Germany: Wiesbaden, return to Lynne's childhood

We lived in Wiesbaden, about 45 minutes west of Frankfurt, when I was three and four and then again when I was nine, ten and eleven. The American military housing in Wiesbaden isn't on a base. There are simply American military neighborhoods, accessible to anyone. I have lots of memories of the neighborhood from our second time there, but only two memories of the town of Wiesbaden. One of those memories is the cool fountains in front of the Kurhaus, a beautiful building built in 1907 with a casino and space for meetings and conferences. There are several photos in my photo album (in a storage locker in Seattle) of me standing in front of those fountains at age four. When I was looking for a hotel, I chose one located not too far from the Kurhaus just because I wanted to see those fountains again. When we checked into the hotel, they told us to park in the underground parking lot at the Kurhaus, which is linked to the surface with cool glass elevator kiosks.

After we got settled in our hotel, we set out to stroll the center of town, which is almost entirely pedestrain streets. Wiesbaden has the flavor of being a wealthy town. Lots of pricey shops and lots of well dressed people shopping. There's a big opera house and an amazing cathedral, neither of which I remembered from childhood at all, and I was particularly impressed with all the flowers.

On the edge of downtown is the Anglican Church, St. Augustine's of Canterbury, where I was confirmed when I was 11 and where we attended every Sunday. My Mom was confirmed at the same time as I was, which I thought was really cool. The bishop who confirmed us, the Bishop of Fulham, came from England to do the confirmations, and he wore the most amazing costume for the confirmations involving gaiters and a mitre. Oddly, St. Augustine's has two front doors, and a cute back door painted blue. The church was locked, and we were there on a weekday, so sadly, we couldn't get inside.

On the second day, we made the tour of the three places we lived in Wiesbaden. The first place was our home when my brother was born. Take a look at the apartment building behind my mom and my brother in the next photo.

In those days, the apartments were relatively new and there was a lot of grass and no trees. Now there are lots of trees and bigger parking lots, but the buildings are still very similar.

When we came back to Wiesbaden when I was nine, we lived a couple of miles up the road in another American housing area. For the first year, we lived in an apartment. Ours was the middle apartment on the right, and my friend Becky lived in the lower apartment on the left. I remember running up and down the stairs to Becky's apartment many, many times.

One of my vivid memories of living in that apartment is rollerskating with Becky. Just a little ways up the road was a dead-end spur that went up a hill. We would set up a slalom course on the hill and I remember skating SO FAST down that steep hill. I had checked on google maps before we came, and discovered that the little spur is now no longer a dead-end road. It now leads to a neighborhood of houses that look like they were built in the 70s. When I looked at google maps, I pictured those new houses up a steep hill from my old apartment. Imagine my amazement when that steep road turned out to be barely a hill at all. I guess I must have been a novice rollerskater who was scared of even the slightest hill. And, to be fair, in those days roller skates didn't have stops in front. You had to stop by turning. Here's my scary skating street.

Right around my 10th birthday, my father was promoted to Colonel, so we got to move to a house a few blocks away. We lived for two years in the right hand side of a duplex.

Take note of that cool glass awning above the door. It was part of a big remodel that had been completed only a few months earlier. Dave made me ring the doorbell. He said, "You've come this far, you've got to see if anyone is home." The woman who answered the door very kindly let us come inside. We got to see the kitchen, newly remodeled and quite a different configuration from when we lived there, and the dining and living room and even the basement. I stood for a few moments at the base of the curved stairs that go upstairs. That's where I was standing when I learned that JFK had died. My mom had been upstairs and had gotten a call from my dad with the news, and she stood at the top of the stairs and told me down below. We had seen President Kennedy only a few months earlier when he visited Germany and gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

The school I attended for fourth through sixth grade is right around the corner from the duplex. Note the chain link fence in the second photo. While we were taking photos, a guard came from the guard box near the entrance to the school and said that we couldn't take any photos of the entrance. He was quite nervous about the photos I had already taken, and I assured him there were no photos of the entrance. Back when I was a child, there were certainly no chain link fences around the school and no guard letting people in and out. (The first photo is taken through a hole in the fence.) 

Our last stop on our way out of town was the hotel where we saw President Kennedy. My dad rented a room on the second floor. In those days the hotel had balconies, and we had a great view of the motorcade and the president. It was called the General Von Stueben Hotel in those days and now it's part of the Dorint chain, which has hotels in six countries in Europe.