Early in the morning we gave an interview to the local reporter about our 50 years friendship. Telling her how it all began, and showing her old letters.
Dick and started as penpals when we were 12 and kept on writing and visiting for half a century now. In 1967 I came to the US for the first time on a Kiwanis exchange and stayed in York, PA. From there I flew up to Feeding Hills; MA to meet with Dick and his family, his grandfather, his parents, sister, cousins. When Dick was in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa, he needed medical treatment and went to hospital in Frankfurt/Germany the city where I lived, so we met there.
In 1967 when Wolfgang I got married we asked Dick to stay for our wedding. 3 years later our son Jan was born and 3 weeks later their son Eric, followed by Philipp on our side and Maria on their's another 3 years later. Shortly before Holger was born in 1978 the Breuningers turned up in our house and our kids made friends for the next generation. Over the last 30 years we visited very often over here in the US as well as in Germany. We went on holidays together to the Rockies and the North East in the US and even took Dick's sister Kathy on a 4-weeks trip to Canada.
All our kids had been exchange students for a year in high school, our son Holger even went to college in Durham, NC for his BC in economics and his BA in English and Cambridge, MA for his Masters degree in economics. So when he graduated from Duke and Harvard our familes met again. When their kids graduated from Oberlin our kids went over and met with again.
Both our families profitted from this transnational friendship and we are proud to keep it on to the next generation, the Breuninger grandchild, little Leo (1), also being our American grandchild.
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