1978
The year 1978 had started with an extremely severe winter. There were bad snow storms already in December and more in January and February, making driving almost impossible and I had my car most of the time in the garage. People who had their cars parked in the streets had them most of the time buried in snow and ice for weeks, had to work hard to dig them out.
We had planned to go to Palm Springs in California, but could not get a room in a hotel for January or February and had to accept an offer for the beginning of March. So, we were snowed in almost completely for the first two months.
When we arrived in Los Angeles, there was a severe rain storm and we could not get the flight from there to Palm Springs, as the airport there was flooded. It looked as if we would have to stay over night in Los Angeles. But we got together with some other people and were able to make arrangements for a limousine to take us to Palm Springs.
It rained there for the next 4 days and we could not do anything, the swimming pool there was very small and we did not like the hotel. We got in touch with a Mrs. Klein, an old friend of ours, who was in Desert Hot Springs, which is 30 miles to the East, and she told us how good the place there was and we decided to go there too. She even came to pick us up with a car and we went there. We were lucky, because that was the right place for us in many respects. There was one very big swimming pool, also two hot pools, one of them with whirl pools, a steam room, all that very good for cases of arthritis. The weather was from then on also splendid and we stayed there for 5 weeks, longer than we had intended. It was very pleasant in many respects. We met nice people there and we became good friends, went out with them every evening in their car for dinner. We had a good rest there and the bathing did us a lot of good. Hedy could walk much better afterwards. At the end we stayed for 2 days with our good friend Sala Stern, whom we had not seen for many years, in Los Angeles.
The date of our 50th wedding anniversary, the Golden Anniversary, was the 4th of March, when we were away. But it was later celebrated, together with my 81st birthday, when we had come back, very nicely arranged by Johanna in her home, with about 30 people present and more would have come, if it would not have rained heavily. It was a very nice affair. There were many toasts in our honor and I also raised my glass and said about the following:
“Dear children and all the rest of the family!
I want to thank you for doing us the honor of coming all the way up here to celebrate our 50th anniversary. We appreciate it very much. We are married now for 50 years, a great deal of it consumed by efforts in bringing up our two children, showing them love all the time, worrying about their whereabouts, about their wellbeing. There were times, when we did not know where they were or whether they were, alive or not. We are happy now to see our efforts crowned, to see that they have advanced to a high level, happy to see that they show us love and appreciation. It is a great day for us. Thank you again and God bless you.”
With that I have come to the end of the biography. I may want to add a few more lines later on.