Today, July 3rd, would have been the 100th birthday of my maternal grandmother - Anna Louise Halfter Binstadt. I had the honor of presenting her eulogy when she died in 2007. It wavers between me referring to her as Ann and Grandma. It is reprinted below:
Grandma’s father, Julius
Halfter, left his home in Germany and arrived in New York in January, 1909. A butcher by trade, he came to
Cincinnati and found work, taking residence in an apartment on Central Avenue
in the West End. It would not be
until May of 1910 that his wife of ten years, Marie, joined him in Cincinnati
with their three children: Caroline, Rudolph, and William. In 1913, when Marie was pregnant with
their fourth child, five-year old Rudy died of appendicitis. Grandma said this was a turning point
for her mother, that Marie had wanted to move back to Germany, but once her son
was buried in Wesleyan Cemetery, she couldn’t leave him. On July 3rd, at 2 A.M., Anna
Louise Halfter was born in their home on Livingston Street with help of a
midwife. She was baptized at the
First German Reformed Church in August.
Younger brother Erich, who’s here with us today, came along in 1916.
Around 1918 they
relocated to South Fairmount, on Knox Street, and then later on Waverly Avenue. A new neighborhood meant a new church,
in this case Immanuel Evangelical Reformed, now Immanuel United Church of
Christ, where she would be a member the rest of her life. In 1927, Immanuel moved to it’s present
location on Queen City Avenue.
Grandma was in the first confirmation class of the new church. Times were generally tough, but the
Halfters had it better than some.
Being a butcher was a good job, and they always had meat. But these were people built for tough
times. Grandma often commented
about her father and how we walked back and forth to work every day, a trip of
a few miles, and that he liked his coffee cold. South Fairmount was built into a hillside, with long public
stairways linking the streets. “We
used to run up and down those stairs for fun,” Grandma once told me. Grandpa added, “We didn’t have
television then.”
Fred Binstadt was
also in Immanuel’s congregation.
Five year’s older than Ann, he had been born on Waverly Avenue, but was
living on State & Ernst by the time the Halfters got there. Fred and Ann met through the church’s
youth group activities. Dates were
simple, like a church hayride or a hike.
“Nobody had any money,” Grandpa said recently. “You’d take a carline to it’s last stop and walk back to
church.” Both of them attended
West Night, an evening high school program at Hughes High School. Fred graduated in 1927, Ann in ‘32.
They married in
1937, the year of the great flood here in Cincinnati. They were married not at Immanuel, but in Louisville, where
Ann’s brother Bill was a preacher.
They were married in the parsonage, and Bill’s wife fixed the wedding
supper. By Monday, Fred was back
at work. Honeymoons would come
later, especially their many trips abroad after Grandpa’s retirement.
In 1943 they moved
into their home at 3021 Lischer Avenue.
They raised their children there – Charles, Carol and Barb, who later
brought around their own children.
Grandma and Grandpa lived there 56 years. Looking back from the retirement village, Grandma most often
recalled her pride in the large dining room, from which she hosted countless
Sunday dinners and holidays. She
also remembered the good neighbors she had, and that it was a good place to
raise a family.
Of course there’s
more…decades more. But the early
days are the places and events that she talked about most these last few years. She couldn’t tell you what year it is
or what she had for lunch that day, but she could tell you who her neighbors
were on Waverly.
One
trait that she held onto from her Fairmount upbringing was a certain German stoicism
in the face of adversity. She
could be utterly miserable, but she was no complainer. Her last night on Lischer Avenue in
1999 found her in so much back pain that she couldn’t stand. Her concern as Grandpa dialed 9-1-1 was
for the neighbors, worried they would be woken by the commotion of an ambulance. “I’m ok,” she would always answer to
“How are you?” “I’m ok,” she said
matter-of-factly from many a hospital bed.
A year ago Grandma
was in the hospital telling us she was ready to die. “Take care of daddy,” she told us. Visiting a couple of days later, there was Grandma sitting
up and eating everything on her tray.
This past Friday as we sat vigil, Grandma was muttering what seemed like
gibberish, but it was her message to those taking care of her. “Thank you,” she was saying, over and
over, “you’ve been so wonderful to me.”
In her 1932 yearbook from West Night, each senior has a little quote
next to their name and picture.
Hers was a verse from Lowell that reads –
“She doeth little
kindnesses
Which most leave undone or
despise.”
This is fitting, I think,
for even on her deathbed she was thinking of others. Graciousness, selflessness, steadfastness…these were just
some of the gifts that she left us to live our lives by, along with the gift of
love.
Visiting
her and Grandpa over the past ten years has been my greatest joy. Grandma had a way of telling you
exactly what she thought – unedited.
She wasn’t afraid to let you know when you were getting too heavy, or
she didn’t like your hair, or when she thought you were talking out of your
hat.
Sometimes
she and Grandpa would be separated, but the best visits were seeing them
together. They were two halves of
a whole, a combination nearly 70 years of marriage. What one forgot the other remembered, a couple of years ago,
they had this exchange –
Ann: Where did we
meet? I don’t even remember.
Fred: Well, through church…and
we both went to West Night. Do you
remember going to West Night?
Ann: I don’t remember a
thing about it. [pause] I think I
took German…
Fred: You were in the
German Club.
Ann: [long pause] A man
named Schaeperklaus ran it.
Fred: I remember him…He
went to Immanuel...He used to have Bible class at his house.
Ann: That’s right…he had a
nice wife.
Fred: Mm-hm.
Ann: They had two
sons. One of them died. They were both riding a bike at the
same time. The one on the
handlebars fell off and he hit his head on the concrete and died. [pause] Isn’t it awful the things you remember?
I have her high school annual right
here. I got it last night,
actually. As far as I know, she
didn’t have a copy. I would have
liked to have gone through it with her.
Now it’s too late. I will
miss her every day.
