03:54

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

2008-08-19

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

We had to get up early every day and, first of all, go to church ? that was important. There used to be so-called Rorate. That is a kind of Mass, so to say a "better" kind of Mass. And all of us had to go to the Rorate. We got up shortly after six in the morning and got dressed and washed - with cold water there was no warm water then, not like nowadays - and then we went to school. Sometimes it was very nice, sometimes not. In winter there were no snow ploughs or anything and we had to wade through the snow. And - - Sometimes the snow reached up to our knees if no path had been stamped down yet. Later - during the morning - our neighbour would ride through the snow with his horse and a small plough and make a small path for the sleds. All the snow was stamped down so that sometimes we were walking on the snow about a metre above the actual ground. Yes. We also went sledging, but not so frequently because it was impossible to get out of the way, everywhere there was - The winters were harsher than they are now. Nowadays they are - partly - last winter was really harsh but on the whole - there used to be more snow. I don't know what else to tell. At school we usually teased the priest. Then he ? our teacher was an elderly priest, Father Mattle, and he would get up if we were misbehaving in the back - then he got angry, and pulled out the hazel switch and hit the desk because he missed us. We ducked. That's what school was like. Otherwise school was quite nice. I was always able to follow but wasn't a straight-A student. No I wasn't. But I was able to follow all the classes. After school - that was a different kind of life. We really had to give a hand. Especially in the summer during the hay harvest: raking and carrying the hay racks and that kind of thing. We had to do everything.