Alex Schmidt and Nancy Warner

[00:02] ALEX SCHMIDT: Hi, I'm Alex Schmidt, and I'm 75. Today's date is July 18. I'm in Leavenworth, Washington, and my conversation partner is Nancy Warner, who is in Quincy, and we have been friends for a while.

[00:22] NANCY WARNER: And I'm Nancy Warner, and I'm 70. And today is Monday, July 18, 2022. And I am, as Alex said, in Quincy, Washington. And I'll be interviewing Alex Schmidt, who I have known for quite a few years and admire the work that he's done in anti racism in our region. So today, Alex, I am so happy to have a chance to have a conversation with you about how you came to the region in your own story of your come here story and how you ended up in Leavenworth. And so we've talked about it a little bit coming into the conversation today, and I'm just looking forward to learning more about that. So if we could just start with where you were born and how you came, your ancestry in that part of the world.

[01:29] ALEX SCHMIDT: Thank you, Nancy. Thank you for inviting me to do this, and thank you for the work that you're doing with so many other people and so many other of those stories which are really, I think, sacred. Wow. To begin with, I was born in war torn Germany in 1947, two years after the war. My parents had fled from the Soviet Union, had gone on foot through many dangers and trials and tribulations across eastern Europe, and ended up in the allied zone, in the us zone, in Germany. I was born in a little village where. Well, not a little village, but in the town of Bayreuth, which is famous for Dichard Wagner's first and best opera house that he built centuries before. I was born on the same day that my mother celebrated her birthday, June 14. And I was named after my brother. No, my mother's brother, who, during the war, was killed by the Germans in Kyiv. I remember. Well, I don't remember, but my sisters told me how glad dad was that a son was born. I was born in a small hospital in Bayreuth. I grew up there, and as a small child, we lived for five years in a house that had a spare room that was something like 10ft by 15ft. The mandate after the war was that any family in that town that had a spare room or a spare bed, they were required to share that with displaced persons or refugees. It's interesting because the commander of the city, the American, the captain that was in charge of that war torn town, I met him when I was in the military in Germany. Over a beer, I happened to share some things, and he shared some things, and he was the commander of that town, and he remembers the people with whom we were living. Anyway, we lived in that small space. I can't. I've been back there since I was in the military in the seventies, and I saw that space. It's a. It's like a small bedroom, if you were to compare it to something. And five of us lived there for. Well, until 1952, when finally we immigrated to the United States. But while in Bayreuth, my dad had a number of jobs. And one of the ways in which that he would earn extra money, or at least get extra money, would be to sneak coffee grinds out of the place that he was working. And then he would sell them on the black market, and people would buy the coffee grinds, used ones, and use them. And that's how he was able to afford a lot of the extra things that we got. A cot, for example, a crib for me, that was got. That was purchased through him being able to resourcefully sell things on the black market. How am I doing? Do you have any questions, or should I keep talking?

[05:17] NANCY WARNER: Oh, that's interesting. I'm just thinking that must have been some pretty stout coffee the first time around. Still be valuable. No, that's great, Alex. Just keep going, please.

[05:29] ALEX SCHMIDT: Okay. Since my dad and mother both worked, my mom cleaned places. My dad worked for the us military in their fire station and other jobs as well. One of the people living in that house, not a refugee or a displaced person, they were older people, probably younger than myself at this stage. They took care of us. And so I developed quite a lovely relationship with Bora von Koschitz. He and his wife lived in a little space on the second floor. We lived on the third floor. And he would take care of us. He would take myself and one or both of my sisters here and there. We would oftentimes go to the hermitage at which place was located, Wagner's festpiel house, his opera house. And we would play there, and I remember playing there, and I remember my caretaker, Onka. Bora Onka means uncle. He wasn't an uncle, but he was just the one caring for us. We called him uncle. I have tender memories of him, and as a farewell gift, he painted for me, and I still have it. And I have the writing on the back that he wrote as a farewell gesture, he painted the gazebo in that park where we would oftentimes go. And I've kept it, and it's. It's very touching. On the back, it talks about how much he loved going with me and my sisters, and how he. That was a big part of his life in those days, especially after the war and everything. I do remember as a child in that small village, seeing the bombed out buildings. And I remember once a us tank driving down the street, and we all had to get off and move ourselves quite a ways away from that. But I do remember that, even at the age of four. But I didn't understand what all that meant. My mother and father had a small garden in between some of the bombed out buildings, just using some of the dirt there. And that's how we got some of the vegetables. But there finally came a time, because dad lost many of his relatives, and my mother as well. They decided, or at least my dad did. And I think my mother must have agreed to move to the United States. I'm not sure exactly why I. They chose the United States, other than it was the land of opportunity. Because my dad had served in the german army and was a member of the National Socialist Party, he was not allowed to immigrate to the US until later, when there were private quotas that were allowed. If you had a sponsor, you could come to the United States. So my dad wrote a brief note for a mennonite paper in Philadelphia. And in that note, he told where he was from. It's now called Fernheim in the Ukraine. Sounds german, but it went to Philadelphia, and somebody else saw it and happened to contact my dad's mother's sister, or I think it was my dad's sister's. No, I don't. I don't remember. Anyway, it's in the notes, and I won't look for him. She had left Germany long before and was teaching piano lessons in, um, los Angeles. And one of her, um. One of her students knew some farmers in Peshastin Washington, which is just 4 miles south of, um, leavenworth, who had an orchard and some animals. And that lady contacted those folks in Peshastin and said, there's possibilities for bringing a family over. That would be kind of like an indentured servant. You would have the patron or the sponsor buy your boat ticket over, and then you would work for them for as long as it took to pay that off. So, long story short, that family in Peshastin paid well, interviewed us, and then paid for the boat trip. I think the boat trip was $200, and it was about eight days long. And we packed up and took the train to Hamburg, which was still a very bombed out city. I remember the train station, and there's a lovely picture of us in my mother's journal of our friends, Uncle Bora, and others, saying goodbye to us. And that must have been a very sad time for Uncle Bora because we had been such a part of his life. Anyway, we boarded a boat in Hamburg, and then after a week plus, we landed in the United States. Dad had some acquaintances and relatives through the mennonite network who lived in New York, and they wanted our family to stay in New York to be with them. And they were willing to pay the boat passage so that we would be free to live in New York. But dad and mom decided that they would continue onward. So we took the rails to Peshastin Washington, and we arrived on Mother's Day, my notes say. And we were taken to the farm by the farmer, and we were given a place to live. I remember that place. It was a migrant labor. Migrant laborers. It was a small cabin made for his migrant workers. And so we lived there for about a year, and then were able to move into a larger place, which was luxurious compared to what we were living in. As a side note, can I.

[12:50] NANCY WARNER: Just a question here. How old were you then when you arrived in Pushastin?

[12:57] ALEX SCHMIDT: I was almost five years old. I turned five about a month after we arrived.

[13:02] NANCY WARNER: Okay. And the other thing I was curious about, I mean, here we are doing an interview using remote technology. How did they interview your family about the sponsorship?

[13:14] ALEX SCHMIDT: Well, that's a good question. And I was going to look that up in the notes. I thought for years. I thought that George actually came to Germany and interviewed the family. But rereading my mother's journal, which I do about every four or five years, just to remind myself of their sacrifice and their risking of lives, it wasn't done in person. I don't. And I don't know where it is in the notes, but somebody. Well, that's a good question, Nancy. I don't know. But somebody else interviewed us. Whether they had a set of questions or. I can't imagine it being over the phone. No, it's in the journal, but I can't find it just now. But somebody else interviewed us.

[14:03] NANCY WARNER: It was just kind of screening process.

[14:07] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yeah. Screening process.

[14:09] NANCY WARNER: Yeah. Okay. So you're five years old when you come to Pishastan, and. And you have a good memory, and this has got to be an eyes wide open time for you as a little kid.

[14:20] ALEX SCHMIDT: Oh, yeah. My two sisters, Selma is four years older than myself, and Lucy is seven years older than myself. They went to school in Peshastin but they were held back a year because none of us could speak English. Since I was five, I didn't go to school. I didn't go to preschool or kinder. I don't even know if they had it in those days, but I didn't know a word of English. And down the dirt road from us lived a family with two boys. One of them was my age. And I would, I remember going down there and playing, or he would come up to our little cabin and we would play. And I never remembered how I learned English. That is to say, I didn't take any classes. There was no such thing as ESL or etcetera. We just played. And I, over the years, when it was time for me to go to school, that would have been about a year and a half, I started school and I don't remember having a language barrier. I don't remember that. I mean, at that age, I guess I wasn't attentive, but I started school in Leavenworth. The reason I started school there was after we, after dad and mom paid off our boat passage. And while we were. Well, I should give you some information. We got $200 a month for my mother and father to work on this farm, taking care of the animals and working in the orchards. And I remember sometimes going with my mother all day long, taking one toy that I had and playing at the base of the tree that she would be working on, either thinning or pruning or picking. But after we, after we finished paying off, well, it was 200 a month. 50 of that went for food, 50 of that went for a car, and a hundred of it went back to the cowan's, something like that. It was, it was an incredible budget that they had while we were still living with them. My dad was able to have enough money for a down payment on a new car, and he needed to get a loan. The farmer refused him a loan and said, you need to just buy a used car. My dad was intent on buying a new car and he had a hard time getting a loan because he had been in the german army. And at that time, you can imagine there was a lot of hard feeling towards anyone who had been in the german army. But Kashmir Valley bank graciously agreed to loan him, I think it was about 1800 bucks. And then he had a down payment so he could buy a brand new Ford. And in my mother's journal, she writes that she was astounded by the resentment people had to her and her family. My dad, especially being immigrants, refugees, that they had a better car than most of the people living in that area who had rarely had a new car, always used cars. But my dad, an immigrant, was able to buy a new car. So today, when I work with immigrants or teach citizenship and one of the students drives up in a better car than I have, I just smile and am grateful. But my family, my mother and father experienced a lot of resentment because we were uppity in that dad bought a brand new Ford Fairlane, 1953 Ford Fairlane. And that eventually, when I was in high school in Seattle, that became my first car. Anyway, when we had paid off, oh, let me. Let me just drop that. When we had paid off the debt, my father said to the farmer, we would be glad to stay here, but we would have to receive more pay. So dad got a dollar more, I think, per day or per hour. But the hours were reduced. So finally we asked again, and the fellow said, you germans don't deserve anything. So my mother and father, before having to leave, they started to look in Leavenworth, the next closest town, to see if they could find a place to live and a place for my mother to work and for my dad to work. And they went to the field house. The fields were the ones that I believe began Cashmere Valley bank. And so in the. I can't turn it off. There we go. In mother's journal, they went to the field house. It was. Well, it still is a mansion by those days, but even today, it's a beautiful place, which is the center of several nonprofits. She knocked on the door and misses field came to the door, and mother said, here's our situation, you know, in broken, broken English. And she was looking for a place to clean, looking for work, to clean that home. My lady said, not only can you clean this home, but we would invite you to live in our basement. And so we lived in the bottom of that basement for a number of weeks, and they finally found for us one of their rental homes where we could stay for a couple of years. The first three. Well, the first couple of years. Well, anyway. And so I started school in Leavenworth, and I went there for grades one, two, and three. And in the fourth grade, I began in Peshastin And I see that the time is saying 20 minutes, and I better move along because I'm only nine years old, so.

[21:52] NANCY WARNER: Well, and we can do a more complete interview. It doesn't all have to happen today, Alex, but I did want to ask you on the. The resentment that people had towards Germans, your family. Did you network? Do you remember networking? With other refugee families in north central Washington. Like, I've heard stories about people in Douglas county experiencing that resentment using the german language, even up in Okanagan county. And so was there sort of. Of a support network for your parents at all in those days?

[22:34] ALEX SCHMIDT: I believe there was, although I was not aware of those kinds of things. I know that we had people who were from Germany, and we also had people that were from the Ukraine. And so we would go to various homes, and they didn't come to us, though, because of our living situation, which was pretty sparse. I don't ever remember guests in our homes, in our. The little shack and then our other home. We always went somewhere else, but we went with a brand new car, so that was a big deal. So there must have. There must have been some folks that knew and could be with and support one another.

[23:19] NANCY WARNER: Yeah. And so when you lived at the field house and the banker, mister field, that he must have been a lifelong friend of your parents?

[23:31] ALEX SCHMIDT: I don't know, but I don't think so. I think they were kind and gracious. And then we moved on from there. We bought. We didn't buy, but we lived in another apartment in Leavenworth. And when I was going into the fourth grade, my dad got a job in the. From Leavenworth. He got a job at the mill, which no longer exists in Peshastin that was 4 miles away. And rather than commute, we moved to Peshastin And what's really interesting, and I commend my parents, and I just am so grateful. They were frugal folk, and my wife resents the fact that I'm so frugal today. Well, not quite the stronger language, but they were able to buy the home of one of the co owners of the Peshastin mill. They had saved money and saved money. And so when that co owner decided to build a bigger home up the street, because my mother was cleaning their home, they were able to purchase it. And I don't remember how much it was. I think it might have been $14,000. That rings a bell. But we then moved into their former home, which was just incredible as a. You know, as a ten year old. It was just an incredible house. I've been back to see that house, and it's kind of small, but at that age, it was. It was huge. Big picture window looking out at the Wenatchee river. So we lived in Leavenworth, and I was just reading my mother's notes. Dad worked at the mill, and I remember him coming home a couple of times with bruises on his ribs. Where the other guys working in the mill would. Would move the lumber in such a way that it would hit him. It was called the green belt. And if you didn't put the wood on just right, it would hit the person. So I remember him coming home sometimes with wounds on his sides, where various people had done that to him. Some of it was because of the car, and some of it was because my dad was very proud to be a German. One of the things about my dad is that he was very proud. And he was a great supporter of Adolf Hitler and of the war. I mean, he just was very much german. And another side note for my mother and father, they never believed that the Holocaust existed. Even with all the information that was available. My mother and father, who were pretty much anti semitic, they could not admit that the Holocaust existed. And I remember having conversations with my mother years later, as an adult. And she just was insistent that some things had happened, but not to that extent. It was a communist plot or whatever, one of those conspiracy things. But anyway, we lived in Peshastin then, in that wonderful home. And to earn extra money, we cleaned the Leavenworth library, which is a hotel building now. I mean, not a new one, but we cleaned it once a week for $9 a month. And we cleaned some fruit cleaning warehouse offices for $30 a month. And we cleaned the. It was the United Church of Christ in Peshastin for something like $20 a month. And we'd go there every Saturday, and we'd clean, and we'd go to the library on Wednesdays, and we'd clean, and we'd go to the offices on Friday nights, and we'd clean. And I remember having to be part of the cleaning crew. And I would mop or I would sweep. And I think that was part of the work ethic. That came my way through these. These two parents of mine, who just worked extremely diligently and doing menial work. My dad. When the sawmill went on strike, my dad took that time. He didn't pick it like the others, and he got in trouble for that. My dad took a correspondence course in electricity. Because he was. He was well educated from the soviet army. When he was in the soviet army before he went into the german army. And that's another story. But my dad took a six week course in Kansas City, took the greyhound there, and became an electrician. And began applying for other work. Because the sawmill was no longer a friendly place to work. And finally, in 1962, as I was entering my sophomore year in Peshastin my dad, who had applied at Boeing, finally was able to get a job. And so we moved to Queen Anne Hill in 1962, and I moved from the Peshastin high School, where my class was, I think, 35 people, to Queen Ann High. My sophomore class there had over 700 students, and I recall that to have been earth shaking, just like moving to America. And I don't think I ever made a good transition. I don't think I ever really adjusted to Seattle in those early years. So I think that was a difficult thing for me. My sisters by then had graduated and were in their own separate lives. But I went to Queen Anne High School for three years, and from there applied and got into the University of Washington, where tuition was $400 a quarter, something like that. I started out in biology and eventually went into biological oceanography. And so I also joined a fraternity. And that's a whole other story as well. I learned some things there, and I was a part of that fraternity, and it was quite what I needed in those days. And I continued all five years. I got a bachelor's in biological oceanography and a bachelor's of science in invertebrate zoology. From there, because I was in reserve officer training, ROTC at the UFW, I went into the military because I had done so well. I was actually thinking of making the military a career, because I had done so well, I could choose my first duty station. By then. I had married my first wife and Bonnie Watney, who was a high school sweetheart because she was pregnant. In our fifth year, in my fifth year of the university, I decided, for whatever that's worth, that we would go. The first duty station would be in Germany rather than Vietnam, where everybody else was going. So we packed up pregnant, Bonnie, six months pregnant or so, in a little volkswagen, and we drove to Fort Benning, Georgia, in the middle of June. And I started infantry officers basic training there. And then I went into ranger school, and then I went into airborne school because I was very much intending to make this a career. And my first duty station after ranger airborne training in Fort Benning, Georgia, was to Wirzburg, Germany. And there we were for a year and a half, and then a year and a half in Aschaffenburg, which was close to Frankfurt. But while there, we were able to visit Bayreuth several times and visit some of the people who knew us when we were refugees. And I remember those trips. We were able to buy a used BMW, and we could drive 90 miles an hour on the freeways there and get to these places in just a matter of not very much time. But that was a very meaningful thing for us to have visited the little town where I was born, to visit the house in which I was raised for those first years and to visit some of the people that my parents knew, that was quite, quite touching, I bet.

[33:17] NANCY WARNER: So your person that you called uncle had passed on by then?

[33:21] ALEX SCHMIDT: He had died. Yes, indeed.

[33:24] NANCY WARNER: But other people that you knew as like a five year old?

[33:28] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yeah, yeah.

[33:29] NANCY WARNER: You got to visit with them again after all those years?

[33:32] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yes, yes. And they were quite older, probably my age, but they were much older and what I remembered them of. But it was really something. It was really something. And they would tell me things of my parents that of course I didn't really remember or know. And with ten minutes left, we better move on here. So while in the military in Germany, for various reasons, we became involved in the Jesus movement which came to Germany at the base where I was located, CB's did a special on that Jesus movement as it reached the soldiers in Europe and we were a part of that. And I remember getting letters from folks, no emails in those days, getting letters from folks saying, we saw you in this special. We saw you. Was it really you? Because when we knew you, you were not a person of faith. You were quite the opposite. You were an atheist. Was that you? So anyway, that was a life changer for us. And rather than stay in the military, I chose to apply to get out. I had to apply to get out because I was in kind of for the whole lifetime. So we got out of the military and then weren't sure of what to do. And my wife suggested then that I attend Lutheran Bible Institute. But I still had this degree in oceanography. So after some deliberation and much prayer in those days, decided that I would continue with Lutheran Bible Institute. And after two years there or a year and a half here again it was decided by myself that we would go on the mission field and so we went to Bolivia. But that's one of the sadnesses of that marriage in that I was the one making the decisions and everybody else was following, which isn't necessarily the healthy way to be in a marriage. But we went to Bolivia and we served there for three, four years and then returned. And then Bonnie, in all of her heartfelt sincerity said, if you're thinking of going back to Bolivia, well, you'll go by yourself. I'll keep the kids. And that was a wake up call. So that turned my career towards what else could I do? And one of those options was to go to seminary and to be a clergy person, which then she and I and our two children did that. We went to Pasadena, and I went to Fuller seminary there, and our youngest daughter, Bethany, was born. We had two of our children with us in Bolivia, and they were fluent spanish speakers, but so then went to seminary in Pasadena, and then had to do two years at a lutheran seminary and did that and came to Spokane in 1984 and served that parish for 15 years. And during that time, sadly, and unfortunately, we divorced. And we divorced in 1993. I continued at our Savior's Lutheran in Spokane until 1999. By then, I had met another young lady, Stacy, and we dated, and after 15 years, chose that it was time to move. So had an opportunity to serve in Leavenworth. So Stacy and I moved to Leavenworth along with her daughter, Grace, who was about seven years old then. And so we came here in 1999, and I served this parish for 17 years and retired in 19 in 2017, and we've lived here since. Stacy is a licensed social worker, a therapist, family child, adult couple therapist, and has her office in Leavenworth, and I'm retired. And her daughter also lives in Leavenworth with her husband and three children. And that means that there's five minutes left. What questions have I missed?

[38:18] NANCY WARNER: Well, I just wanted to say that the arc of your story, I mean, your path has really prepared you, and you've used it well in terms of your work with the community to help immigrants, to, you know, help people become citizens and to. And to address anti racism. And so it's like you brought it all forward, all those experiences from being a refugee as a child and experiencing prejudice. And you told me something earlier about how even as a little kid, I mean, it's great you learned English so quickly. That's kind of like osmosis, I guess, the way kids learn.

[39:07] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yeah.

[39:08] NANCY WARNER: But you did tell me earlier about, even as a little kid, that you always got killed in the battles because you were german.

[39:17] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yep. That's right. That's exactly right, Nancy. Yeah. And I didn't quite understand that, but that's what it was. Yeah.

[39:27] NANCY WARNER: Yeah. So what sad that it took so.

[39:31] ALEX SCHMIDT: Long for me to realize the sacrifice and the courage and the tenacity of my parents.

[39:39] NANCY WARNER: Yeah. It's a great story to keep alive and to pass on. And it's wonderful that you have your mother's journal from that very time and the story of them, they met in Kiev, in Ukraine, and didn't get to go back there. But you did.

[39:59] ALEX SCHMIDT: Yeah. No. Yeah. My mother took me there because I really wasn't in a place where I could afford it. But my mother took me. My sister came along, and we went to the birthplace of my mother and went to where she lived during the war and where her family was killed outside of Kyiv by the Germans. And that was very moving and very touching as well. Yeah. She took me there, and I was touched, deeply touched by what I learned of my mother and of the russian, and the Russian orthodox culture.

[40:38] NANCY WARNER: Well, thank you very much, Alex, for sharing this story. And we will connect further and gather some other parts.

[40:50] ALEX SCHMIDT: Thank you. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Nancy, thank you very much.