Jonah Whitley: Alright so we’ll start off with your name.

Astrid Dick: Astrid Dick

JW: So where were you born in Germany?

AD: In Braunschweig Germany which is in the industrial northern area of Germany.

JW: So what was so you spent a good portion of your childhood in Germany?

AD: Well up until I was 15.

JW: What year did you end up leaving?

AD: 1955. That’s a long time ago. Right, you know, I was born the day before the war started on September 7 1939. The war started and I was born the following day. The eighth. I grew up, that was the normal to me getting up in the middle of the night putting on all kinds of clothes and going down to the bunker underground. Of course I gave my mother a hard time. Because, you know a little kid does not want to get awakened in the middle of the night. To go down in some hole in the ground. OK. So from there like I said I grew up and that was normal for me. Our father was drafted and never returned from the war. And my mother had always wanted to come here. And we came over here when I was teenager at 15 so growing up there during the war and that was normal for me. We were bombed out so we were kind of wandering around like nomads trying to make you know you go from day to day trying to find a place to finally settle. And we ended back up in that town where I was born. It took about a year and a half to two. After the war ended. So. And then my mother had to work. My sisters were older. I lived with an aunt and uncle. Typical teenager you know we went to the movies. We hung out together. We used our bicycle to go everywhere in the country. There was not much public transportation. They had buses going from town to town maybe once or twice a week. Other than that the bicycle was our car. And just like teenagers here we went to the movies. We hung out. We do some shopping, we played games. You know just different things like that. And when my mother got the immigration settled we came over here. At that time you had to have a sponsor. My mother had been working for a minister that was over there interviewing prospective immigrants. And you know he found out that she was interested in going. And his congregation sponsored us. The idea is that a sponsor is responsible for you for the first year. If at the end of that time you’re not self-sufficient. You can either go back or your sponsor can take care of you. So, of course you know. My mother being the go getter she was, you know dug her heels in and she worked. They had a job waiting for her. They had a job working waiting for my sister. The older sister was married at the time in Germany and had a little boy. She stayed behind. My sister was already an accountant working in a company. Like I said they were older than I was. Then she came over here. Of course the German accounting compared to American accounting is the opposite. What’s red is black and what is black is red.

JW: Oh, that sounds really confusing.

AD: She was working. She got a job at what’s known as Hot Shops at the time which is a similar to Shoney’s or Denny’s and they had curb service. So she was working poor service and going to split up college at night to learn your meal and accounting. And once she did she was out of that restaurant. She had very little time to interact with people her age at that time. So she kind of lost that period to get accustomed to how American young people at that age act. She was 22. So unfortunate she lost that. But once she was working. She really, did very well. And so you know she ended up marrying and having a girl. Anyway, when I came over here in April I spoke very little English. I was glued to the television. So, I learned quite a bit just listening and I was reading I could understand a lot of it. But, you know not knowing the language basically it wasn’t that easy. However, the situation comedy shows on TV the language or the conversations went with their actions. It’s not like today you get all of this laughs. They were actual you know situations that would occur in a home. You know so, the kids they would be out playing and they would come in for dinner and they would have a conversation. How was school? And that’s the other thing it dealt with current issues and it dealt with what a family would actually be doing. So, it was somewhat easy to pick up the language. Of course I loved does think this Cisco Kid.

JW: So, what kind of shows did you watch?

AD: Situation comedy family shows.

JW: Do you remember which ones?

AD: Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, and there were a couple others. And I’ve watched some of the Westerns. The Lone Ranger. I didn’t like him all that well I was Cisco kid was my favorite. And old movies and I loved Stewart Granger. And at night the at 11:15 old movies came on and again you learn you know what they were saying went with the actions. So I picked up quite a bit of English that way and like I said I was reading. And once I got to high school it was a little harder, but it was OK. And my English teacher he was from England himself. He could understand some of the frustration with the language like different or even different meanings for things like for instance if you are talking about a car and it has a boot, that is the trunk. So, you think you left the boot in the car. Some of those things. And of course he helped me a lot the first semester he allowed me to read books in German as long as the book existed in English. I had to do my book report in English. But, he did allow me to read it so I could get through it in time. After that I had to read the books in English because I picked any books. And I would have my dictionary here and the one that was from German to English and English to German so I could do that. I did fairly well. I got through that. And I graduated. And went from there. I liked retail I was already working part time in retail. It was a little different than it is today. So it’s not the frenzy you have today. And the stores weren’t open on Sundays. They were open Thursday and Friday nights and other times they closed at 6:00. So it was good. I still had my weekends. Then, once I graduated I still worked in the store but, I also went to night school. To learn more of the accounting and business English. You had to take several things to get your basic accounting degree. So then I was working for a moving company at the time and I got married in 1960. And, you know I had a couple of children but, I still continued working. I worked for Sears in their credit department. And once we moved we ended up in the D.C. area. I never mentioned that at the beginning when we came. We came to the D.C. facility and lived in Arlington. We live with our sponsor for about a month until our apartment was ready and the apartment was in Alexandria. And I had gone to the school at Mount Vernon High in Alexandria. And, I made friends in school. And we would also play games together at the time. Monopoly was the big thing. And of course we played Rummy{card game}and some other things but, we loved monopoly. We went to the roller skating rink and spent quite a few nights there. And, my friends and I just enjoyed it and had a good time. And I met my husband there. Skating rinks were very popular at the time and you know they would have you know everybody skates. Then you have couples skating at once in a while they turn the lights down a little. You have triples. And triples is kind of fast people go around and the poor person on the end kind of you know who that’s where I was from. Of course I hit the floor. And that’s when my husband Alton picked me up. Or Verne as he is known to his family. So, from there you know we dated. He had just gotten out of the service. And we dated for a while and got married a year later, I think. I met him, I think it might have been 1959. We got married in 1960. And we left the D.C. area and moved to Pennsylvania. His job moved him. He was working for Woolworths at the time and he was working in the manager program to become a manager and at that time they had given him the store in Philadelphia to manage. So we moved. Lived in the outskirts of Philadelphia it was kind of nice had a little apartment in a house. And we had a big backyard big enough so we put in a little garden and the kids had a place to play it was fenced in. And at some point, must have been five years later Cynthia{my mom} was born in Alexandria. I need to go back and fill in on the teens because the teenagers here were quite different at that point. When I was in Germany still we hung out as friends in groups. We didn’t really have boyfriend girlfriend yet. It was just we would do things together we’d take bicycle trips pack a picnic and go to the next town and stop along the way and eat our things.

JW: So, things like dating, that did not happen that early?

AD: No it wasn’t quite at that level. It was later. Maybe we were just too much kids yet. You know we were interested in doing things like you know doing things together as a group. We didn’t have basketball. We played stickball which is baseball. And we would play handball or you know German football which is foosball whatever soccer here. You know I was anxious to see a football game and it came on and that’s not football that’s wrestling you know. It’s what it looks like. Wrestling for the ball. You know it was kind of weird I could not warm up to it. And, my husband we would on weekends go to the baseball game in Washington which was then the Senators. And we would watch the game it was usually at 1 o’clock or so and then once the game was over we would go pick up his one sister and we would go at Glen Echo which was at the time a sort of amusement park. It had a carousel and some other rides and things and food. But we would go to the pool. They had a very large pool and I loved it. That’s the one thing I miss being able to go to the pool every day. We had one close to where I was living with my aunt and uncle {in Germany}. And you know it was just it was fun. But what I could not understand these people would lay out and get themselves baked in the sun. I couldn’t stand that I’d have to find myself some shade. And of course at times I did get a sunburn because the stupid kids don’t use sunscreen and at the time it was not really popular as such. You use some oil or something almost like you would go out and fry yourself. So that was you know what we would be doing on weekends. And other than that you know difference social things. Mainly the freedom you had here as kids. The many things that they could do. You know but of course movies were cheap. So we did go to a lot of movies. And go to the bowling alley.

JW: SO, things like entertainment were more available here?

AD: Bowling alleys may have existed somewhere in Germany but when I was we didn’t have one. We kind of made our own entertainment. You know playing games or just going on trips to the next town different things like that. Or we would go on an overnight trip. With the bicycle and go several nights and would spend the night in what is now known as Hostiles, very cheap overnight where it would be more than one person in a room. So you would share and you know where we wanted to go. Go to the mountains which you know close to us weren’t very big but there were mountains. And just you know. Go do some sightseeing then come back. And the kids here didn’t do that at that time. They were just you know is hanging around. You know some of the crowds. Some would get in trouble doing that but not. At this scale you have it today. No. They behave more you didn’t have, you had gangs you heard of it in New York City. But, locally I never heard of any and they may have existed, but you never heard about it. There were other things kids could do. It wasn’t just you know like we we didn’t have movies but only on weekends. That was it was a small town where I live with my aunt and uncle during my teen years. I was trying to think of some other major differences but you have to remember when we went through the war and after it took a while for Germany to recover to where you had some of the things you had here.

JW: Yeah, you left a little more after the war than I realize.

AD: The war ended in 1946. June 5 I think June 5 or 6 I do not remember. So you know like I said to me I grew up with the war so that was normal. I didn’t realize how hard it was for my mother with three girls. To you know make a living and keep us fed and a roof over our head. For some time we didn’t have that. And you know we kind of wandered around and stayed at different places. Some people you know the farmers would give us the barn or some would give us a room and give us some food. At times we would just stay in whatever was available. We stayed in a light tower in the woods.

JW: So, is this all during the war?

AD: It was after it ended. So it just it was hard until like I said my mother was able to get back on her feet and find work.

JW: What did she do for work?

AD: She was working for a camera company. And she had worked there before. So she went back to work there were just simply you know a quality control at times making sure the parts are right. And that’s like what David {My uncle} is doing. Only for the cameras it was assembling or whatever but she you know she didn’t really like that all that well and didn’t pay that much. So she was able to go to work for the British government so that she already knew some English but that’s how she learned the language before we came over here. And she was working as a translator for that minister that was kind of almost mind set. She translated for him when he was interviewing people.

JW: How long did she work for the British government?

AD: I was six when we got back to my hometown or seven going on I went to school. And she probably worked there until I was, Probably seven years or better and then went to work for the Minister interviewing people I think she probably did that with the thing in mind to maybe have him help us. Because she had applied for coming to America. And at the time my sister and my mother were born in Dunsick, which was an independent German city just like Manassas the city is independent of the county. It was independent and I was born in Braunschweig so they approved for the three of them but not me. Well that will not work. Then she applied again and the other way around. I could go but they couldn’t go. So then she got tired of that and applied for Australia. Now they were anxious to have people come because they needed women over there. So they were anxious to have you so to speak for women come over there. And then like she’s you know was working for the ministry but he. Was going to go and have his congregation sponsor us. Both of them were approved at the same time. And she chose America. I was still with my aunt and uncle at the time so. I left with the idea well if I don’t like it I can go back.

JW: Do you know why she chose America?

AD: Yes. Australia was still a little unknown at the time. You know a little more I wouldn’t say wild but, not as civilized so to speak. That was the impression you had and that does not mean that is what it was. But that is the impression and America you know people over there thought well the gold is on the street. You just go over there and you get rich. Well no. My mother said no you’ve got to go over there and bring your pick and shovel and dig for it. Because some friends came over when we went and they had a different sponsor and they came over here and they were just simply flabbergasted. They had to work for the money. You didn’t just come here and get you know they threw everything at you. He had its own business in Germany. He was a painter. Of course when he came over here he worked as a painter, but you know as an apprentice so to speak and she knew nothing. She never worked. So she was cleaning houses. So was their daughter. And I forget what the boy did. He might have worked with the father. So they didn’t last too long. They went back before the year was up. Not because then the sponsor said “you go.” No they chose to move after they had you know they had come over here with the wrong impression you know the wrong expectations. You can’t expect that.