I'd Like to Talk To Her

Elizabeth Klimek, late 1920's

Grandma Klimek favored those glasses. She still had them in the 1940's and Mary Jane begged her not to wear them. Does she look a little mean to you? Maybe she just looks sad. But the child thought all the scariness in her grandmother came directly from the geometrics of those golden frames. Odd how children think.

An enigma, my grandmother. Some people, many in the family, experienced her as selfish, cold, domineering, and downright mean. She tried to control the lives not only of her children but of her "help." That was the story I heard over and over as I asked people who had known her. But they also admitted to her amazing business acumen, her delicious cooking and baking, her impeccable service at the resort, her organizational skills, the best dining room in the county. These days she'd be the CEO of a major corporation. Those days she was an immigrant, born in Trier, Germany, brought to this country by her parents, Nicolas Friesinger and Maria Josephs Friesinger who settled in Little Falls, MN.

Lizzie Friesinger, 1920

 Take a look at her determination. True, she doesn't look all that happy back then either. Or, more likely, picture taking was a serious business. Still, I can't help but wonder, all the way through, just what secret she hid behind her eyes. Mary Jane learned a few things from those nights she spent at Grandma's house, drinking hot chocolate, listening to stories, and looking at pictures. Her mother, Maria, used to hide bread. What was that about? Did she fear starvation back in Germany? And why? And my grandmother didn't attend her funeral. Another why without answer. I thought they must have been angry with each other. That's how children make sense of things like that.

She married Anton John Klimek. He was the fifth man to propose. Anyway, that's how the story went. She had five suitors in all. She accepted each proposal, one after the other. Each time she was given an opal ring. Each time the suitor died before the wedding. She told me that she accepted my grandfather's proposal because he was brave enough to take her on after she'd brought such bad luck to the first four. Truly, she said, it was the opals, not herself. And Anton gave her a diamond. That's how she knew. If that sounds like a tall tale to you, you aren't the first. But when I was eight years old I believed it with wide eyes and with all my heart.

Anton and Elizabeth Klimek, 1902

I wish I knew her now. I wish we were both about, say, forty years old. Let's see...she would be running the Hotel Alyce in Osakis, having just sold the farm outside of Warroad while Anton was being a traveling optometrist and chiropractor. She never wanted to live on a farm in the first place. It had been his idea. She quit her job as sheriff, packed up their things, and bought the hotel. 

I'd like to talk to her. I'll bet she was really something else!