03:17

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Innsbruck

2008-06-17

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1925

Clip 40 Grandfather´s bed and kitchen At father´s parents, I already told you about this, there was an open fireplace. On the open stove - it was huge there was the fire in the middle and around the walls, there were benches where you could sit, when you were wet from the rain or in winter from the snow. There you could dry your clothes, and sit around the fire. It was very romantic; there was no electric light, just oil lamps. I've always longed for this but in later years, the open fireplace was gone. When grandmother and grandfather died, the descendents changed everything. Anyway everything has changed. Completely. The big living room remains. There were many stable hands and maids, because the farm was huge. And there was a long, long table in the living room on which they ate. One of the maids cooked and the other cleared the table and washed the dishes. Indoor plumbing had already been installed. They had this stone trough, and water ran into it. I can still remember it. It was a huge farm, there were 16 small rooms and also a built-in chapel. In the rooms it was as cold as outside, more or less. Only the living room and the kitchen were heated. The big oven in the living room heated it up. And there, behind it, oh goodness, yes- there´s a lot I can't even tell you - behind the living room was the master bedroom. I'll tell you what it was like. The house was built into the rock. And the back wall of the bedroom was rock, and when it rained, the water ran down. In there my grandparents conceived 16 children. In this room. It was so cold in there! Yes, that still existed in our century - in the last century. And the stable hand's rooms, of course, were also very cold, because the bosses were sleeping in such a cold hole as well. It was a big room, but, as I said, the back wall was rock. No bricks were laid. All this has been changed now of course.