Hans Westermark and Lorraine Westermark
Description
Spouses, Hans Westermark (72) and Lorraine Westermark [no age given], share a conversation about their childhoods and how they first met. Hans also talks about how he came to the United States from Sweden, and Lorraine talks about her career playing and teaching violin.Subject Log / Time Code
Participants
- Hans Westermark
- Lorraine Westermark
Recording Locations
Harrelson CenterVenue / Recording Kit
Tier
Keywords
Transcript
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[00:04] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I'm Hans Wilhelm Herbert Westermark I'm 72 years old. Today is Sunday, September 12, 2021, and we're here in Wilmington, North Carolina. I'm here with my wife today and we're going to talk about our story.
[00:24] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: My name is Lorraine Greenfield Westermark the wife of Hans We were really looking forward to telling our story.
[00:37] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Now, Lorraine I have been up in upstate New York many, many times and I loved the place where you grew up. Could you tell me how it felt to grow up in a farming community of Vienna, New York, with on three acres of land with a cod style home and a small creek running through the property? It was just beautiful.
[01:04] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: All I can tell you. I should tell you so much, but I still miss it. I still miss upstate New York and my small community. And I know I still remember. I'm still invited back to my reunions in Camden, New York. And now it's 51 years since I graduated from high school. But what I liked about my community is that we were taught a work ethic because we grew up in a farming community. We had a farm. We had jobs of weeding the garden, which was about a half an acre to begin with. Loved the food, and the food was always fresh. It was always fresh. But a lot of people don't think of what a small community can do. Even my first elementary school, we were the biggest class and there were only six of us. Only six. And it was during the polio epidemic and two of us wore braces. Me, because I have a cerebral palsy. My friend Mark had polio. It was during the polio epidemic and my mother was really adamant about me learning how to say cerebral palsy. So no one would think that I was contagious with polio. Thinking about what else was available to me. First of all, when my elementary school, my new elementary school, we had a music program. We had a music program. And my first music teacher was Joan Clayton. And I wanted to be just like her. We started out with music appreciation, so we learned all about composers and types of music. And then the second year, I think it was in fourth grade, she started an instrumental program and we could pick an instrument. So because my mother played clarinet, I said, I'll play clarinet. But mom said, no, you can't play clarinet. And I couldn't understand why. And she said, because I couldn't be in marching band. I mean, I didn't think of that, but she was right, I couldn't be in marching band. So.
[03:22] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Because of your brace?
[03:24] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah. And so we Got my grandfather's violin. And that became the story of my life. And I started with his violin, which was an okay instrument. And I was the only one that practiced in my law school. I took my violin home every day and I practiced and I practiced. And I was also taking piano lessons at the same time. And I practiced and I practiced. And then the organist at our Catholic church moved away.
[04:00] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I've been to that church, and it's very, very small.
[04:03] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah, a very small organ, too. And I was the only one in our village that played piano. And my piano teacher was the organist in the village of Camden. So the church paid her to teach me how to play the organization and also how to sing the Catholic Latin mass. Now that even gets better. I got paid. It was a job. I had $3 every day to play masks. And the school bus picked me up at the church. And then on the weekends I got $5, the mask. Because more people came and the mess was longer. And so I had money. I had money. So what do I do? I call up a music store in Rome, New York, and asked if they knew any violin teachers, and they gave me.
[05:08] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And your parents didn't know anything about that?
[05:10] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: No, they didn't know anything about it. I didn't know I had to ask them either because I was paying for it. I couldn't drive, though. I had to have somebody take me to the lessons. But I told my mom that I signed up for violin lessons. And she said, what do you. Why did you do that? And I says, because I want to be a professional violinist. And she said it's never going to happen. That's the only thing she ever had to say to me because I was going to prove her wrong. And I did, and I did. And she loved me for it. Both of my parents loved the fact that, you know, my disability was not a disability. It made me strong. It made me really strong. Bull headed. And yes, when I went to college.
[06:02] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Now your teacher was in Rome, New York. How long did it take to drive from Vienna to Rome?
[06:09] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: About 30 minutes. And my father would drop me off for my lesson and go get cottage cheese because we couldn't get cottage cheese at the farm. And I think he always picked up some Italian bread in Rome. But he would always take me to my lessons.
[06:27] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And I think your teacher's name was Mr. Joe Mecca.
[06:31] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Joe Mecca, Yeah. Big Italian guy, all love, total love. And when he died, he left his violin to me. He left his violin to me.
[06:46] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I remember going up there and visiting with him as he Was getting older and he wanted to take us out to eat lunch. And we got in the car, and as I'm driving, getting directions from him, he said, do you want to go to my favorite place or to McDonald's? And I said, I want to go to your favorite place. And I think because of his mental condition at the time, he would repeat that question four or five times before we got to his favorite place where we got to meet all his friends. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience to meet him.
[07:26] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And I remember having our daughter Heidi play her violin for him. And he was. It made him so happy, so happy that it continued on. And it has continued on more than with my daughter Heidi, my grandchildren.
[07:45] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Now, you had three brothers and two sisters. How with that small home, Cape Cod style home. How was it living at home with all those brothers and sisters?
[08:00] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Well, when we first moved into the. When my parents first moved into the house, the second floor wasn't finished, so they had that finished. And my sisters had one bedroom upstairs, and my twin brothers had the other room. And I think it was seven years later, Bobby came along. And I can't remember what they did with Bobby. I really can't. I can't remember where. Who did he share a bedroom with? He had to share because we only had. Well, we had four bedrooms. Yeah, we had four bedrooms. So he slept someplace.
[08:42] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: So if you felt like there were too many people in the home, you had the opportunity to run out in the field and out to the back forest, right?
[08:51] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah. We spent most of our playtime outside. Yes, most of the time. And climbing trees and loving it. Loving it. And then in the evening, I would go get the cows with my best friend that were out in the fields. And we'd come in, but was our girl time, too. And then I would help with the milking, and we would carry buckets of milk to the milk house and put them through the strainers for the dairy to come pick it up that evening.
[09:27] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: That sounds wonderful.
[09:29] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: It was wonderful. And I still miss it. And I get a lump in my throat just talking about it. Yeah. My best friend, Carol, I moved away in 1965, and we made a promise to each other. And our promise was that we'd never forget each other's birthdays. This was in 1965. We have never missed a birthday, Even when we lived in San Francisco. I called her on her phone and gave her the phone number of the phone booth that we were in, and she called me back. We'd never, never missed our birthday.
[10:07] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah. She lives in Oneida, New York. Now, we're just not that far away from Vienna, New York. And we've been up there several times and enjoyed their company and their beautiful backyard with a garden with vegetables. So those have been good experiences for us.
[10:32] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: We moved away. We moved away from Vienna because my sister was. My youngest sister was very allergic to maple trees. And we had a lot of maple trees and maple syrup, and she was in the hospital a lot. So my father took a job at Patrick's Air Force base in.
[10:56] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Outside of Melbourne, Florida.
[10:58] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah, Cape Kennedy. And my father promised that when we moved there, I could continue violin lessons. But the big shock was food. When we moved down there, the thing.
[11:11] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: That really disappointed me when I heard about the maple tree and Susan being allergic to maple trees. That beautiful Route 49, which went right through Vienna. On each side of the road were maple trees. And they were gorgeous, I'm sure. And then someone decided to widen that road because of increased traffic, and they cut down the maple trees. Is that correct?
[11:42] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: That's correct, yeah.
[11:43] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And whenever I've been up there, I look at the tree and I look at the. I mean, the road, and I look at the traffic, and I notice that maybe every five minutes there will be one or two cars to drive by. What was the need to cut down those beautiful maple trees?
[12:00] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: I don't know. I was just a kid. I had no voice.
[12:06] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah.
[12:09] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Well, so, Hans I moved to Florida, and that was like moving to a different country and. But you really did move to a different country. And I know pretty much a lot about it, but I think it'd be nice if you talked about your mom not wanting to fly. So how did you get here?
[12:34] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah, I was an only child, and I grew up on a long, extended cul de sac. It almost had the shape of Gibraltar. It was an upward hill. And there were apartment buildings on both sides of the road, and then another large apartment building at the end of the cul de sac. And these apartments were built after World War II, so there was a large movement of people coming in to live near Stockholm, where I was born. And the being the only child, it seemed like, you know, that would be sort of make me feel lonely. But with all the new young families living in these apartments, I was told by my best friend Leif, who I still have contact with, that there were actually 42 children living on that cul de sac. So there was always someone to play with. Of course, I had my favorite friends, and my absolute favorite friend was Leif.
[13:48] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah. And I met him for the first time, what, two years ago when we went to Sweden?
[13:52] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: That's correct, yes.
[13:53] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: I finally met him.
[13:55] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah, he's a very nice guy. He has retired now.
[14:00] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: So tell me again, what was it like when you came into New York Harbor?
[14:06] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Well, before I tell you that, I will tell you that my father, who moved from northern Sweden to Stockholm in 1946, had as a young man been a delivery boy at a bakery in Soleftia, near the village where he grew up. And when he moved to Stockholm, he got two jobs that were not related to a bakery. But then he found out that there was a bakery near where he lived, and he took a job at that bakery. What was interesting, when he moved back in Sweden, Sweden had been divided into parishes a long time ago, especially when the term became Protestant. And each parish had to keep track of who was born there, who got married, who, what occupation they had, and when they died. So records are very open as to the movement of people in and out of these different parishes, small villages and bigger towns. So when he left Soleftio, there's actually a document up in that parish that shows that he was leaving the date he was leaving his name and the address that he was going to. And I came across this piece of paper, and with a magnifying glass, I was able to read a small script saying which address he was moving to in Stockholm. And then I did a Google street view, and to my shock, I find this address, 68, meaning young man street. And I took a picture of it, and that's where he lived when he first moved there. He had two jobs at two different restaurants. One was a restaurant called Barnes, and that restaurant had some entertainment there along with food. But he only stayed there for like six months. And then he took another job at Opera House, that had a restaurant in the basement of the Opera House. And he stayed there for a short period of time, but then he found his job at a bakery. And I'm quite certain that he had some experience in Soleftio before he moved to Stockholm, starting off as a delivery boy at the bakery then, but showing interest in making pastries and so forth. So he probably had some more experience than you would think. But while he worked at that bakery, he had this idea that he was going to start his own bakery. And somehow, with the help of a friend, he found this bakery in the basement of an old building in the old part of Stockholm. And that bakery did not have a storefront. And that was a really detriment, because he had to sell his products to Other bakeries at. At a lower price so they could make a profit on what they were selling. And unfortunately, his bakery went bankrupt. He could not sustain it. And to my surprise, this couple, they fly in from Sweden, I mean, from us to Sweden, and convince my father to immigrate to the United States. And initially my dad was a little bit reluctant about that. And so my mother and I stayed behind. And after a year, he gave us the green light. And my mom being, as you mentioned, my mom being afraid of flying, we had to take a ship across the ocean. So we took a train down to Gothenburg and there we went on to a smaller ship called Ms. Kunshaln. We had packed up what my mother thought were important things in a wooden crate. And the crate was maybe 2ft by 2ft. It was a cubical crate. And it was mostly dinnerware in there that was in a very good condition. But that's all my mom, really.
[18:57] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And not very many clothes, from what I understand.
[19:02] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yes, we didn't have a lot. We lived in a studio apartment that didn't have a bedroom. So I slept on a sofa bed in the living room, and my parents slept in the kitchen with a trundle bed. And so there was a kitchen, a living room, and there was a hallway and a place to hang your coats. And then there was a bathroom at the end of the hallway.
[19:32] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Sort of like our studio apartment in San Francisco on Ophirs street, pretty much.
[19:37] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: But the big difference with this apartment, it had beautiful, beautiful large, large window in the living room looking out in the backyard. And there was a windowsill, a marble window sill. And my mother had her plants in the window. And she got me interested in plants just by having those plants in the window. And if I ate an orange, I would stick a seed into one of her pots. And then when a little plant came up, I would transfer it to another pot and I would take care of these plants. And since then I've always had an interest in collecting seeds and growing my own plants. Anyhow, we get on the ship and we cross the Atlantic. And it's in late July. And normally the Atlantic can be quite rough, but that's usually in the wintertime. So in the summertime it was much easier. Easier to cross. And I do not remember any rough weather. But there was one time that we were looking out from our cabin and you could see these sort of sinusoidal waves. There were extended waves. And someone told us that they were called death waves. And I think the reason for that was that if you have A long cargo ship that if it got lifted by one of these waves, the front end or even the back end of the ship may break off. So I think that's why they call it death waves. But we arrived in New York on the evening of August 4, 1961. And that evening there was a farewell dinner. And we had a dinner that we would never have dreamed of having in Sweden. My parents were not rich, and we had this fantastic dinner. It sounded like a prime rib. But the exciting thing was, the next morning, dressed in a coat and tie, I ran up to the top deck of over the Boat.
[22:15] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: I have pictures on the wall in the den with you up on the deck. And you had your suit on. You looked so sweet.
[22:25] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah, my mother took that picture. But when I first got up there, it was quite early. And the whole city was. There was just fog. The only thing I could see was parts of the ship. It wasn't covered by fog. And I stood there. I was anxious to see what did New York City look like. And then the fog began to dissipate. And the first thing I saw.
[22:54] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Was.
[22:55] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: The arm of the Statue of Liberty. It said, welcome to you, America.
[23:01] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah. And then you were picked up. And then what amazes me that less than a week later, you were put into school. And the story I remember the most is that you knew a little bit of English and was like, hello and goodbye and names of furniture. And I know your brain must have been going crazy. And the teacher knew that you were having a hard time. And she asked you, or he asked you to bring up your chair to his desk. And what happened?
[23:42] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I heard chair and desk and brought up both my chair and my desk. Yeah, that was a difficult time because such a short time before I had to start school. And I was a little bit nervous about that.
[23:55] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: A week. It was awful. It was really.
[24:01] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: But it was a very good school district and some extremely fantastic teachers. It was the Lower Marion School District outside of Philadelphia. We lived. We found. My father had found an apartment in Ardmore, just a few blocks. A block or two away from the bakery where he had worked. Now, when we got to New York, the person that came to pick us up was Mr. Griborn. He was the owner the bakeries in Sweden where my father worked. And he had been convinced by a friend in Philadelphia that he visited many times that you ought to move to the United States. You would have a better opportunity. So Mr. Gibbon had moved to Ardmore, where he opened up his own bakery. And when he heard my dad went bankrupt. That's when he flew over to convince my, my parents to come.
[25:07] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Now let's fast forward to, you know, you and I were both in high school age. And then I here I am in Florida and I'm going to Stetson University and you are at Florida Institute of Technology. And at that time I didn't want to come home. It was my spring break and my parents, being very strict, said I was coming home. I don't know what they thought. I keep thinking they thought I was going to go to Daytona and get pregnant or something like that. I don't know. But growing up in the family, I don't even know why they worried about me. But my father came up and brought me home, make sure I got home. And I had a paper to work on. And I had summer jobs so I would going to make the most of my spring break. So I went over to Florida Institute of Technology and went to the physics department. Yeah, the music major works for the physics department during the summer to get my summer job back. And then I went to the library, the library to work on my paper. And I can remember my sister dropped me off because I didn't have a car. I worked. I was working, working, working. And I remember there was all these windows down the side wall of the library and I saw this man picking in back of me closing up his books. And I go, oh, I'm going to turn around and see if he knows Dick Patillo, because he worked for me in the chemistry department. And I thought, well, maybe I'll have some fun this spring break. And then I turned around and I asked you, do you know Vic? And you didn't know Vic. And then I listened to you and I said, where are you from? And you said, philly. And I said, they talk like that in Philly. Then he told me that you were from Sweden. And right away I get so excited because when I was in New York State, one of my favorite persons was an exchange student from Germany named Klaus Wallendi. And oh gosh, and now I meet a Swede. And I was so excited about it.
[27:33] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Well, Klaus was very nice to you because with your cerebral palsy, you were not as agile on the dance floor. And I remember you telling me that he asked you to dance and you felt like a million dollars.
[27:48] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yes, I did. Yes. And we've been in contact through Facebook, so wonderful life.
[27:55] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Let me tell you about this library thing. As a math major, I never had to go to the library to do research. And why I went to the Library that day, I do not know. And why you ended up sitting in front of me, I have no idea. And even to my greater surprise is what changed our life altogether is one of my fraternity brothers sat behind me, and I can't remember if he had any reason to go to library either. And because we started talking, he got a little bit jealous because the Florida Institute of Technology campus had, like, a thousand men and 25 women, so the chance of getting a date was rather slim. So as we started talking, he got jealous, and he put his finger up to his lips and he went, shh. And at that point, immediately I thought, I'm going to ask this beautiful woman in front of me to go outside the library and we can talk. And I think it was like 10 minutes after we got outside that I had a date for that weekend at fraternity house. But you tell me, what was your impression when I was talking to you outside the library?
[29:12] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Well, you said you wanted to come out and talk. And then you said that you were going to have a fraternity party and I ought to come. And I looked at you, and I go, I would never go to a fraternity party without a date. I'd never been to a fraternity party. And you said, well, you're going to come with me. I go, I am. And that was. I mean, I wasn't a person that dated.
[29:41] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I think I said, I will be your date.
[29:43] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah. Yeah. And then my sister drove up, and then we went home, and I said, I've got a date with a guy named Hans And then my sister said, what? Hans My sister was more worldly than me, and she's younger than me. And she said, well, there's two Hanses, I think, at FIT and one's a real womanizer.
[30:09] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Well, anyway, well, I drove a blue convertible Camaro, and he drove. He drove a green convertible mg. And.
[30:18] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Being from a big family, everybody was hanging their heads out the door, seeing what color was the car that their big sister was going to go out with the guy in that car. But it all worked out. And, gosh, we've been married 51 years, and it's been good. It's been great. We've been all over the United States with the military. You were on submarines. And we have three children. Once a conditor who does decorates cakes in the bakery, like your dad. And he learned a lot from your dad, too. And then when we have Heidi and Leif, and both Heidi and Leif are musicians. Leif is a singer and plays piano, and Heidi is a violinist. A Suzuki Teacher with two beautiful girls. And they're all musicians. All musicians.
[31:22] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: One plays the violin really well, and the other one plays the cello very well.
[31:28] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And then Leif sings and. Yeah, a lot of music in our family. A lot of music. And it's been a good life. It's been good.
[31:37] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Well, I think that what impressed me the most is that, you know, me being on nuclear submarines. First we spent traveling together for training for almost two years all over the country. And then I spent over six and a half years on submarines with brakes as we changed crews. But you were taking care of our children when they were small. You were going to College of Charleston to finish your degree. You played in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
[32:14] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: You were a. I didn't have any time to get in trouble like a lot of these young Navy wives. I had too much work to do. That was it. And.
[32:28] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah, And I think at that time, because of your cerebral palsy, you may have been also sensitive to.
[32:35] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: I was sensitive to lights, yes.
[32:37] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: So when you. When you had rehearsal in the evening with the Charleston Symphony, you had problems driving back and cars driving toward you with their headlights on.
[32:49] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: That was the reason that I carpooled and I would go down to Mary Ellen Moon's house, and she lived close by, and that worked out because I would ride with her, and then once I got to her house, I could make it back to mine at night.
[33:08] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And I think you went to the Navy medical Services and they gave you some medication so that it would not be a problem in seeing those lights. And one of the doctors, when you explained to him that you played the violin.
[33:25] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Oh, yeah, that was one biggest shock in my life. And I'm still not over it. I had my first EEG ever in my life, because when I was a kid, you didn't see neurologists. You saw orthopedic surgeons and stuff. And so I never had an eeg. So you fill out everything and put down what you do for a living and stuff. And when I came back, he said, I have to ask you a question. And I said, what? He says, you have on here. You're a violinist. I said, I am. He says, you can't be a violinist. And I said, I am a violinist. And I was so mad at him that I told him, charleston Symphony has rehearsal on Thursday night, and if you don't believe me, you come. He came, he sat next to me, and then he believed. They didn't know about neuroplasticity back in those days. But it's wonderful that if you lose Something another part can take over. And that's what happened to me. And that's why I play violin. I always thought that if you're right handed, your left hand doesn't work that well. But I made it work well.
[34:38] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: The one thing that I think is important to say is that now I'm retired. But you're semi retired. That over the years you had almost 280 private students in your studio. And then you taught at the St. Mary's Catholic School in downtown Wilmington. And you started a program there at the request of some parents, talking to the principal of the school. And when the first year you taught violin at the school, you only had like five students.
[35:12] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Five students. And when I retired, I had 240.
[35:17] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And that program grew very fast. And you taught there for 17 years?
[35:21] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yes, I loved it.
[35:22] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: It was a magnet for the school.
[35:25] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: I was the only one in this half of North Carolina, the Catholic schools.
[35:33] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: And the wonderful thing that I know that for Lorraine being a teacher, there was one day I was walking out on my driveway and a truck drove up and this man jumps out and he comes up and shakes my hand and says his name. And I think he thought that I would recognize him by his name, but I didn't. And then he said, well, I was a student of Lorraine's. And I said, well, you go ahead and go to the front door and ring the doorbell. I'm going to go in the back way. Because I didn't want him to go through or back way into the house. And as I came into the house, I told Rain, I said, one of your students is at the front door.
[36:15] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And I didn't know it was an old student. And I had my pajamas on still. And I opened up the door and it's John. And I'm going, oh my, I'm not even dressed yet. And he came to ask me to play for his wedding. Yeah.
[36:30] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: There's so many times that Lorraine has met her students from the past and many of them are now adults for their own children. And they have some found memories of being taught by Lorraine And the thing is that I noticed is that many of the students, they would start. She would start students as early as three years of age. And some of them actually would graduate from our studio when they went off to college. That's remarkable.
[37:02] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: They're doing a lot of good things too. I'm very proud of them. Very proud of them.
[37:07] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I'm proud of you.
[37:08] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah, it's been a good life, Hans
[37:12] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: I hope for many more years.
[37:16] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And we'll keep traveling and learning new things.
[37:19] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yeah.
[37:20] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: And watch our grandchildren grow into wonderful people.
[37:26] HANS WILHELM HERBERT WESTERMARK: Yes, we look forward to it, especially after the pandemic is over with to see them. It's been difficult to not to travel and visit with family, but I'm sure it's going to get better.
[37:41] LORRAINE GREENFIELD WESTERMARK: Yeah.