Turning What You Love into What You Do
By Patrick J. O’Connor
This segment of “Turning What You Love into What You Do” and the one to follow next month will chronicle the “trip of a lifetime” for two retirees. Part One explains the plans for a trip affectionately called The Kitchen Tour. Part Two will share the travelers’ memories from the experience. The trip celebrates the importance of ancestry to the Boomer generation.
Part I – Planning the Trip
Maria Phillips is a vibrant retiree that I profiled in June 2023 as an inspiring example to follow (See northeastohiothrive.com/blogs/how-to-maintain-the-encore-retirement-lifestyle-erl/). She has traveled extensively for many years, especially since retirement. She loves traveling for the social value as well as the learning experiences.
She and her cousin Heidi have traveled together on many trips, including one to Vovklamart, Austria to visit their birthplace. They want to enjoy traveling as much as possible while young and mobile enough to do it. Maria’s mother and Heidi’s father were siblings.
Maria shares her love of traveling with others as she coordinates the travel programs for the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Baldwin-Wallace University (ilrbw.org).
Maria and Heidi discussed taking a trip to Austria and Germany to visit all their remaining relatives. They were both a bit weary of the “castles and churches” tours they had done many times before. They thought this trip would be special and focus on time with family.
As they pondered a different kind of trip, they thought of the good times people have that center around food. Food and dining have always had a special way of bringing people together. So, the idea of spending time with family and good food was born. And, the best place to do that… the kitchen. A trip that would be spent mainly in the kitchens of family members’ homes became the Kitchen Tour.
Why the Kitchen?
The kitchen seems like the room, even to this day, where people gather most. Some people even refer to it as the “engine room” of the home. It is a place that reflects family and culture. Perhaps it’s because of the collective lure of food that brings people together. And the kitchen is where those wonderful aromas of special foods originate. Throughout our lives, we recall the smell of food being prepared in the kitchen, especially around holidays. This makes sense since, of the five senses, the sense of smell has the closest relationship to memory.
Return to the Homeland
Maria and Heidi’s journey to America began in 1955. Maria was 4 years old when she came over and Heidi was 3 months old when she arrived in 1956. Maria visited Austria in 1999 with her father to see the house where she was born. The house had been converted to a barn with 80 cows. She and her dad had a good laugh that she was born in a manger and went from “stable to professor.” Heidi and her family returned to visit her grandmother Paulina in 1966.
Maria grew up on a farm near her grandfather and recalls being stung by honeybees when she got too close to their hives. She also had to cross a bridge to visit her grandfather. The bridge had no railings, and she was scared because it moved when she walked on it. She’s always had a fear of bridges as a result. When she returned to the farm in 1999, it was a cement culvert over a creek. All those years of fear for nothing!
Maria and Heidi’s stories are like millions of immigrants who have come to the United States. In the early 1950s, Europe was still struggling economically and socially in the aftermath of WWII. Their parents wanted to make a better life for their children, so they left Austria while many other family members remained or emigrated to Germany. The remaining family members are the folks they wanted to see on the kitchen tour.
When they came to the U.S. in the ’50s, their church, relatives and friends were instrumental in assisting the new arrivals to get settled. In fact, Maria’s great-uncle Reverend John Foisel and his Lutheran church (St. John’s) sponsored both families to immigrate. They welcomed the housing and job assistance provided for them. Their fathers both worked at the same factory immediately upon arrival to Cleveland. Most of the people in the church were also immigrants from Germany, Austria and Romania. Maria, Heidi and their parents were involved in the church their entire lives.
Their Plans
Heidi and Maria were both excited as they thought about all the places, people and events that were to come. Maria was especially excited about spending time with her uncle Georg (her father’s brother), who is the last member of her dad’s family. He would be 90 in May, and she was eager to celebrate his birthday in Stuttgart, Germany. They also wanted to visit their Aunt Rosina, their parents’ sister, in Siegan, Germany.
They set up plans to visit, courtesy of cousin Georg, who agreed to drive them from town to town and kitchen to kitchen. The time frame between towns would be from 30 minutes to eight hours, so there would be time for lots of conversation while enjoying the beautiful countryside. The biggest challenge was organizing the tour, as families needed to be home for visits and they would be traveling through two countries. They wanted to travel without backtracking, so scheduling took some time and effort.
The 14-day journey to visit six cities in two countries, the trip of a lifetime, began May 23, 2023. Part II in March details magic memories from the Kitchen Tour.
