AFTERWORD

As a child I loved stories my mother and her mother told about my great-grandmother Dina: a loving, laughing woman who bore fifteen children in eighteen years, and who was the heart of our family even long after her death. When I began to write, I always thought I’d write about her someday. Much of this is fiction, of course, but her spirit is real, I hope.

In 1870, my great-grandmother Christina Schütz, called Dina, took the terrible journey to America to escape sewing. When she arrived, she saw the rug worn bare and knew she had come to a house of tailors. She stayed with the Uncle until she married Johann Schaeffer. They suffered through the smallpox epidemic; the story of the health department is true, except it was Johann who cleaned the house and dressed Dina and her tiny baby, Mary. He convinced the men to leave Mary there, and as they left, Dina collapsed at the sink.

Mary carried the marks of smallpox on her face all her life, but she was loved by two men, her husband and his brother, both of whom thought she was beautiful.

The story of the storm on the ship was also true. For the rest of her life, Dina never ate or drank on Good Friday in gratitude for surviving it.

Katharina never came to America. She had a fine tailoring business and remained single all her life. Sadly, it is believed that as an old woman she was put to death by the Nazis.

The Schütz house still exists, not in Breisach but in Heidelberg. I have stood there several times looking at the Neckar River and remembering that every fall Dina would sigh and say it was homesick weather.

I write this especially so that the story of Dina and her beloved, Johann, will be remembered by our family.