first married in germany

The following post is kind of long, but is from my heart.

When we went to Germany in 1971 as a young married couple, it was an adventure.

Not only were we newlyweds, living by ourselves for six months in a foreign country, there was also the independence of it all.

I have often told people that there is nothing that breeds unity in a couple like being 5500 miles from her parents. Just to call home cost around $40 for a decent conversation at the time.

She, of course, could write home, but it took a long time before there was an answer. By the time a letter came, the situation was usually taken care of.

Our first apartment was a tiny little area, two rooms both maybe 10X12. One was the living room, kitchen, dining room, main salon. There was a banquette table/bench with a couple of straight chairs, a couple of shelf units for storage and a tiny kitchen (pictured above) inside a cabinet: two hot plate burners, a sink, some shelves and a dorm size refrigerator.

The bedroom was long enough for a double bed and a footlocker with a free-standing closet on the other side.

We had our own bathroom with a rather large tub.

It was great. Just Ella and me. There were two windows overlooking the park across the street. Down the street was the Russian Orthodox Cathedral where Nicholas, the last czar of Russia, worshipped when he came to see Alexandria’s folks. There was also a university next to it with a tower shaped like five fingers next to it.

In the park, as well as the plazas around it, were seasonal flowers put there by some municipal department in charge of such things. When one group died, they dug them up and replaced them with something else. Tulips were the star flowers for a while, tulips of all colors, seas of tulips. It was beautiful.

When I came home from work, my little 19 year old wife would be sitting in the window watching people walk by, just like all of the older hausfraus.

We were independent, care-free, newlyweds in love with each other and we had a great time. Of course, I was in the army and had to go on base to work, but on our days off, we explored.

We had an old VW Beetle, a 1962 model with a 1956 engine in it. It had a rag-top sunroof that we would open and take pictures of castles from. Otherwise, we walked everywhere, all over the city of Darmstadt, all over the Heidelberg castle and a lot of the city and anywhere else we could go.

The city of Darmstadt was our exploration point. We got to know it quite well.

And we got to know each other quite well. In the years past, I would think about the people on the Oregon Trail who left their homes and went a thousand miles away by themselves to carve out their own life in a strange place. How well they would get to know each other when all they had to be with was each other.

In Germany, I had begun going back to church on base and had gotten to know the preacher and his wife, Ed and Margaret Chemnitz. Ed and Margaret were good people who welcomed GI’s into their home and tried to be hospitable. When I came over with Ella, they were waiting for her. They welcomed her with open arms and became our social group. But for the most part, we were by ourselves.

It made for a situation that has always been in our lives. We are our best friends and we are together. We always have been. We have a marital and spiritual unity that many people just dream about. It is more than love; it is truly that one-mindedness that God wanted of married couples in Genesis when he made them. The one flesh is more than sex, it is a like-mindedness that cannot be had by any other means than marriage.

I love my wife in ways that are hard to say. She has always been with me and has always followed my direction even when it was stupid, or at least seemed so. Both her family and mine were based on that paradigm and we followed it.

When our kids left home, it was back like that again. We were our friends, our confidants, our lovers.

I have never regretted loving and marrying Ella Leigh Mochman.