The Legacy of Emily’s Sense of Style and Adventure: Hildegard Emma Augusta Scholz

Note from the Author: This series was intended to be published in installments closer together. But sometimes things get in the way. Somehow I believe that this installment was intended to be written at this particular time for the reason that will come to light as you read about Emily’s Oma Scheewe.

Hildegard Emma Augusta Scholz (née Scheewe)A woman of Strength, Endurance, Adaptability, Unconditional Love, Independence

Emily is fiercely independent. Don’t tell her she cannot do something; that only fuels her independent determination. While this quality may not seem a subject to discuss in a blog post of style and adventure, this particular quality has glistened as a feature of dominance time and again. Emily can do anything she sets her mind to. She takes on causes she believes in, becomes an advocate, gets things done. She completes seemingly insurmountable tasks. She does them with ease and grace.

When faced with her own challenge that had haunted Fairfax County Public School students and parents for years, she met that Goliath head-on. A speech before the school board in the spring of 2009 gave the issue new life, you can watch the entire speech here. This momentum led to the changes parents had been fighting with the school board for more than a decade. It didn’t save Emily’s GPA or change the outcome for her college admissions, but she left behind a lasting mark which helped to propel changing the grading system for future FCPS students.

The 2013 NNIC was another passion turned action. Emily saw a dreadful wrong being committed. She knew she could fill a void. Before anyone could stop her or say no, she had formed her own LLC. She took charge and did the impossible.

Recently Emily was faced with a family health crisis when her grandfather became gravely ill. Being a problem solver by nature, Emily stepped up to the challenge becoming an advocate for him and a great protector for her mother and grandmother.

As I have reflected on the recent months and the many challenges of Emily’s young life, I have pondered on these pages and elsewhere, where Emily’s strength, endurance, grace, grit, charm, adventure, and style comes from.

I have learned quite a bit recently about Emily’s great grandmother, Hildegard Scholz her Opa’s mother. As Opa was near death in early June, I wondered more about Oma Scheewe. I was reminded about this strong, quiet woman who saved my father from the Nazi’s and then from the Russians. This woman who raised my father from a boy, largely alone in war-torn Berlin. My dad was born in Berlin in 1933. His father had been a soldier in France during WWI. He had contracted tuberculosis as a POW in France. He had a lung removed before returning home to his family. He suffered from what we now know as PTSD. Because of his trauma, the Nazi’s later hospitalized then euthanized him. My father’s older brother served in the German military and died his second day in Africa in a convoy accident that same year. My great grandfather who lived close to my Oma passed away suddenly. All of these men died in 1943 within a few weeks of each other. This left my Oma, her sister, and my father largely alone in war-torn Berlin in 1943 to take care of themselves and each other.

Times were difficult; it was war and by 1944 Berlin was being bombed daily. They did not know from one day to the next if there would be food to eat, shelter, or who would still be alive. My father’s Aunt Scheewe (as we knew her my entire life), went to work at Seimen’s every day. As the war dragged on and the German Mark lost value, she was paid weekly and then daily. Near the end of the war, she was paid in cash. The bag of money she received would only buy a loaf of bread, if there was a loaf of bread to buy.

My Oma had to supplement the income and did so as an incredible seamstress. She could sew anything. I still have and can wear her clothes that she made for my mother. She used materials that are difficult to work with such as tweed, brocade, fur, silk. One of the best pictures I have of her is sitting at her sewing machine.

She also made clothes for my doll using the scraps from clothes she had made for me.

I don’t have many memories of her, she died as my father was traveling to see her for her 70th birthday. I was 11. However, I remember her smile, her laugh, her sense of humor. I remember that she loved me. She kept my father alive and safe during a very difficult, dangerous time in a dreadfully unsafe depressing place which they called home. She did it while working to provide food and shelter as best she could after losing all the men in her life. She didn’t lose hope, her sense of humor, her grace and charm. She served others in her little church. And she supported my dad until he was old enough to immigrate to the US to find a better life for himself. She stayed behind in Germany to “look after” her sister until she died just before her 70th birthday.

These last few months as I have sat at my father’s bedside wondering if he would live, I have felt her strength. I have felt where Emily’s strength comes from. I can see that Emily has strong genes. And her great grandmother knows her well and smiles down on her.

Other Posts From The Legacy of Emily’s Sense of Style and Adventure Series

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