Читать книгу Westward - Leo Schelbert - Страница 8

“The first time I ever watched television was at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. For me it was a marvel. General Motors had a great hit with this new wonder of the world. Another popular place at the Fair for the Swiss was the Swiss Pavilion. In the foreshadowing of the Second World War it offered a bit of the homeland. Everyone was very patriotic and one heard Swiss dialect spoken all around. Almost once a week our family drove to the Fair from New Jersey – as a teenager I could join the official events to which my father was invited, or simply went with friends for a raclette or fondue.”

Margot Ammann Durrer is the daughter of the Swiss structural engineer and bridge builder, Othmar H. Ammann. She speaks an American brand of her Swiss dialect. The longer the conversation lasts the more extended and colorful her vocabulary becomes. “In my heart I am both American and Swiss; rather than a conflict, this is an asset. Although I was born in America, my Swiss background has made its mark throughout my life.”

From her apartment on the 20^th floor of a high rise building in Manhattan she has a view beyond the roofs and water towers of the Upper East Side. Summer flowers are in bloom in pots on her small terrace. From somewhere a gentle bell is chiming in the wind and finches are pecking at sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder.

She leans over the railing where a small American flag is fluttering: “I have no fear of heights. I probably inherited that from my father.” Back inside at the card table, she lays out a book of the Ammann family of Schaffhausen as well as a scrapbook of her father. The Seth Thomas clock is chiming every fifteen minutes.

“My father built long span suspension bridges here in America. In a symbolic sense I have built a bridge for myself between America and my Swiss heritage through frequent visits to Switzerland, as well as working there for a year – and my association here with Swiss activities and organizations such as the Swiss American Historical Society.”

It was only in recent years that Margot got to know details about the private life of her parents. “Mostly I learned these from the 485 letters that my father had sent from New York to Switzerland at the beginning of the last century to his parents and to my mother. My grandmother had saved these letters, often six to eight pages long, carefully bound in red ribbons in bundles according to year. After her death, these precious bundles traveled back over the ocean, returning to my father. His letters to my mother before they were married were saved in a lovely painted wooden box.” Margot adds: “It gave me great comfort to read the private thoughts and hopes of my father and also the expressions of love for his parents and my mother. From these valuable writings I also learned of the happiness he and my mother found in their lifetime in America. Letters are like valuable footprints of a person.”

While the official papers of Othmar Ammann are kept in an archive at the library of the ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Margot has kept his personal papers. “These are always helpful for researchers and reporters to consult for details of his private life. I translated his letters into English as well as the Archive records of the Ammann family of Schaffhausen, going back to 1450. In my eighties, I finally learned, through the patient direction of a friend, the use of the computer’s word processor, which enabled me to bring these translations up to the state of the art.”

Margot noticeably enjoyed the review of her life. “I have not reminisced on my childhood and adolescent years for a long time. I thought I had forgotten everything! It is wonderful to review my life, scene for scene – as if on stage in a theatre.”

But first she turned the pages in her father’s album to the description of his first years in America. “In 1904, at the age of 21, father came here to gain experience from the vast engineering opportunities before marrying his childhood sweetheart, Lilly Wehrli and settling down to raise a family and practice his profession in Switzerland. He wrote romantic letters back to Switzerland, and soon he was writing, ‘I would like to stay longer in America. But we do not want to spend our youth separated. My dearest, I would like you to come to America.’ She answered, ‘I will follow you anywhere in the world, but I would like to marry here.’ The boat trips to Switzerland and return left only 4 days of his vacation to marry and bring his bride back to America. In the course of the years, new and challenging engineering opportunities kept on presenting themselves, and his planned one-year stay in the United States became a lifetime.”

In 1924, after 20 years of diligent service as assistant to several of America’s outstanding bridge engineers, he was appointed Engineer of Bridges for the Port Authority of New York, in charge of the construction of his own proposed bridge over the Hudson River in New York. The building of this bridge, today known as the George Washington Bridge, brought him professional recognition and the start of a long career as specialist in long span bridges. Margot remembers walking with him on Sunday mornings to a high point near their home in Boonton, New Jersey, from where he could observe through binoculars the progress of the construction of the New Jersey tower of the bridge. She also vividly recalls him coming home from the office in the evening, going first into the garden and walking around a bit, still wearing his hat and business clothes and street shoes, pulling a few weeds or pruning a few straggly branches from a pine tree. This was how he shed the pressures of the office.

“We like our little sister. She smiles at us in the morning.”

“The several years preceding this appointment were hard times for my parents, living on their savings and hopes for acceptance of father’s plans. On May 31, 1922, with my brothers Werner and George, 10 and 12 years old, I arrived as the last addition to the family. ‘Our little one does not give us any problem for the moment. She is alert and has a strong personality. She will find her way,’ father wrote in a letter to his mother in Switzerland. My brothers added, ‘We like our little sister. She smiles at us in the morning.’ They were very good to me. I often heard about how they taught me to swim, throwing me into the water even before I was able to walk. Everyone spoiled ‘Little Margot’. My childhood was happy and without care. We lived in a house with a large garden, surrounded on two sides with woods and a river. One early memory I have is of sitting with my mother on the terrace while she was sewing. I was her little helper by threading needles for her. I also remember staying with father while he worked in the garden or accompanying him for long walks, with him pointing out certain plants or birds or other beauties of nature. I had a special attachment to my father. He was certainly my first sweetheart. Father gave my brothers and me a lasting example of modesty and honesty. He never pushed us to excel nor ever praised us. He only asked of us that we become responsible, honorable and independent citizens.”

“I had a special attachment to my father. He was certainly my first sweetheart.” (1933)

Margot then added: “For a long time it was very hard to be the daughter of a famous father. I felt uncomfortable when people praised him to me, or on the other hand, when more was expected from me because of his achievements. In seventh grade at school, in front of the whole class, the instructor corrected an error on my exam paper, saying ‘your father has designed the George Washington Bridge. And you cannot even add correctly.’ I wanted to fall through the floor. It took time and maturity to overcome this shyness and to find my own personality, my own life. We lived as Swiss, at least that’s how I thought of it then. The American children had more toys and fancier clothing, and their parents were less strict than ours. Our meals were simpler and more geared for health, with fresh vegetables and fruit from the garden and eggs and chicken from our own henhouse. In contrast, I had more books, had more vacation trips, more exposure to theatre, museums and later, opportunities of advanced education. I played with the neighbors, taking preference for the boy’s sports over the girl’s dolls and dresses. Often Swiss friends of my parents visited us. We led a simple life in a small rural town, as was commonplace in America in the 1920’s.”

At eleven years of age, from one day to the next, Margot had to learn to be independent. “In 1930, my mother was operated for breast cancer. However the cancer had already spread. Mother never complained. I somehow sensed the seriousness of her condition and remember praying for her recovery. After many weeks in the hospital, shortly before Christmas of 1933, she died. I reproached God, ‘When I prayed to You to let my mother get better, I did not mean for You to take her away from me.’ Her death was very hard for me to accept. Father was busy with his work at the Port Authority and often was in San Francisco as a consultant for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. A governess was engaged to manage the household, but she did not understand me, and my brothers were already independent and hardly had any time for me. During this sad time, in which I was very often alone, I lived in my own dreams and fantasies. I learned to think and discover my own interests. I collected stones and stamps. Dolls did not play any role in my life; the games of the neighborhood boys were more interesting.

“My first years of education were spent in a private school. I did not like it there at all. Every Wednesday morning we had to hear a formal lecture about God – and on holy matters such as fire and brimstone. As a child, this was very distressing. My strong protests were heard, and from the fourth grade onward to graduation from high school I could attend public school. Such a change! This opportunity of studying with children of different religions, colors and nationalities made a great difference in my life. To be one of the few of my classmates that could go on to further education left me with a sense of obligation and gratitude.” Margot was in the 8^th grade when her father remarried. “My stepmother, whom I called ‘mother’, as indeed she was a second mother to me, was very concerned about my education. She even bought a Latin dictionary to help me with my homework. I had assumed that after high school I would be a secretary in father’s office, but my stepmother inspired and encouraged me go on to college.”

In her last year of high school, Margot was elected class president. “Today it is big news for a female to have that post,” she states, “but in those times both students and teachers were less conscious of role differences. I was used to studying in a mixed classroom. On the other hand it was unusual for a young woman to plan for any professional career other than that of teacher, nurse or secretary. Those who did continue their education were not really taken seriously.” Margot failed the College entrance exams in her last year of high school, but passed the following year and was admitted to Vassar College. That year interval was to have been spent in a Haushaltungsschule, a domestic management school, in Switzerland, but the outbreak of the Second World War cancelled this plan.

Vassar College, founded in 1861 in Poughkeepsie, NY, was the first all women’s college in America. In those days young women usually attended a finishing school, in preparation for marriage. However, Vassar was established with the dedicated goal of preparing women for independence and careers of their own beyond housewife and motherhood. Margot was eighteen years old and living in a women’s dormitory on college campus. It was her first time away from home. She dreamed of becoming a medical researcher, “to discover the cure for cancer. Our housemother advised me to get a medical degree before going into research work. I had no idea that this field would be open to women. When I presented this plan of four more years of tuition, father quietly said ‘Well, if that is what you want.’”

December 1941: In her second year at Vassar, Japan bombed American ships in Pearl Harbor. “This took away our innocence.” Several of her classmates quit their studies and married boyfriends leaving for military service. The rest of the class shortened the four years of study by skipping vacations, many then enlisting in jobs replacing the men that had left for military service. “Life for us suddenly became very serious, politically also. It was a shock. All of us had been born in the time between the wars. We suddenly felt very patriotic. Communication with friends and relatives in Switzerland was blocked. Our only contact with Europe was through the radio. Every evening at six o’clock we gathered around the radio to hear the news from England. Often in the background one could hear the explosion of bombs. On the morning we learned that Hitler had marched into Poland, mother and I went out to the garden to work off our distress. Thinking that father was already in the office, we were very surprised to find him also in the garden, weeding. He had heard the news on the way to the office and was too upset to go to work.”

“…, but I also had the feeling of truly being Swiss.” With her parents at Dübendorf airport… (1952)

After graduation from Vassar College, Margot began her medical studies in New York Medical College. “A whole new world opened up for me, and soon my goal turned from research to practicing medicine. I had observed that internists were prone to long discussions about medications and electrocardiograms and as I preferred to see some action, I aimed to become a surgeon.” After graduation in 1949, she continued her training in the specialty of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This was the ideal field for females to practice. It was less popular for the men, who often were uncomfortable in dealing with women’s problems and emotions. Her parents were considering retirement in Switzerland. So after her required training as intern and resident she worked in the Woman’s Hospital in St.Gallen, Switzerland. “With this I not only acquired further experience, but I also had the feeling of truly being Swiss. On weekends I was able to enjoy visiting various parts of Switzerland. Then my parents’ plans to retire to Switzerland were changed once again when father received an offer for one more irresistible project, the construction of the Verrazano Bridge in NY. With a newly established love for the homeland of my parents, I returned to New York.”

… and in Montreux. (1955)

But stop! “I almost forgot to mention a very important episode in my life: In 1958 I passed my summer vacation with my parents in Riffelalp in Wallis. There I climbed the Matterhorn. This was not such a great physical accomplishment, as the weather was ideal, I had a good guide, and had no fear of heights. But to stand on top of the world, on a narrow pathway of snow looking down to Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other was a thrilling experience that I shall never forget.”

“I will never forget July 28, 1958. Together with a guide I climbed the Matterhorn.”

And then Margot adds, “on my gravestone, I should like to have three things written: First, ‘she once viewed the world from the top of the Matterhorn; secondly, at the age of eighty, she learned to use the computer; and thirdly, she overcame her shyness and learned to share the personality of her father with the public.’” And then she changes her mind and says, “but I am not going to have a gravestone. When I die, I shall go back to my Alma mater, New York Medical College. In dissecting my shell, some medical students will be able to spend a year learning their anatomy. I have specified this in my will and I find comfort in thinking that the full course of my life will come to a close in this final way.”

In 1960 Margot opened her private practice in Obstetrics and Gynecology. It was a time of many changes in medicine such as antibiotics, birth control pills, and air conditioning in the operating room. Her first patient was a nurse that knew Margot from her hospital internship. Other nurses and female hospital attendants, as well as their female friends and family members, became the base of her fledgling practice. The new wave of feminism at that time also brought women to her door, saying “we feel more comfortable with a woman physician, she understands us better than a man.” Young women who previously never went for physical examinations before becoming pregnant were now coming for prescription of birth control pills. Also, abortions became legal to perform in New York so gynecologists were able to help their own patients rather than send them to Geneva or Puerto Rico and one saw less infections resulting from improperly performed illegal abortions. “I averaged about two deliveries a week and one or two major operations. I enjoyed my profession and my patients. Besides the physical examination I felt it equally important to talk with the patient and to give her a chance to ask questions.”

Then Margot switches to another chapter in her life story, “and a very important one.” In 1939, her future husband, Dr. Gustav Durrer, a dentist from Luzern, was attending advanced dental courses in America when the war broke out and and he could not return to Switzerland. While working in a dental clinic in New York, he received an “invitation” to serve in the American Army. He obtained his American citizenship and after the war established a practice in New York City.

When Margot returned home after her residency in St. Gallen, she accompanied her stepmother for an appointment with this “wonderful new dentist” that her parents had been praising. “Gusti Durrer really looked so handsome in his white dental jacket and generous smile, but I soon sized him up as the happy bachelor approaching the 40’s and thinking, why marry one when I can have many women around? But I really fell for him. Our friendship grew slowly. He invited me to the Swiss Society Ball, and for theatre or concerts. He was a loving and charming escort, but never gave a hint of wanting to share our lives together. Then once, after seven years of dating, he casually remarked: ‘Why don’t we go on vacation once together?’ For me it was quite clear: not without a ring on my finger. That was a cutting moment of decision for the engrained bachelor. Plans were made. We went to Tiffany to buy that wedding ring, but the salesperson was so busy with another customer that Gusti lost his patience; we walked out and went to a friend of his who was a goldsmith. Finally we were married and started a happy vacation that lasted a lifetime.”

Marriage to Gustav Durrer was a long, happy and fascinating chapter in Margot’s life. “We married late in life but were able to share forty-one years of our lives together. He was a very dear person, treating the cleaning lady the same as he would an ambassador to the UN. He always respected my work and was very understanding when I was called away at night or in the middle of dinner because of an emergency or the delivery of a baby. In exchange, I painfully typed out his lectures and papers on my old typewriter in those pre-word processor days. I never wanted to have children, but yes, I thoroughly enjoyed delivering a healthy screaming baby and handing it over to its mother for care. Although we each had our own profession, Gusti and I were partners – a team. To share an active life together was the greatest gift that I could ever have had.”

And then she smiles: “I never looked very much in the mirror. However, shortly after we were married, Gusti said to me: ‘What are we going to do about our hair?’ I looked him straight in the eye and said: ‘We are not going to do anything about our hair.’ Later, I compromised by getting a wig but this, of course, was never worn.”

Dr. Margot Ammann maintained an active practice and retired at age 71. A few years later, in his eighties, her husband also retired. Suddenly he developed kidney failure, requiring dialysis. “This is a tedious process three times a week, lasting three to four hours and leaving one considerably weakened. Fortunately I had the strength to help him and the time to give him companionship. It was a fulltime project for both of us. His diet was very strict and required careful control. I would accompany him when he went on the wheelchair to and from the hospital and read to him while he had to lie for hours during the treatments. He was always so thankful and how often he would say to me, ‘How would I have done all of this without you, Margot?’ It was somehow bittersweet.

“In October 2001, two weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers, Gus died. This was a very difficult time – clouds were over the city and I was enveloped in my own cloud of sorrow. The quick step from life to death was a shock. Suddenly I was alone. However he is always with me. At night before I go to sleep I look at his photograph smiling at me, say goodnight and ask how could I have been so lucky to share my life and love with him. In spite of the great sorrow, I was thankful that he could die in peace and dignity. His heart was slowly failing and intense treatments would have been necessary to extend his life somewhat. It was a hard decision for me to tell the doctor to discontinue dialysis. After three days at home he fell into a peaceful sleep. There was nothing more to do. I realized then how thin is the thread upon which our life hangs – even when we think we are so strong.”

Since his death, Margot lives alone. The first time she had to register “widow” as her marital status, she had a shock. But gradually she reinvented herself and soon found that the hours of the day were too short. She found great satisfaction in working as a volunteer for the organization “English in Action”, giving practice in conversation to people for whom English is a second language. With an extra bedroom in her apartment, she was able to welcome family and friends to visit and soon she had what she called “a free bed and breakfast establishment.” Almost every week one or more guests occupied that extra room, with overflow on the living room couch or sleeping bags on the floor. “I could fill a book with the adventures that these guests brought into my life. I was able to finish the many started projects such as translating the Amman family book into English and the album of father’s life and works. Friends and relatives are touchingly concerned about my welfare and although busy with their own lives, always find time to share it with me.”

Recently Margot was asked to write an article about feminism in America. “The more I got involved, the more fascinated I became. In my career I had never experienced any incident of discrimination. My male colleagues were always polite and supportive. I strove to do my best, but never had to fight for my rights in my profession. Feminism was not really a theme for me. Therefore I was very astonished when I read Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique, and then later the Frauen im Laufgitter of the Swiss feminist Iris von Roten and became aware of their tireless efforts for the cause of women. I see how fortunate I have been. Young women today impress me as being far more aggressive, perhaps because they are in larger numbers and present more of a challenge to the men.”

Now Margot leans back in her chair and relaxes. “I stand in the final act of my place on stage. It was a pleasure to bring up so many memories and to peak through the doors into my past.” And then more to herself: “I am ready to go on to my next world any time. I take the days as they come and know that in my age ‘everything is the beginning of the end.’ I hope to be able to keep my independence and to stay in my own four walls, but if fate deems otherwise, to accept the changes with dignity.”