This is another of my favorites from the pile of pictures Ralf brought back from his trip to Austria.  It just makes me smile.  I was hoping to get a little story behind this picture, but it was new to Charlotte.  Here’s what she did say.

My dad (Robert) is 2nd from the left, sitting down is my uncle Charlie, my dad’s best friend and married to his sister Hilda. This must be in the 1930s.

From what my site reader tells me, I have way more readers than commenters.  And I know some of them are far funnier and better writers than myself. So, for this Memory Monday, I need your help.

Who are these crazy Austrians and what in the heck were they doing when this picture was taken???

I’ll post some of the best comments later in this week for you to read as you’re sprawled out on your aunt’s Barcalounger in a tryptophanic coma induced by too much turkey and pumpkin pie.

Happy Memory Monday!

When I first met my husband, little did I know that I would become part of such a ski-loving family. Having grown up near the Alps in Austria, generations grew up skiing. And they were all really good at it. I tagged along a few times with the whole family when they came to Utah to visit. I soon learned that my paltry snowplowing skills were no match for the black diamond runs I too often found myself petrified atop of. (OK, they probably were more like really scary blue runs…but still). Soon enough, they learned to relinquish me to the mercy of the green runs for the day (which were conveniently close to the lodge full of hot chocolate and heat.) These days I just skip the snow, awkward boots, and soggy mittens altogether and stay home heating up hot chocolate for everyone else instead. I think we’re all happier that way.

In honor of this skiing family, and with the ski season soon upon us, I found this picture of Ralf’s grandmother. She’s the one on the right. Charlotte sent me this insight into it:

This picture shows Herta and her two sisters-in-law Hilda and Fini in the late 1940s or early 1950s on a ski slope in the town we lived back then. This was a small town of about 1000 people at the outskirts of Vienna. Since many houses were bombed out, my parents had adapted part of a former spa into an apartment where we lived till 1958. You could ski all the way to the house!

Have a great day!

She was 19 at the time, and married just 1 year, and I think this was one of the first outings with her husband. It was a time of war and all kinds of problems, but I think she was very happy in spite of all of that. She even might have been pregnant at the time, since Peter was born the following May. Semmering is and has always been a favorite place to go for Viennese people, since it could be reached by train in a couple of hours. The picture was originally in black and white, but colorized somehow afterwards.

Schloss Hellbrunn Salzburg 1939

When my husband came back from his grandmother’s funeral a few weeks ago, he brought with him treasures. A bag full of old photos of his ancestors from Austria and Germany. Black and white snippets in time of weddings, parties, family gatherings, and childhood moments. Memories captured on film left for the generations to come. I knew I needed to do something with these pictures instead of filing them away in my tubs full of photos-yet-to-be-scrapped.

Since I don’t know many of the stories behind these pictures, I have enlisted the help of my mother-in-law Charlotte. With her help, every Monday I will post one of these vintage photos with a little story behind it. My hope is that these stories will eventually get compiled into a book to be passed along to future generations.