<--> Mom's Childhood Art

Ette

This is an oil painting that my grandmother, Leonie von Wiese Ideler, did of her daughter Esther, "Ette." Mom was about four or five years old. A minimum of brush strokes convey a richness of emotion and place.
















Christmas, 1930

I was nine years old in 1930. The children are dressed up as angels. In the window are those glass jars for hyacinth bulbs with a hood on them to make them develop their leaves before they bloom.










Walk in the Park, 1932

Going for a walk in the afternoon is an old German tradition. On weekends, everyone went out walking. Of course, we didn't see all this activity at once.












Sailing, 1932

This scene was typical in the vicinity of Berlin. There were lots of lakes. The forest trees had all these long stems and the pine needles on top. Small boats, big boats. On the shore they sunbathe. I put everything in.









Ilse Ergo, watercolors, 1933

Ilse was the girl who sat next to me throughout high school. She was an only child, very intellectual. She was the wealthiest kid in the school Her mother was always sickly. They had a live-in maid and lived on the other side of Lichterfelde (the Berlin suburb where Mom grew up), so I wasnÕt there often.

She studied medicine together with my brother Axel. Somehow, she went to Vienna during the war and met a young Czech. They got married and had to struggle for a job. They rented a room. One would have night shift and the other the day shift so they only needed a twin bed. They would see that some stew was cooked and put into a big box so then when the other one came home he could reach into the box and eat.

Thirty years later or so Fred (MomÕs husband, my dad) and I visited them. She spoke Viennese, not Hochdeutsch any more. They had a different lifestyle, everything was of the bestest, them both being general practitioners. They lived in a little spa south of Vienna, and when the trouble started in Yugoslavia they could hear the explosions, it was really close. They had a Mercedes Benz, suits and silk blouses.

At the time of this picture, Ilse belonged to a hockey club with a uniform, pretty expensive, that kept the riff-raff out. She was the brightest in the class. I sat next to her. When there was a question, I never raised my hand, it was so embarassing for me to stand up so I whispered the answer to her and she would stand up and I was right. But I didnÕt have to say it out loud.

What Kids Do When They're at Home, 1933

But we never had a fireplace; this was from the imagination.












Gardeners, 1934.

Now the style becomes more sophisticated.















A notice:

Civilized feedback is welcome: julia@queenjulia.org.

All material on this site is copyrighted 2004 to me or to my mother. If you wish to use small snippets, you are welcome as long as you give proper credit. If you wish to use larger parts, let's talk.