1974
For the summer of 1974 we went on a 4-weeks vacation to Australia. Hedy wanted to see Erich again, who had a stroke, about 6 years before, and was in poor shape. The last time we were there was in 1956, 18 years ago, when he was strong and seemed to be very healthy.
Our trip took us to San Francisco, Hawaii, and Fiji, with short stops in these places. Aviva was waiting for us at the airport with her car and took us home. It was a nice re-union after so many years and Erich especially was happy. His left arm and leg were completely paralyzed and his speech was severely affected, so that he could bring out only a few words and that under difficulties, and never a complete sentence. He had forgotten many words and often used the wrong ones, so that it was often difficult to find out what he wanted to say. He understood most of the time what others said but got easily tired and fell asleep while listening. He had in the beginning more often, later rarely, epileptic seizures, since he took certain medicines, which were very effective. He got the seizures always at home, so that it was always possible to put him in a chair right from the start. But his fine character, his kindness, remained the same.
I did not want to burden Lisl too much and therefore had planned to go after the first week for one week on a butterfly hunting trip north to Queensland. Aviva was very helpful in arranging the trip for us, getting us the airplane tickets to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, and a nice hotel in Noosa where we arrived late in the evening, driving all the time in heavy rain. We had the next day already and then for the rest of the week good weather and we could even go twice to the beach. I was also quite successful with the hunting of butterflies.
From Noosa we went on a boat trip on the Noosa River about 40 miles into the interior, into the bush, as they say there. We were about 28 people on that boat, went through two quite big lakes and there was much to see along the way, many waterbirds, interesting trees, but not a single house. We got out of the boat for a little lunch at a spot where the river was already very narrow, had to sit there on the grass. On the way back, we saw on the lake a few of the black Australian swans.
For the following two weeks we had a lot of entertainment thanks to the ingenuity or Lisl in arranging a program, visits to the few cousins we had there, Trude, Claire Schiller, and friends we knew from before. We went once to the new fantastic opera house for a performance of ‘Don Giovanni’, on a boat trip in Sydney Harbor, and on a 3-days trip to Canberra, the capital of Australia, and the Tidbinbilla Park. One excursion took us to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains and on the way back we came to a spot, where another road went off to the right and the sign that said ‘To Mount York’. Erich who always directed Lisl where to go by pointing a finger either to the right or to the left, pointed this time to the right. We soon found out why. There was at the top of that mountain a little house, which had a sign: “Kiosk, cool drinks, sweets” and when we entered, we saw that they had for sale all kinds of little stones in plastic bags, with the apparently correct names of the minerals, like agate, onyx, pyrite, and next to it the price like 25¢ or so. Then we went into the next room and were amazed to see that it was a museum, with a fantastic butterfly collection. Lisa knew about it, because Erich and Lisl had taken her there, many years back, when she was in Australia with Ginny and had told us about it before we left for our vacation, and I had it somewhere written down, but we had forgotten about it. But Erich had not forgotten. I could not leave too soon, had to see all the butterflies and other insects and had a long talk with the young man, Rex Gilroy, who was the collector, a very interesting man. He was lecturing in schools all over the country about insects, and was just then about ready to go on a butterfly hunting trip with his wife to the North, the tropical part of Australia. We made an appointment with them for the following week, and Alf and Mrs.Yeoman, the best friends of the Zieglers, took us there in their car for the visit, and we had there a fine picnic. Mr.Gilroy told us that he is going to have a bigger house built there, which will house a museum. We heard later from Lisl that he had it finished and opened and it was quite a tourist attraction.
I should have mentioned that John Ziegler, Mary, Debby, and David were in Boston, when we left for that vacation in Australia. John, specializing for immunology, was there in a hospital on a grant from the Australian government for 2 years, doing research work. We had visited them there and they had come also to New York a few times, staying in Francis’ apartment on Central Park South, had also visited Johanna and Marvin in Usonia. While in Australia, we were once guests in the home of Mary’s parents.
The trip to that little museum on Mount York was our last excursion. There came the day, when we had to say good-bye, but the parting from Erich was not easy. We returned again via San Francisco. It was a most pleasant vacation.
