Vahldorf, 28.2.70
Dear John,
It’s after midnight. I’m sitting here on the bench next to the warm [text unreadable] stove in the livingroom where my mom always sat until late at night when she wrote to me or to her other children. I’m listening to Country Joe, Bob Dylan, Trane, Junior Wells, etc, drinking peppermint tea from our garden, waiting for Celia to wake up before we can both go to sleep on the couch. I want to finish this letter tonight, so that Willi can take it with him to Wolfsburg and mail it from there so you’ll get it faster. I already wrote home + to your parents + mailed them from here. But they might take 2 weeks. I had to save the letter to you for tonight. The shorter ones always come first. I told Skip + Dave + them that you’d send this letter on to them because I only wrote them a page or so. So could you do that?
I’ll try to tell everything in the order it happened. But first of all, I hope that Dave + Sunny came to see you and everything went well. I’ll come with Celia as soon as we get back to the states. I have to leave here on the 11th of March. Then back to Wolfsburg + N.Y. + Detroit. I might try to see Raines Blowe in [text unreadable] before flying back. But I really want to come back as soon as possible. Hope that it wasn’t such a shock for you. I know now why I absolutely had to go. Seeing me here after 7 years again helps them get over the shock + sadness. That’s why I want to stay as long as the permit allows. I know you’ll understand.
I received the telegram from my father Sunday afternoon. When I saw the telegram, I knew already what it said. So I called your parents and they came over that night and said I should go + gave me a check for $600.- I called next day and found out that the permit would be waiting for me at the border. So, the next day I went to the travel agency, had Stan Livingstone make passport (crossed out) pictures of Celia + me, packed, + called people all day long to get money. I didn’t want to Elsie’s if I could get it otherwise. I got $100.- from Russ, + $200.- from Joel Fabricant. Tuesday morning Dave + Sunny to us to the airport. To N.Y. there I took the bus to Manhattan + cab to Rockefeller Center. Got a passport in 1 hour. Then to EVO to get the break from Joel. He gave me $600.- cash + I gave him a check for $400.- from Dave. He was pissed + said he already had a check from us for $75.- that was no good (on Trans-love). But he did it anyway when he saw me crying.
Left N.Y. by Lufthansa Boeing 707 at night + went to Frankfurt. Slept sitting up all the way. 7 hours. From there in the morning to Hannover + there by train to Wolfsburg. Willi picked me up from the train station. That is Hildegard’s husband. They just figured out how I could come + when + went to the station until I got there. That night we left to Vahldorf. I had some posters + a record (karma) with me, but Willi advised against taking them. But they didn’t search us. Getting thru the border was easy. No search. But that could have been because I had the baby with me.
Finally we arrived in Vahldorf. Hardly recognized Uta + Erhard. They are both taller than I am. Erhard is 6 feet. Irmgard + Burghard from [text unreadable] were here already and [text unreadable] and Connie came later that day. Papa took us all to the chapel in the cemetery where Mutti’s body was lying all ice-cold and yellow and still, not like the Mutti I knew who always laughed and was full of energy. But Papa broke down and cried and cried and asked “why, why she” all the time and that was painful. I think this is the first time in his life that he cried. Papa was always a very proud and even stubborn man, but now he seems to have lost all energy and will to go on. Papa and Mutti just finally started to love each other this last year and Papa wanted to make up for 35 years of bad marriage. And then she just dies on him. He says she always talked about coming to Amerika to see us before she died. I know she really loved Sunny even though she never even saw her. She’s got her picture here in the livingroom and no other pictures. She was still very strong and worked for the collective until the day they took her to the hospital, getting up at 5:30 in the morning to wash milk caus and cooking for everybody. And there it was as if she saved all her illnesses up from her whole life. She was sick that I know of before. And in the hospital the doctors told my dad + Erhard that she had appendicitis, and pneumonia, and heart trouble and 2 or 3 other sicknesses. But also after the 2nd operation she fell from the bed and the stitches broke, but the doctor didn’t know it. That’s probably what did it. Thursday would have been her 62nd birthday. Friday she was buried.
People in the village have been very good to us, baking cake + bringing over food and sending Papa donations. But the thing that helped most [crossed out] is that all children are together for a few days and especially that I was able to come home. Papa freut sich über Celia sehr und lacht sogar when er sie . . . [Papa was amused by Celia and laughed when she . . . ]
See what happens. My thought wander all over the page, half in German, half English. So I”ll stop right here + go to bed + write more tomorrow or in the next few days.
Hope you’re O.K. + see you soon.
Love,
Deine [Your] Leni and Celia.