Pacific Palisades 1965 - Cornelius

 We quickly decided to rent a house on the corner of Albright and Embury streets in Pacific Palisades, three blocks up the hill from the house in which Susanne had been born. Barbara and I slept on the floor an old mattress from Morgan Memorial in Boston - and so I began making furniture, a bed for us and a reclining chair - my master piece - for which I placed pregnant Barbara on her side on a piece of brown paper an then drew a curve to fit her shape.... Shaping the wood was harder, I put the piece into a very hot shower until it was as soft as a spaghetti! Susanne had her own room and another was reserved for the the child to come.

The Jakaranda tree in front of our bedroom window

Our first house on Albright St in the Pacific summer-fog

The Chair on the Polish rug. The Lady by Rubens(!) had been a more appropriate present to Barbara from Lenny Friedman.

Susanne with her dolls in the back-yard

 

Cornelius is supposed to have been born on September 15 at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica, but as you see, we found him on the beach.... He was at once introduced to camping at our long-missed, favorite camp grounds - where he ate a lot of dirt. 

Newborn Cornelius in the sand on Santa Monica Beach

Camping at Jalama Beach. We always traveled in style with an espresso pot.

 

The harpsichord and some of our furniture had by now traveled across the country twice - like the chair Suschen sits on holding her already big brother. - Susanne is losing her teeth! - The Polish rug under The Chair above was a "graduation" present we had given each other before we left Boston - to be paid for from my first salary. We now bought a, rosewood dining table with four, very elegant chairs and a black-leather easy-chair also in rosewood - after which our money ran out. - So I made another easy-chair from the leftover wood of our bed, with down-filled cushions big enough for big people.

 In the Fall Susanne started first grade at Pacific Palisades Elementary School. She also took ballet lessons - and Barbara attended a tapdance and a yoga course in the Palisades.

Christmas 1965 on Albright Street

Marga and father Lattmann came for Christmas. We rented a room in the neighborhood for them to give them their own privacy. It was a joyous time for all of us, but they never repeated their visit - our American world remained strange, incomprehensible, and alien to them

 

Domino or Scrabble?

Marga looking like Olga Chekhova

 

Gisela and our Drive to Mexico City

In May 1966 Barbara and I took three weeks off - how that was possible on my new job, I don't recall - and drove with a brand-new milk-coffe-colored VW-Trabant all the way to Mexico City and back! - the only time we went further south in Mexico than Baja California. We left the children in the care of Gisela, the daughter of Irmgard-Irmchen Gernand, a school friend of Marga's. Gisela fell in love with her "Goldschätze"- gold treasures, and has remained Susanne's best friend. Afterwards Gisela took care of the two boys of a stinkingly rich San Fancisco real estate speculator. At the end of this, for Gisela unhappy time, Irmchen Gernand visited first her and then us for the first time. Many such visits would follow..... Gisela and Irmchen took Susanne to Disney Land for the first time. She called it "Dizzy Land."

Suschen's first time at Dizzy-Land

Mickey and Susanne

Suschen the Dancer

 

Great bosom friends Gisela and Suschen

Irmchen, Barbara and the children on Paseo Miramar, 1966

The little Goldschatz looks less happy

Cornelius and Susanne in the bath, Albright St., 1966

Susanne romping with Daddy on Santa Monica Beach

 

Barbara and Cornelius on "our" fire road above Paseo Miramar in the Palisades, early Spring 1967

Cornelius at Dos Cabezas in the Anza Borrego with the Girards in November 1966

 

 

In the summer of 1966 the Girards followed us to California. Marc held a research position at the Salk Institute in La Hoya and we visited them in San Diego several times.

 

  

Manuel and Susanne and
Anik and Barbara at the SD Zoo

November 1966

 

Summer 1967 with the Girards in Masclat south of St. Julien-de-Lampon on the Dordogne

When in 1967 the Girards had to return to France we concocted the plan of spending the summer together on the Dordogne. Anik rented a partly refurbished farmhouse in Masclat. Barbara left with the children already at the beginning of August. Shortly before that we had accidentally discovered a dream house for rent on Mandeville Canyon. Whilest Barbara and the children visited Gelnhausen and Dettenhausen, I scrubbed the dirty floors of the new Mandeville house and then joined them in Dettenhausen..

On the terrace of my parents' house in Gelnhausen

 

This time Susanne and my mother became good friends.

Susanne wears a necklace which Tante Alix had made for Barbara's mother.

 Dettenhausen

 

 

First morning in Dettenhausen. Cornelius draped in his security blanket, Susanne with sunglasses carrying his little monkey. - Marga pushed the shutter button.

 

 

 

 

I met them in Dettenhausen. We borrowed Marga's VW and drove through Switzerland and on back-country roads through the Auvergne all the way to Masclat, a long trip.

Rest stop on Reichenau Island, Lake Constance

Niederzell, Reichenau, Lake Constance

Noon on the Jaunpass/Friburg, Switzerland

 

 

Cornelius takes an interest in graves....

The house in Masclat - and the owner's car - Marc owned a bigger Citroen

....and waters the plastic flowers

The house required all our ingenuity. The women cooked over an open fire in a fireplace. Anik organized a wine barrel, filled it with straw, and put a block of ice inside - as refrigerator! The beds were huge, wooden affairs which creaked for all to hear..... There was a hot water boiler and a regular toilet - they were required by the department de tourisme for the rental permit. It was a French Paradise: the farmer brought us fresh milk and eggs every day, sold us a Barbary duck - which are dark and lean and does not quack, - in St. Julien we found a charcuterie with excellent paté, the river was incredibly clear, and we were surrounded by chestnuts, from which the locals brew a dangerous liqueur. There was only one problem, Marc had fallen in love with Barbara and Anik was terribly unhappy....

Marc, Manuel, Frederick, and Susanne launch the Yellow Submarine

Wash-fest, polluting in the unbelievably clean Dordogne

 

 

Cornelius on exploration....

... close to trouble....

....and being rescued.

 

 

Marc, Manuel, Frederick - and Cornelius unattended in Domme

Cornelius at the time had the uncanny penchant of hiding. He would disappear in the clothes racks of department stores waiting absolutely still for his discovery. We had to keep an eye on him all the time. One day we visited a ghost-town south of Gourdon. Susanne and I were supposed to watch him. - Alas, a big haywain came down the narrow street, and when it had passed Cornelius was gone.... All of us searched desperately for him in the maze of side streets, in the basements of the ruined houses, everywhere.... "Cornelus, Cornelus!" cried Anik. The locals shook their heads - "ou est Barbar?" Finally I found him gleeful in the arms of a farmer's woman a good quarter-mile outside of town. My French left me. I kissed the woman, and she handed him to me with the words, "I thought that someone must own him! So I picked him up".....

Cornelius running away....

Cornelius and Frederick planning another adventure

 

 

Exhausted from the long drive and a sick Cornelius on our return to Dettenhausen

 

When we returned to California in late September 1967 we moved into the Hoffmnn's house in Mandeville Canyon.

The Mandeville house from the back. It was located half-way up the canyon's western side and had a Y-shaped floor plan. The entrance is in the center of this picture. The white box on the right is the large, beamed living room with a 10-foot fireplace, at the left is the garage and a family/play room with clearstory windows on the roof, the kitchen and dining areas were at the center of the Y and the four bedrooms in its long, eastern foot not clearly visible in this photo. Tall eucalyptus trees sourrounded us. The Hoffmans, the owners were temporarily in Washington as part of the Kennedy administration.