Family history and change, continued.  So it is now after WW II.  Dad spends a year recovering in the hospital, then I think does some uranium prospecting for a time, then back in the Service but this time in the newly created Air Force as a anti-black marketeer in Germany.  My cousin Georg told me that he was known to the underworld there as The Black Devil, and he would have been a formidable man to be interrogated by.  Six foot one, very broad shoulders, again with a powerful build after having recovered from the horrible treatment as a POW.  His expression when angry was fierce, and that was all that it took to bring us kids in line, and I can imagine that a criminal would cringe when my Dad would enter the interrogation room and give him The Look.  Apparently he had great success.  He was a Technical Seargent during some part of this time, and we have the picture of him with his usual "tough" face that most of his pictures have in uniform. 

Mom heads to Germany, leaving Vienna, Austria and the sister that walked there with her.  She ends up working as a waitress at the Officer's Club at Rhein Main Air Base, where at some point she has impressed the management so much that they select her to be General Eisenhower's waitress when he visits.  She too has to recover from years of having less food than needed for good health, and sadly has started smoking cigarettes, which was common during the war.  More importantly for these ramblings, which to date it appears that no one but me has read, that is where they meet and fall in love.  Sadly, like so many other things, my parents never told us much about this time of their lives.  Of course it could be, sometimes like my kids today, that I appeared to busy, or brusque, to them and they decided to not waste their time telling tales of their past to someone who would not appreciate it, and if this is the case I apologize to you Mom and Dad, from the deepest part of my soul, for at all hurting you if I did.  Please know that now, with more wisdom in me after over 50 years, I would cherish knowing those things that I feel you may have wanted to share.  But we do not know the future when we are still in the past, do not know what we give up in our youth what would be treasure in our later years. 

So the tidbits I know are few.  Frankfurt was a big city even then, and as Germany rebuilt after the war it was busy.  My Mom lived in a small apartment in the house of a nice couple, whose name I fail to remember but believe was Misfeld.  But they had a dog, a german shepherd who they told me a little about.  Anka.  Or, as I thought of the dog growing up, Anka the Anka Dog.  Typical of his breed, he was smart, loved "his people" which came to include Mom and Dad, and inspired them years later to get our own German Shepherd for Christmas when I was 11, which has led to my lifelong love of that breed.  Story time.  Once Dad picked up Mom for a date, bringing a whole or a half roasted chicken over.  (Or perhaps they went out, got the chicken, and went out again.)  The chicken was left in Mom's room.  The doors had lever handles, and Anka had learned how to open them.  After they left, and feeling like having a snack, he went into Mom's room, took the chicken, and hopped up on her bed to devour it.  Which is where he was when they came home.  Of course they could not stay angry at the wonderful dog, and Mom told me that story with a smile.

Over the years, Dad mentioned a few of the qualities that led him to pick Mom.  One, he knew she would be a great Mom because she was strong, and she was a nurse which was a good skill to have if you have kids, and she was smart.  She also knew how to react in a possible dangerous situations, or she would not have survived the war.  If we misbehaved, or rather when we misbehaved, and did not show her the proper respect, he would calmly note that he had chosen us a wonderful mother who loved us and we had better start treating her right.  That always solved whatever little dilemma we were having with obeying the rules.

At some point Mom was able to emigrate to Canada, wanting to start a new life.  She moved to Montreal, and worked for a very wealthy couple as the maid.  It was a nice time for her, with enough food for the first time in years.  The people were nice, and being rich had the obligatory Montreal Canadians season tickets.  But they were not true fans and so did not go to many games, except during the playoffs which occurred frequently for that storied team, letting Mom use the tickets instead.  Thus her being a lifelong fan, and thus me being a lifelong fan as well.  Dad of course was in the Service, and so they were parted.  But they both knew they wanted to make their life with the other, and so made the long distance relationship work.  Dad eventually decided to pop the question, but in his own way.

One day Mom gets a phone call, and hears something to the effect of "Be ready in two weeks.  I'm coming over there and we are getting married."  And that was that.  Dad borrowed $500 from one of his fellow officers (I saw the promissory note, all properly signed including the repayment) and arrived as spoken.  Canadian law is, or at least was, very smart when it came to marriages.  Before getting married you were required to have a contract, which I'm sure stopped a lot of pure emotion  no-thought people from getting hitched only to have reality smack them apart a while later.  Among other requirements you were supposed to provide a home and furniture.  That document is in the family papers and holding it makes me wonder about how my parents were in those days.  I imagine the strong formidable man, and the smaller 5'2" or 5'4" medium built blue eyed brown blond haired woman next to him, with their language and cultural differences overrun by the incredible love that they shared.  Both shared great strength, of character, commitment, determination.  Both had seen evil in the world, had stood up to it, and been forged by those experiences into tougher people.  So when they went to the Catholic priest and he told them that they would need a six week course on being married before he would marry them in the Church they explained that they knew a thing or two about life and that this relationship was not a spur of the moment thing and that they had less then two weeks until Dad had to go back, but he refused to waive the course, and on that day they became Protestants.  A few days later they married in a civil ceremony, and that began the rest of their lives.

It is back to Europe for Dad, and a few more years in Canada for Mom, including moving to Toronto.  Never found out why she would move west like that, or for how long it was, or what she did there.