Dorseyland’s most popular teacher, Lydia Scott, resumes her autobiography with tales of bloody cuts and bruises too numerous to mention – and preparations for moving to Canada, where something magical called “television” awaited.

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Left, Lydia today with her husband Jack, at their home in northern Ontario, Canada. Below, Lydia in Germany, age seven.

Life on the farm went on and life for a little girl was mostly a fun experience as I didn’t know all the trouble my parents were having trying to find my Aunt in Canada. Granted, Brother and I spent a lot of time looking after Sister while both parents were absent but I never questioned where they went and as long as I was safe with my two siblings, I was content. One day, Brother was showing me how he could stand on his hands with his feet against the wall. I tried doing this and never quite managed to look as graceful as he did with his long arms and legs, but I kept trying.

After a while, Brother found this too easy and told me he could stand on the edge of the bed with his feet against the wall, which was a much harder trick. So I stood behind him while he gave himself a good push and – CRACK! – his heel smacked me right in the nose. All I saw was bright lights, then felt the pain, and then I screamed as soon as I saw the blood. I guess he was quite scared because of all the blood, but he calmed me down, cleaned me up and was very nice to me for the rest of the afternoon. By the time our parents came home, my nose had long ago stopped bleeding and was very swollen. Of course explanations were forthcoming, but because I complained every time anyone touched it, nothing more was done to my nose. Years later it was noticed that my nose was crooked, and long after I was married I had to have it straightened because I had trouble breathing.

Another time Brother was again watching Sister and me, and he was fixing a bicycle that he’d found somewhere in his travels. It wasn’t much good, but when we turned it upside down and turned the pedals; the back wheel really went fast. I watched him as he sped up the wheel and used his hand to slow it down by pressing on the rim (there were no tires), and I asked if I could try. Well, I wasn’t as knowledgeable as Brother, so I just stuck my hand in the swiftly spinning spokes and almost lost my thumb. With blood again flying everywhere, Brother grabbed my hand and pressed the pieces together before wrapping something around my hand. I was still crying when our parents got home and they checked my injured thumb, saying it would heal. I was sore for a long time and couldn’t do any writing at school for a while. I wear my scar proudly to this day.

Brother didn’t always do things involving me getting hurt. Once, when again our parents were away, I got angry at him for something and I threw one of Sister’s clay building blocks at him – and much to my surprise, it hit him on the head, cutting him. I paid no attention at first, but then I saw the blood and when he said he was going to tell our parents what I had done, I knew I’d be in serious trouble. That scared me. I decided to hide from them and went out to some evergreen trees that grew at the edge of the yard, thinking to hide among them, but I could still be seen from the house. so I started to climb up the tallest one.

Finally near the top, I sat on a slim limb and watched for our parents to come home. I sat and sat and sat before I finally saw them coming down the lane, but I kept quiet, thinking Brother would tell on me as soon as they entered. Well, I sat and sat before I heard my Brother call me and I kept quiet. Soon Mother was out in the yard calling me, but I never answered and when Father came out and called, I became very scared, thinking that now I really was in trouble. High up on my perch, I could see my family going in and out of all the buildings searching for me, but I stayed where I was. Everyone went inside and soon it started to get dark and I was beginning to get cold and very hungry.

When no one came outside for a long time (so it seemed to me), I slowly started the journey down and made my way carefully up the steps to our kitchen. As I walked in, I was bombarded by questions as to where I’d been, and I don’t really remember what I told them, but it wasn’t the truth, that I do know. Later, I asked Brother if he told on me and he said he didn’t because the cut wasn’t very deep and he forgot about it soon afterwards. I was both glad that he’d said nothing and mad at him because I spent most of the afternoon and early evening stuck up that tree for nothing.

When Sister was walking, we had a harder time keeping track of her and would have to hunt all over the upstairs, in case she accidentally wandered into one of the rooms we were forbidden to enter. Erika had some toys upstairs, and one day she left a small wooden horse on wheels on the attic stairs and Sister found it. No amount of pleading would pry that horse from her tiny hands, and finally Father had to take it from her by force before any of the others saw her with it. How Sister cried. Nothing would stop it and although she was starting to talk, all she kept saying, in German was “Horsie, horsie”. I forget how to say it in German, but I think it was “Ferde”. After that, we had a hard time keeping her away from horses. She would look out the window into the yard and if someone brought a horse out for work or to go to town, she got all excited and repeated her favourite word, “Horsie”.

Sister must have been about two when she gave all of us a scare of our lives. We were going to go to town but before we left, Father had to help the Uncle do something in the barn and Sister followed them inside. The next thing we heard was father calling Mother to come and help him, and I ran in behind her. There was Sister, underneath a huge work horse, stroking his leg and babbling to him. Uncle just stood there staring and Father didn’t want to spook the horse in case he stepped on Sister or kicked her, but he had to get her out of there. Slowly, Mother crooned to the horse while Father reached under the horse and grabbed Sister out of harm’s way. After she was safe, Uncle told us the horse had never allowed anyone to be under him and they had a hard time when he had to be shod. He also told us that he thought for sure Sister would wind up dead in a matter of seconds and that was why he just stood there. Needless to say, we all kept closer watch on Sister after that.

Fall of 1947 was a happy time for us. We were all together, and although I didn’t know it at the time, Father had found his sister in Canada and the process of getting us over to her had begun. I had begun school when I turned seven the past April and considered myself quite grown up now. In Germany at the time, we had several unscheduled holidays because most of the children lived in the rural areas and were needed for planting in the spring, haying in the summer and harvesting in the fall. So Brother and I went to school between these holidays and I had fun with Erika when she visited her grandmother. I had found an A-line chicken coop behind one of the buildings that was no longer used to house poultry, and Erika and I made that into our own private playhouse. The whole structure was about three feet high and four feet in length, with a small door on one side. Erika and I would crawl inside and play house with bits of broken pottery and anything else we found.

Beside a hay field; Erika and I tied a rope swing to a tree and spent hours sitting together on it just swinging into the air. One day; while we were going higher and higher; we heard the motor of a fighter plane and both of us jumped off and hid, memories of bombs racing across our minds, but this was just some pilot just flying very low over the field, for we could see him in the cockpit. He disappeared as fast as he came and we ran home to tell everyone what we saw.

Christmas of ‘47 was very good to us. We were safe, reasonably warm and had food to eat, even if it was cornmeal for days on end. (To this day, I can’t bring myself to eat anything made of cornmeal.) Mother had confiscated Brother’s bicycle wheel spokes, Father sharpened the ends and Mother started knitting. With the days too cold to play outdoors and the evenings long, Mother taught Brother to knit and he turned out long pieces of work that Mother used as soaker diapers for Sister. I was too clumsy to knit, but kept pestering her until Mother finally taught me to crochet, and I turned out miles of rope, which they used to string through the diapers and to tie up things. Both parents were preparing for the holiday by doing secret things. Mother was knitting red and white pieces that had me asking what they were, and being told they were for Sister’s socks. Father made tin tubes out of old cans and was making tiny candles, which I thought were too small to provide light but watched in amazement as they hardened.

Mother also had bought several packages that gave off the most wonderful aromas, but I didn’t know what they were. One day, while getting something from our woodstove oven, I saw a brown bag in the back and upon opening it saw my first lemon, and didn’t know what it was. Sniffing it, I thought it was the most delicious thing I ever smelled, and I told Brother about it when we were alone. He was interested as well and we decided to have a little taste. Well, I had never tasted anything as sour as that lemon, but once we started, we kept at it until the whole lemon was sucked dry. Mother was very upset when she went to get that precious lemon for her Christmas baking, and we were told that St Nicholas was very upset with us and might not leave much for us this year. That sobered us up and we behaved – until Christmas was over.

We had a nice Christmas that year. The tree was decorated with a few store-bought ornaments that we had managed to scrounge when we were in Mittenwalde, and the rest of the tree was hung with homemade cookies and lit with those little candles that Father had made, held on the branches with tin holders with a spring attachment. Once lit, the tree was beautiful. When Erika and her family came to visit downstairs, they stopped in to wish us a happy Christmas and her stepfather took a picture of our family by the tree and another one of us three kids by the tree as well.

In that picture, Sister is holding a little doll’s crib – my present from St Nicholas – and because she wouldn’t let me or anyone else have it, she took it to bed for her nap, rolled over on it and broke it. I guess I just wasn’t very lucky with presents that I really liked, but I wasn’t too upset. Those red and white knitted pieces that Mother was making were made into a short-sleeved sweater for my old doll, and I was so pleased with it that I forgave Sister for breaking my new crib.

Because there wasn’t much to do in the winter evenings and we were told to turn out our one bare lightbulb early, we spent a lot of time listening to stories told by Mother or Father. If it was especially cold, we’d all snuggle in our beds and our imaginations ran wild as we heard about princesses, ogres, witches, animals and, my own favourite, Mother’s childhood. Once Father told us that in America they had a fantastic thing called “television” that showed pictures across the air. I just couldn’t understand how that was possible and kept asking all kinds of questions. When he explained that a camera took the image and let people miles away see it, I just couldn’t understand how that could be possible. I remember getting down beside the bed and asking if a camera could see me from there but was told the camera had to see me. What marvels they had in America!

Spring brought with it a new excitement as we got word that soon we were going to leave this farm and start on our processing to emigrate to Canada, but this was still too far away for me to get too involved in. I was now entering the second grade and I had many friends at school and looked forward to going every morning. The playground was covered with crushed black bits of gravel that we children were careful to avoid by not falling down on it. As bad luck would have it, I fell down hard while running one day and didn’t bother going inside to have my knee looked at, and by the time I got home, a crust had formed over the knee and I had a hard time walking. Mother kept me home for a few days until I could make the long trip to the school without pain, and by then the black gravel was imbedded under the newly formed skin and I can still see it in my knee today. Growing up in Canada, I used to love showing my knee to friends and telling them I had German soil in there.

Early that spring, the farm began to produce baby animals, which I found very appealing. While playing behind the barn one day, I heard a faint squeal and, upon investigating, found a newborn piglet laying on the top of a barrel with it’s ear frozen to the top. I ran home as quickly as I could to tell Father, and the two of us went down to see what it was all about. Because the piglet was very small, Father told me it was a runt and farmers didn’t keep runts if there weren’t enough teats for all the piglets to suckle, but, being kind-hearted, he couldn’t see leaving this tiny creature to die in the cold, so we brought it home and Mother made it a bed inside the warmed oven for it. Sister’s old baby bottle and nipple were pressed into service to feed the new arrival, and later that evening, warmed and with a full belly, the piglet was placed in Sister’s baby carriage for the night.

We enjoyed our new pet for a few days until Uncle Arnold somehow found out we had it and wanted it back, now that it ate on its own and looked healthy. We were all sad, but Uncle Arnold told us that in the fall, when they butchered the pigs, we could have half for saving its life. I didn’t want to eat our pet, and before butchering began we were long gone, for which I was very glad. I loved going to the pigpen to look at the pigs growing fat and always knew which was ours – it had only half an ear where it had frozen to the barrel.

I was always an independent child and did things without thought of the consequences, and one day I decided to pay Erika a visit at her home. I’d been there before and loved all the toys she had, especially the huge dollhouse with real lights in every room and full of tiny furniture. I could spend hours just looking at it, moving the little dolls from room to room, and now I wanted to see it again, so one day after school, off I went. Brother had gone off with some of his friends and told me to go home alone, so I thought this was a perfect time. I finally found the house by asking several people and arrived at the residence to a stunned welcome. I stayed for supper and then Erika’s stepfather drove me home, where two very upset parents didn’t know whether to hug me or spank me. I never did that again.

Erika’s real father had owned a movie theatre before the war, and now her mother ran it along with her new husband. I envied Erika for being able to see movies, and she’d tell me about the different stories and cartoons she was able to see and invited me to come and see them too. After my lone trip to her house, I didn’t think I would be allowed to go, but my parents agreed, and one Saturday Brother and I went to visit Erika and stay for a movie. I was so excited because I’d never seen a real moving and talking picture, and was on my best behaviour. All I remember was being allowed to stand in the back and seeing a Micky Mouse cartoon, followed by a Laurel and Hardy story. Before another movie was shown, we were ushered out of the dark theatre and we had to make the long trip home. That was one of my most cherished memories of living in Germany.

One day Father came home with an important letter that told us to be in a certain place for medical tests before being accepted for Canada. Now we really began our preparation for leaving, and Erika and I whispered undying love to each other. I just assumed that in Canada I could get everything I wanted, and promised to send Erika a real toy stove because her dollhouse only had a wooden one. This promise was never fulfilled, and it lay heavy on my mind for years. Before I go on, I must tell about something that happened just a few years ago in connection to Erika and this toy stove.

I had acquired a Dutch pen pal about 1995, and as we exchanged information about ourselves, I told her I had lived near Burgsteinfurt, Germany. She told me her home wasn’t far across the border from there, and she asked me if I wanted her to try and find Erika. Of course I did, and my pen pal spent a few months tracking down leads until she decided to see if the town hall knew who had owned the movie theatre in the ’40s. To our delight, Erika’s mother was still living in the same home but no longer running the movie house. My pen pal called the mother, told her about my search, and was given Erika’s married name and address. She also told my friend that they were estranged. I wrote Erika and told her how sorry I was all those years about not fulfilling my promise to send her that toy stove and asked her many questions about Oma, Tante Mimi and Uncle Arnold. I was very disappointed by her return letter. Erika answered all my questions – Oma and her two children were all gone, and Erika didn’t remember all the times we spent together. She did recall there was someone at her Oma’s that she played with, but no more, and she didn’t remember about the toy stove at all. She was married to a lawyer, had no children and didn’t want to correspond with me. I was crushed, but since this was her decision I did as she asked. But now I don’t feel guilty for not sending her that stove.

Because Hollich was so close to Holland, most everyone on the farms wore wooden shoes for working around the place, and most of my friends at school had a pair. I envied Erika’s pretty wooden shoes but we couldn’t afford any for me, so I just wore my sturdy leather ones. One day, Brother and I were playing near the main road in front of the farm when a horse-drawn cart overturned, spilling a load of wooden shoes all over the pavement. The driver wasn’t hurt, but the road was covered with tied pairs of wooden shoes that both of us helped the driver pick up. To thank us, we each received a pair of these precious clogs, and I must have worn mine to bed because I didn’t want to take them off, even when I got blisters from the rough carving.

Anyway, the time came for us to leave, and the day before, Brother and I went all over the farm to say goodbye to everything. We checked on our pet pig, but he was busy eating and didn’t seem to care that we were leaving. I wanted to see Erika’s and my little playhouse before we left, so Brother and I stopped there and Brother told me that since I’d done most of the work fixing up the place, Erika shouldn’t benefit from my hard work. He convinced me to turn it upside down, wrecking everything inside. I helped him but didn’t feel right about it, and still don’t.

Next day Uncle Arnold hitched up that stagecoach and, after packing in all our belongings, we left the farm in Hollich and began a new journey which would take several months before we finally got on a ship heading to Canada.

Continue to Part 3.

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If you missed part one of Lydia’s story, go here, and to read about a couple of special companions in her life, there’s another engaging tale here.