very homesick and my husband had to go on TDY a lot and sometimes he was gone for two, three weeks there would have been a bridge I would have walked home (laughs) but the first year was hard because I didn’t have no children and when he(her husband) was gone I was all by myself I had no relatives I had some friends then but after I had a child it wasn’t as bad.

Gordnier: What’s your favorite memory from here in America?

Paquette: From here (pause) I just love it here we, I’ve done a lot of traveling here in the states and I love the family here on my husband’s side and plus I worked and I enjoyed it.

Gordnier: What was the first thing you saw when you got here? You mentioned when you got to New York earlier tell me a little more about that.

Paquette: I got to the port but they asked me what my name was and I had a big, a big trunk and I said my name started with a P he said it’s right over there and that’s where I sat and like I said I was petrified because I didn’t see him and the guy on the boat said do you want me to announce that you are coming out now? And I said oh no that’s not necessary and I wish they would have done that but when I saw him that was fine what I was surprised is that in the states we went from New York city to upstate New York and I was surprised that people lived in trailers because in Germany that was only right after the war maybe to ’57, ’58 but then nobody lived in trailers and it surprised me that there was a trailer a TV antenna and a car and that just surprised me.

Gordnier: What was your boat trip like here?

Paquette: It took three and a half days and we left Sherwood, France and most of the time I was sick, but one of the stewards said you have to eat a lot of the fruits so he always brought the fruit there was another girl from my home town who I met on the train and so he always brought some fruit for us and the last day because they had a big party and a big dinner that was the last day but usually I just stayed in my cabin or I went upstairs to get fresh air.

Gordnier: Did you know English before you came here?

Paquette: I went to school well I took a lessons English lessons but I thought I’m never gonna use it so my daddy asked me how you doing’ and I said I skipped it because I didn’t think I was gonna use it and then when came here since I was alone a lot I took magazine and I took books and then I translated it and TV of course helped me too.

Gordnier: So you taught yourself how?

Paquette: Yes.

Gordnier: So you didn’t know it before you came here?

Paquette: No, no ‘cause I have two sisters who they spoke English and when we lived down in the country we first the Americans came and we had to if they came to the house and needed any form of transportation they went and got my sister to interpret what it was whatever you know.

Gordnier: What are some things that remind you of Germany?

Paquette: Over here, well like I said it would be well not in Ohio but in Colorado with the mountains.

Gordnier: Do you miss Germany?

Paquette: Yes, see when you’re young it’s not so but when you’re old you really miss your family and I was just in Germany July and August I was over there for about four weeks and always every time we went every four years since 1953 we went to Germany and we was always so close and when we done something it was always three or four cars and we all’d stop somewhere and have something to eat or whatever it was just a real and that’s probably what my grandchildren miss now too.

Gordnier: What’s been probably the biggest difference between the U. S. and Germany?

Paquette: Well here everything is more free, when I grew up most of the time it was during the war and right after the war and here’s just everybody it’s just too the people are very nice they are so friendly were over in Germany if you lived in an apartment the people usually stayed to themselves.

Gordnier: You mentioned that in Germany you had a job working textiles. When you came to America did you get a similar job?

Paquette: I worked yes I worked in retail.

Gordnier: Have you ever been back to Germany?

Paquette: Yeah I’ve been back since about 1953 about every three or four years I went home.

Gordnier: What kinds of things did you do when you visited Germany?

Paquette: We just the family got together we traveled a lot to Salzburg, Burtsagong and Austria well that’s in Austria and we just visited.

Gordnier: Are there any words or phrases that make you think of your home country?

Paquette: No, not that I can think of.

Gordnier: Do you feel that coming here was a good choice?

Paquette: Well I really I really didn’t have no choice because since I got married my husband was American so I had to come over here where as now that I’m older I really miss it and of course I come from a big city I don’t drive so it makes it hard for me to get around and over there you don’t need to drive because there’s the subway there’s busses you know.

Gordnier: If you could do this all over again would you still come here?

Paquette: Yeah.

Gordnier: Have you kept up the same hobbies you did as when you lived in Germany, like your sewing, do you still sew?

Paquette: Yes.

Gordnier: Do you have a lot of family here?

Paquette: No, no I only have a daughter and a son.

Gordnier: So none of your siblings came here?

Paquette: No, all my family they all came over here and visited but no.

Gordnier: So your family comes to visit?

Paquette: Yes, yes.

Gordnier: Ok I think that’s it. Thank you.

Paquette: Oh you’re welcome.

//After the interview Frieda was showing me some pictures and these are the stories that she told.//

Paquette: After we bombed out of the city and were living in the village in order to get some food, my next door neighbor he was the major and he had a lot of cows and if would take ‘em out into the field to graze I would get some food. So I had to take them out there and I had with me a stick and a book and I didn’t know nothing about cows since they were grazing and all of a sudden one was way off and it made me mad so I ran after her and I spanked her and when I spanked her all the cows they were a running each one each way and It scared me because I was afraid the cows knew how to get home and that the farmer would find out that I did that that I smacked one of his cows you know but I got them stopped in time. (Pause) My mother had to go from farmhouse to farmhouse to ask for maybe a slice of bread or an egg and when the Americans came and just a couple days before because the farmer he had a French men the French they weren’t they weren’t prisoners but they had a different place about six kilometers or maybe about five miles and it was Stalaks 13 and we lived close by there too and so the French man came to my father and said its only going to be a couple of days until the Americans come so my mother went out from farm house to farm house and she had maybe ten maybe 15 eggs I don’t even think she had that many she took them and she put them under the bed so that nobody in case they come in they don’t know that she had them eggs and when the shooting was going back and forth and we had to go into a root cellar out in the yard and when we came up and went into the apartment or the place the place where we lived the Americans were cooking them eggs, I’m sure you know that they looked under the bed, and they were cooking and my mother said oh my God there cooking my eggs and I don’t have any now and one of the Americans wanted to know why my mother cried and since my two sisters spoke English they could translate and understand, so the next day a guy came with a helmet full of eggs I don’t know where he got them so we got the eggs back… One day my momma she was cooking dinner and I said what’s that and my father said it’s a cat but its good and I said I don’t care how good it is I ain’t eating no cat but it wasn’t a cat it was a rabbit but if you had a rabbit it was always where did you get it from? So they’d put you away and like I said my father he had to sign papers saying he wouldn’t be promoted because he wasn’t part of the Hitler group that was his punishment and there was so many times and I know our family doctor he would come to the house and chew politics with my father and we girls always had to leave because we I dint know what was wrong with my father if the doctor come to the house somebody had to be sick and we knew my daddy wasn’t sick but mother always said you guys can go and play outside now but sometimes when he came home from work late like maybe something happen to the street car or he was late coming back period, she cried she went from one window to the other and she said now this time children I think you daddy not going to come home because he opened his mouth because my sisters friend they had to take roomers in because you know because there weren’t that many buildings so you had to take someone in if you had an extra room and the girl’s mother said Hitler is crazy he reported that and the children came home from school and there was no mother… About three or four years ago we went back to that village and we took some pictures and there was a lady out working in the yard. So we introduced ourselves and we said we used to live over there and we talked and she said we had our sixtieth class reunion and there was one girl missing and we don’t know where she went. She said her name was Frieda. I said Frieda that’s me and then we found out that we knew each other. We went to school together and she knocked on the window and told her husband come out here come out here and he said oh yeah I remember a girl by the name of Gunda and my sister said that’s me and he said you had a brother and his name was Peter and I said yeah.

ANALYSIS
People come to America for reasons many of which relate to family. In Social Studies we learned that, historically people came to America for reasons dealing with family. We learned that some people came because their family was being threatened in their home country, either by famine or religion, like the Irish who were threatened by the potato famine, and some for the wealth offered by a new land that they could use to help provide for their families back home. In my interview I learned that Frieda came to the United States saying, “since I got married my husband was American so I had to come over here”, which is another reason people came to the U.S., to be reunited with family, like Naima who came to get married to her fiancé in the “The New Americans” video we watched. Most did not plan on staying, but only to earn enough money to return to their home country with enough money saved so that their family would be well off. Frieda has gone back to Germany though she did not stay there saying, “I’ve been back since about 1953 about every three or four years I went home”. Some do end up returning home for good because as Frieda put it “see when you’re young it’s not so but when you’re old you really miss your family”, some people ended up returning to their home country because that was where their family was. So family plays a major role in why some people leave their own country to come here. That is how my interviewee’s story relates back to what we have learned in Social Studies.