A Fortunate Life

(Note: My comments are in parenthesis. Linda) (Note: My comments are in brackets. Tom)

Both my sister and I were born, August 7, 1922 in Vienna. At some point, which I can't recall, my father decided to take his practice to Wiener Neustadt. He was a fully qualified MD, but opened a dental practice right in a strategic office right in the center of town in the Hauptplatz. He combined his practice there with an adjacent laboratory and a waiting room and the apartment, which consisted of a parent's bedroom, another bedroom a dining room a kitchen and storage area. Next to the kitchen, between kitchen and storage area there was a maid's room. The bedroom next to the parents' bedroom was Su's and mine for a while, but when my sister and I grew and became teenagers I moved into the waiting room.

My father was a well-respected doctor. He was a quiet man and so was my mother. Ultimately after my mother got to New York, to help the families finances she took a job as a sales lady in a store in a New York City government Prison. Her maiden name was Tolnai, she never complained much, she took life as it came. She died in New York, Pali came to help at that time. When my dad was in his 80's he went back to Baden at the end of his life and died there. He was getting enough of an Austrian or American pension to live comfortably. He had a woman who took care of him; no relative that's for sure.

I went to school at the Real Schuler, the engineering preparation high school. I liked maps and thought I might be a Civil Engineer. Since Civil Engineering tied in with government, I thought Mechanical Engineering would be more interesting. I didn't want to do government. The switch to EE came later.

I took piano lessons for about years and after that I said enough is enough. I learned two pieces and I keep playing them, that's how I remember them. (But I remember Dad reading notes and playing piano occasionally when I was growing up.) [The Happy Farmer Song Robert SCHUMANN: Op. 68, No. 10 (The Happy Farmer)]

My mother grew fresh vegetables on a quarter to half acre of land, a couple of miles east of Neustadt. We had no car, only the lawyer living in the Hauptplatz had a car, did we have bikes? I don't remember - we walked. The garden was toward Hungary, that's why the street was called Ungar Gasse, meaning it goes east toward Hungary. I helped with the garden. There was a small building in the back for storing tools, there was also sort of a cellar underneath, I don't know what we used it for storing tools or something. It was only a 20 x 20 foot building, but it had two floors, I guess. I never minded doing it, I always like seeing things grow so that's why years later I had gardens in Millington, N.J. and Boulder, CO.

One year I had an opportunity to go skiing when I was about seven. But was never able to continue because nobody else in the family was interested. My father was a great swimmer.

Franzl Strauss was a friend with infantile paralysis; he was the same age as me. We pretended to play football, not football, but soccer between age 10 to 15. He ended up in a monastery in Tyrol for all his life. He helped out with admitting people to the monastery. He was limited in his abilities, never went to any good school. We stayed in touch for years. He died recently in December, I think. I got that letter from a cousin of his. But I'm not sure it is a cousin, John Strauss. They had a fancy funeral; his relative, John Strauss, came from the US to attend. Franzl had two brothers, the older one, Felix, who was three years older than me, ended up in the US air force. His son married in the US in Illinois and had a son Alexander who is about 15 now.

I lived there from when I was born until 1938, when I was essentially 16. It was a quiet pleasant family life. My parents played bridge routinely with some friends. We had vacations in Italy and Yugoslavia, near the ocean and later in Corinthia in South central Austria near a lake.

Every Sunday we would go to the resort town of Baden, where my Grandmother Rosa lived with her daughter, my Aunt Dora, in an upstairs apartment. I think my father provided all the finances. My grandfather was in the coal business, that's all I can remember. I don't know when he died, where he lived. On those Sundays, my father would play the violin accompanied by Dora on the piano - classical music of course! Baden is on the edge of the Wiener Wald. This forest extends from Vienna through Austria and Switzerland, and terminates in the southeast of France. A nice place to hike; we always walked into the woods from there. In Baden there was a big Olympic swimming pool and other soaking pools. I always enjoyed it. You never had any choice of course; you went there with the parents. They were great believers in the healthy hot sulfur swimming pools. Even the Olympic pool was warm. Dora never married, she took care of my grandmother. They disappeared during the war; I never got any confirmation about that.

Before leaving Neustadt, it was felt that I should have a job capability, and during the summer when I was 15 took instruction in how to bind books. Here is one of them! It's my atlas! And there were others of course. The Kozenn Atlas. I never actually used that capability (of book binding). I was very proud of it and it stayed in my luggage on all my moves except when I was in the army. It was proof that I could do pretty good handiwork - to get a job.

With the invasion of Austria in March of 1938, my sister, Susan, obtained a visa to England, and found a job with a former Austrian who was a world skating champion. Her husband, with the name of Nishikava, was a Japanese citizen. Su stayed there a number of years taking care of Joshi, the son, a baby. My sister initially was interested in Psychology but later on became a Registered Nurse. After leaving England, and in New York, she took her full course to become an RN.

Meanwhile I was lucky, again, having an Uncle, from my mother's side; fund me to go to Turkey, Istanbul/ Constantinople. That was Uncle Pali, we called him Pali; his family name was Tolnai. I think he was good in at least six languages. Unfortunately, he was in the tobacco business and smoked continuously and that caught up with him years later. He ended up with a Swiss passport among others I suspect. Moved at some point to Switzerland. Got married to a Swiss woman, very late in life and had one son who visited Doris and me in New York about 15 years later. That's a big jump in years, but what the heck. We took the two weeks of his visit and taught him to ski, and he became a good skier. He visited Australia for some reason, he didn't have a job, he must have been a teenager. After leaving the US he moved toward the Near East.

Pali not only arranged for my move and schooling in Turkey but funded it for a period of two years. He had a friend who lived in Turkey that administered the money for me. I attended an American college, Roberts College. We were there, and so were you, but when we got there it was taken over by the Turks. When we were there in 1973, I had coffee with the president, and he complained about the Turkish government taking over the American College and making it a Turkish college. Roberts College was not co-ed but on the next hill to the south there was an American women's college, maybe I was there once, certainly no great social interaction. Enough just being alive down there.

Jump back - from 1938 to 40 I was at that college. With a number of trips I assembled a number of visa's working backwards from the US. My parents must have been there already. And the first one was of course the US, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Siberia, Russia. I didn't need any separate visa for the Ukraine, but I did need a separate one for Siberia and Russia. My second Uncle Tolnai, whose first name I don't remember, living in San Francisco at that time, sent me $150 to make that trip. To pay for it and food. Was pretty cheap I would say, well, I ate only one meal a day! Well, 150 bucks was all I had!

Ultimately my uncle Pali, himself needed cash. And so after 1953, I was able to take care of his financial help. By this time I was having a job, I was able to return his financial help with sufficient interest. I don't know where he was at that time. I sent him a check after 20 years; I was happy to return the favor and I thought through heavily how much I should send back.

At the college English was the language, but my English ability was still fairly weak and so it was difficult to learn anything in the classes that I attended except everything that was related to mathematics and chemical equations. Somehow chemistry was in there too, in those days. Later on I picked up enough English to feel much more comfortable. While in Istanbul my knowledge of French still came in handily.

Roberts collage is next to the Bosporus and, from my arrival on, was a temptation to be crossed by swimming. One day I swam with the current moving me at least a mile further south, but there was no problem per say except that every ocean liner came at me it seemed directly! But I managed the whole thing without trouble. I do not recall how I got back, there was no bridge. I think there are two bridges now. I don't think I would have tried to get back swimming, because the current really moves you south, the water comes from the Black Sea and that makes the Bosporus go south, so I was nowhere near opposite the college any more.

I have no idea what day in the summer of 1940 I left Istanbul. But by ship I went north and crossed the Black Sea to Odessa. I took a train north to Moscow, and trains from then on to Korea. Russia, Siberia, Manchuria, and then down to Korea. It took a couple of weeks at most, it wasn't overly long, that's for sure.

All I recall is that at every station I made sure I took a good walk, I was trying to get to the United States to my parents. They were both in New York at this time; I was never made privy to gory details (of how they got to the States) such as these (meaning this writing) getting away from the war. Europe was in full war explosion - the reason for going through Russia was that Germany had taken over most of Europe. I have nothing to say about the Nazis. I got out. (Herb says he never had any fear or close scrapes with the Nazis or anything.)

I don't think I needed to go through Japan, but I don't remember really. I'm trying to think when I had dinner with the Nishikava; it must have been that trip. I must have called up the Nishikava and they invited me for dinner. Su must have given me the address.

I must have gotten documentation from my parents and maybe there was a German citizen in Toyko who may have helped with some of the arrangements. I took a Japanese boat from Yokohama, the harbor city south of Tokyo, to San Francisco where, after seeing Uncle number two, the object was to get to New York. It turned out that bus ride was the cheapest way of doing it. So I could have gone straight across. Deciding to see more of America, since the price was the same, I took a longer bus route down the west coast, south, as close as possible to the Mexican boarder, across the south of the US and up north along the east coast.

I joined my parents, found them well, and moved into their apartment, I guess. I went to work first as a draftsman for a couple of years. When that job terminated, since it was not a defense job, and with the war starting, I became a fairly young mechanic, I was not yet 20. But since, apparently, I was better than the others I was made the supervisor to set up the lathe for other workers. That was it, I did get into the defense industry - we were making parts for bombsites. The end product was a box that the bomber would look through to time and release bombs.

So this gets us close to when I was drafted, early in 1943. The army requested my presence. (laughs!) Since I had 2 years of American engineering college training (at Robert's College), the army thought that I should be shipped to the US Army Engineering Core. I had basic training in Louisiana in the spring toward the summer. The war in Europe was still in preparation; and the army was therefore not ready to ship its soldiers to Europe. I was shipped to Chicago for some more basic training.

While in Chicago I was told that my Louisiana battalion was preparing for the invasion of North Africa. I immediately went to my commanding officer and told him that I was still a German citizen and would not go unless I was an American citizen. (My passport was German because Germany had taken over Austria.) Within one week I was brought to a judge, he didn't even ask me who George Washington was, and he made me an American citizen. By that time, the battalion had left for Africa, and I was still in Chicago. It would have really been in an interesting (situation) landing in water, and potentially fighting, had I gone to Africa. It was a tough area to get into; I never heard what happened to my battalion at all.

After that I was sent to a testing area in southern Illinois. Apparently there they selected people to attend different colleges. The collages were, of course, financially strapped with all the soldiers (gone) in the army and this was one way of the army helping the colleges; they paid for our presence. Luckily I was sent to MIT.

Until that time I had been afraid of electrical engineering in any form or manner. But at MIT they took us from the most fundamental basics up to basic engineering concepts and it was made so understandable and reasonable that I enjoyed it and decided electrical engineering was for me! From then on "double E" (EE) was my objective. That was only 6 months or so - the fall through the winter. But it was enough to settle that EE was my field and my interest, it was so clean and understandable. So it became 1944.

They sent me officially into the Signal Core, and I guess I was trained there. But where, I don't remember. And went to school in the Army Signal Core, in radial and multi-carrier equipment. I guess that's the best I can say. The battalion having completed it's training, we were shipped to Liverpool, in England, in preparation for the invasion of Europe.

We were in Liverpool a couple of months, maybe. Then were moved closer to the channel. Next came the invasion of Europe on D-day, on the east side of Normandy. Two days later, fortunately, we landed on west side of Normandy. The battalion's job was to provide communications between US army's mobile troops with small teams of two or three people. Communications were between Captains all the way up to Generals. So we started off setting up base stations every 25 miles in France.

The equipment worked well, and when it didn't, we were able to replace components. It was easy to maintain and used new technology. Because of this record, I decided that the company that designed and made this equipment was the kind of company that I would want to work for.

This led us in steps from Normandy to the east of France, north of Switzerland, and to the boundary of Germany. I had two teams, one operating near Germany, and one in southern Belgium. I was transported between the two - you had to be! It was easily 200 km, there were no highways! We didn't worry about it. I never saw or heard any shooting at that time. Soon thereafter Germany surrendered. (May 8,1945)

We kept moving with the army, but well behind the fighting. "Lucky you are in the signal core!" we used to say. But as we followed General Patton, he was going so fast across Germany toward Czechoslovakia; we had to set up our base stations 80 miles apart. And it worked! This was another confirmation of the excellence of the equipment we were using.

After Germany surrendered, army personnel, me included, felt free to walk around in West Germany. We handed out candy that the army supplied us with. There was only one serious moment at that time when some unknown German, still with a rifle, took a shot at me. Luckily I moved rapidly enough out his way and he missed. I rolled on the ground it was standard procedure. Of course I didn't move until after I heard the shot. I think it was only one shot, fortunately.

It was interesting to walk among the Germans, with me still in uniform, and I could understand the German conversations. I have no idea what they said.

Even though Germany surrendered, the Pacific war was still on. The need for our type of communications in the Pacific was strong enough that our battalion was shipped via Marseilles and the Panama Canal, to Manila in the Philippine Islands. While the preparation for the invasion of Japan continued to be planned, the lucky signal core was able to just wait. My best friend, Vic Pomper, and I played chess eight hours a day when we weren't swimming in Manila harbor. Luckily for the western army, atom bombs were dropped on Japan, not necessarily in the right place, and Japan surrendered. Our battalion moved with the army to Yokohama, and we provided communications for the next year as far as Atsugi airport. The Japanese were very polite and supported a full surrender.

Having two jeeps for our teams, one could work 24 hours a day and the other was used by my friend and me to drive around a fair amount of the area of the Tokyo mainland. The one Jeep was very handy, I don't remember if my friend Vic Pomper was interested or not, but there was snow in the north and I could begin to learn to ski there on my free time. When Doris and I got together that's when we together started serious skiing.

When our job was done we came home and were discharged honorably. (Did you get any medals?) We were not heroes! I had three little pieces of cloth, one Pacific, one European, and one for good behavior. Ridiculous, those are not real medals, you know! They are probably still on my uniform.

Fortunately the congress passed a new law, the GI bill, which permitted all service personnel to go back to college or continue college. I did go back to MIT and completed my basic and graduate studies. After that, Bell Telephone Laboratories, the design company that had produced the equipment we used in Europe and the Pacific, hired me.

I worked for them for 42 years until retiring in 1988. I was first in the research department, later in development, and during that time I applied for and received 26 patents.

In 1951 I met my future wife, Doris Schneider, at a friend's wedding in New York. We dated for two years, and after two years of marriage, in 1955, my son, Thomas Dana was born. Then in 1956, my daughter, Linda Renee was born. The best part of my life was 51 years with Doris and the resultant children, Tom and Linda, and future generations with Terran and Kira.

I still have all my letters. I think among others from Istanbul to Vienna, to England, to Switzerland, to England, then to the US. My parents moved to all those places. I never lost touch with my family. The letters are in German. (That would be interesting to read.) God Forbid!

That's enough.