Our homes in Germany 1954-1955

While Jim was stationed in Wurzburg, Germany in the US Army, we lived in 3 different locations. The first place was in a small village of Vietschorheim, near Wurzburg. We lived upstairs in this large German house. We shared the bathroom downstairs with the Gootbrod family, and we ate our meals with the family: mother, father and young son. I remember there were no screens on the windows that opened wide, overlooking the Main river down in the valley. The family did not own a car; walked down the hill to the village or rode on the bus or trains to go outside the village. They rode bicycles sometimes. I carried a German-English dictionary with me at all times to learn to speak German. We had to heat our water to take a bath and sometimes I would take my clothes with me to the army base and get a shower at the recreation center. We didn't have a refrigerator or ice so had to go to the grocery store daily or eat out. We lived here from March 1954 until that fall.
With winter coming on we decided to get a place in Wurzburg. We rented one room in a big house and it contained a bed, stove and table. Still no frig. I remember how cold it was at this place. Luckily Jim got promoted to Sgt. that fall and we were able to get army housing in December. We chose to live in a German house the Government was using for Americans instead of living in a apartment on the army base. Our house was at 66 Zepplinstrasse. We lived downstairs and another military family lived upstairs. We still didn't have hot water but this time we had a refrigerator. We could heat our water by building a fire under the water heater which was in the basement. We took our laundry to the cleaners on the base. We had German neighbors and really enjoyed living in this big house. Our first son Ronnie was born when we were living here. We bought a car that winter - a new German Ford, which we used to take trips on week-ends or holidays. We returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1955 on the US Upshur ship and Jim was assigned to Ft. Riley, Kansas.



We have both gone back to Wurzburg at separate times and enjoyed touring the area where we once lived. A few years ago our son Ronnie went there to see where he was born and took pictures of our house. The US Government turned it back over to the Germans not long after we were living there.