This little corner, with windows on three sides, sticks out from the wall of the castle, and is called an Ecker. It’s comfortable on winter days when it’s sunny, since the castle could be chilly. It overlooks the outer courtyard, and the large family house (where we lived because it was easier to heat), is visible. You can see the two windows of my room; the first two past the middle of the left-hand window. The castle has been restored since I lived there, and Count Carl and his family live in it.
For the last ten days I’ve been unable to bring an image from my thumb drive labeled “Castle Choices” into my blog, because we had to update the PhotoShop program. Bill’s been working with it today, and now I’ll see if it’s working.
Well, yes and no. This image is from a different folder, but although I could get the interior shot (of the Great Room in the castle) from the thumb drive to come up on the PhotoShop screen, I wasn’t able to transfer it anywhere. We’ll keep working!
I may have even posted this one before! This is Count Carl von Soden-Frauenhofen, the current Count, and the son of one of the kids I cared for. When the book was published in 2020, he actually got his copy before I received my author copies, and had his wife Antonia take his picture with the same view of the castle behind him.
Bill and I had visited there in 2014, which was when Bill took what later became the cover photo. On that visit, Carl had literally given Bill The Keys To The Castle, and told him every room in the place was open to him. He got up early every morning and worked his way through, shooting photos everywhere, while I visited Carl and Antonia and their kids and practiced my German.
Just lately, I’ve been rereading the book, and enjoying all over again the adventures I had there in 1961 and 62….54 years ago now! What a time capsule! Although I will say that the small village of Neufraunhofen, and even life at the castle, has not changed a great deal in all that time.
If you haven’t already, go to American Governess on Amazon and read the first chapter.
….after such a long dry period. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling lazy and just want to laze around. I have lots of things to do, but I just can’t quite get around to doing them. Cookie baking is on my list, but I need two ingredients that are in low suppy, and I don’t feel like splashing through the rain into the grocery store.
In thanking us for the donation, they mentioned that previously they’d had nothing but printed materials to indicate a person had worked there, and when families would ask about their forebears, all they could do was to confirm dates and positions. But my grandfather recorded the names of all the doctors and nurses he photographed, enabling them to put faces to many of the names. It’s a pity he didn’t know the names of the patients, especially that bright-eyed, intelligent-looking little girl in the right foreground.
That’s German for St. Nicolas’ Eve, and in my memory I can hear the children I took care of singing “Lustig, lustig, tra la la la la! Heute ist Nikolaus Abend da!” (Merry, merry, tra la la…today is Nikolaus Eve).
The Count had arranged for St. Nikolaus to actually come to the castle and ask the children to convince him they’d been good enough. I remember watching out the upstairs wiindows of the nursery as we all saw him walk through the entry arch of the castle, followed by Knecht Ruprecht, his rather scary helper, who was said to carry away misbehaving children and to leave them in the forest overnight.
Heilige Nikolaus had a long white beard, wore a white bishop’s gown with a pointed mitre on his head, and carried a long wooden staff. Knecht Ruprecht’s face was blackened with coal dust, and he was bent over, carrying chains, a bundle of twigs, and a bulky burlap bag with something sticking out the top.
The Count let them in. They came upstairs, and as they entered the nursery, the children greeted him; “Guten Abend, Heilige Nikolaus.” The saint pulled a scroll from his robes and addressed the oldest child, reading his misdeeds; pulling his sisters’ hair, being naughty at the table, etc. Ruprecht shook his chains, and then we noticed that feet were sticking out of his sack, and the boots belonged to a known troublemaker. But the saint went on to read of the boy’s good deeds, then asked what he had to say. The child sang a hymn for him.
Each child went through this, then saying a poem or a short prayer. When he got to the toddler, she ignored him, and kept calling out to me….”Ann!” in a perfectly American accent.
When the Count escorted them out again, he found a basket of cookies and a box of small presents had appeared on the doorstep. When those were passed around, I got a nice pair of warm mittens.
You can read the story of my stay in my book, American Governess. Below, the current Count, Carl von Soden-Frauenhofen, holds my book in front of the castle.
The lip’s still a bit sore because it got so shredded a week ago, but the cold sore lump is gone, and so is that feeling you get when one is ripening. I took a couple of extra L-Lysine capsules both days, and it works its usual magic. The label claims it strengthens the immune system, and maybe that’s why. All I can say is that it works for me on cold sores.
Since I couldn’t think of a relevant photo this time, I’ll post another of Bill’s creations: his lead-filled baseballs. He just finished another. For the first ones, he made cores of lead shot embedded in silicone, but apparently he didn’t think they weighed enough. Now he casts cores of molten lead. The covers, as always, are leather cut to a standard baseball pattern. He sits in his recliner, watching TV and stitching them two-handed with curved needles, in a proper baseball stitch, like somebody doing their knitting. They weigh about 4 pounds each, I think. When done, he dips them in wax, then shines them. In the photo, the back two have been dipped and are dry, and the front one has been polished. He signs and numbers them, too.
I need to find a fascinating photo for this or no one will read it…..Ah! There we go! A couple of the plague masks my husband Bill makes, which definitely have enough room within for a blown-up lip.
When I fell on my face on concrete last Wednesday morning, I split my lip and it felt shredded inside, so it was natural that it got swollen and achey for a day or two. Then today, I realized that a cold sore had taken advantage of the opening, and I could feel the hard lump. It had been so long since I’d had one that I almost couldn’t remember what I had discovered that made a huge difference in whether or not one of those ripened into a 2-week long mess. Then I remembered.
L-Lysine! Since I’m not selling the stuff, I suppose I can tell about it. The label says it’s an “essential amino acid.” All I know is that it really helps me with cold sores. If I take it as soon as I’m aware one’s developing, it keeps it from getting bad. Because the pain from the cut masked it, it may take longer this time.
For years I’ve taken one capsule a day as a preventive, and that’s probably why I haven’t had one in many years. But just now, I took a couple, and when I go to bed I’ll take a couple more. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
No great crowds, but many people came in to talk and take a book home. Many thanks to Mitchell’s Coffee House for hosting me; they were gracious and helpful. And Bill couldn’t resist taking home a couple of their brownies!
I was glad that I hung in there with getting my point-of-sale device working…which didn’t happen until the night before, at 9pm. So there was a bit of frustration about missed connections, but it all came together in the end. We’re able to relax a bit.
One of my beta-readers was there, and went on and on about how much she liked The Girl Who Talked Too Much, and how funny and unpredictable Kippy was, and she had to keep reading just to see what Kippy’d get into next. Someone else raved about American Governess, and how fascinating it was to read about my adventures in a Bavarian castle being governess for the five children of a Count back in 1962. I didn’t have to make much of a pitch!
Here’s a kind of blurry picture of Kippy in Colorado with Jenny, when she got to visit some horses.
I do hope you’ll be able to come to Mitchell’s Coffee House today between 2 and 4 pm for my book signing! It’s a gorgeous day, just a bit nippy, so be sure you get some of Mitchell’s fine coffee and maybe something delicious, while you look over my books.
Here’s Kippy, heroine of The Girl Who Talked Too Much, in 1991, holding one of her many trophies from the Special Olympics. had handicaps, but she was a winner in so many ways.
(I forgot to mention that I look a bit scary……a hole at the sidewalk’s edge was camouflaged by deep grass, and I took a face plant onto the sidewalk on Wednesday. Split my lip and gave me cuts to the cheek and forehead, which are healing but the bruises and shiner are developing nicely.)
Remember, from 2-4 pm on Saturday, Nov. 29, I’ll be at Mitchell’s Coffee House with my books. Not only The Girl Who Talked Too Much, but also American Governess, the story of my year living with a Count and Countess in Bavaria. I’ll also have my poetry chapbooks available; Awakening, Poems of a Marionette Who Cut the Strings, and The Only Sweet I Crave.
The Farmers’ Market should still be going on, and Mitchell’s has lots of yummies and great coffee, so there’s lots going on. See you there, I hope!
Things have been hectic, and I have a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day! Yesterday morning, a misstep on my morning walk sent me into a faceplant on the sidewalk 15 minutes from home. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and I was grateful to be able to pick myself up and stand, finding that I was bloody (split lip, cuts to left cheekbone and brow) but unbroken. At my age, it’s wonderful to be able to say that after a full-length fall onto concrete. I walked home at my normal pace, keeping the bleeding under control with a tissue i had in my pocket.
Once there, my dear husband took over, making me lie down with ice packs, checking that the pupils of my eyes were reactive. By the time I got to my son’s for an early holiday dinner that evening, some of the guests didn’t realize what had happened. Today I’ve got bruises blooming and random aches, but I’m happy at the outcome. One more feast tomorrow with relatives (for which I spent the afternoon baking) will round out the holiday.
This Saturday, the 29th, I’ll be signing books at Mitchell’s Coffee House from 2 to 4 pm, and I hope some of you will drop in and see me. I hope I don’t scare people if the bruises get worse. I think they make me look rakish.
This photo is of Mother with Kippy in 1970, at the wheel of the Stella Solaris, a cruise ship which took them to Central America. Read about them in The Girl Who Talked Too Much!
Ann Dickinson Sargent 