It's been a very sad weekend, our friend and neighbor Gabriele passed away unexpectedly on Saturday.
Gabriele was the first one to welcome us to the neighborhood when we moved here. She truly was the glue that kept our handful of neighbors together, always ready to help with whatever anyone needed.
Gabriele came to the US as a war bride, she met her future husband Virgil while he was stationed in Germany. She was the embodiment of German efficiency, changing a tractor tire, making her own sausages, cooking, baking, gardening... you name it, she could and would do it. Once she hit a deer with her car, and then asked the sheriff if she could take the carcass home. Sure enough, the meat ended up neatly vacuum wrapped in her freezer.
I still remember vividly when Gabriele introduced me to Houdini - her son's snake. The sons grew up and moved away, Houdini stayed, lovingly tended to by Gabriele. He got a mouse a week (glad I didn't get to see that), and even was treated to outings in the garden "of course, Houdini needs fresh air".
Gabriele 'failed' in one thing - despite her outstanding example - I never became a 'Good German housewife'. I still see her face when she offered to teach me sausage making and I blurted out "Yikes!, ahem, I mean thanks, but no thanks, I'm a vegetarian". That didn't impact our friendship, although I think she had a softer spot for JP (well deserved!).
Gabriele and Virgil's property is adjacent to our lower pasture. Gabriele told me that when the boys would come to the fence line she'd always talk to them. It was a good to know someone was watching over the boys as we can't see them from the house. One day Gabriele became their life-saver: She spotted a low hanging wasp nest right were the boys were grazing. If one of them would have hit the nest by accident they most likely would have been killed by the wasps. Gabriele not only made sure we got the horses out right away, she and Virgil came at night to take the nest down. Another 'Gabriele teaching moment': At night when the wasps are not active use a water hose to take the nest down, then leave it on the ground for the raccoons to clean up.
Not only the horses chatted with Gabriele over the fence - some days JP would come in the house with a sunburn, somewhat sheepishly admitting that while he was cleaning the pastures Gabriele caught up with him and they ended up standing in the sun for hours talking about "Gott und die Welt*" (*German expression for talking about everything).
Goodspeed Gabriele - we miss you dearly and you will always be in our hearts.
And yes, much to JP's delight I finally mastered the art of baking a German Red Wine and Chocolate Cake according to your guidance and recipe!
No comments:
Post a Comment