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Youth learns new culture as German IFYE
By SALLY BAIR
Farm Feature Writer
While worldwide acts of violence make daily newspaper
headlines, there are literally thousands of young people
whose went at promoting better understanding among
peoples goes along quietly and effectively, but largely
unnoticed.
Fay Stoner, 1051 Eden Road, Lancaster, had the unique
opportunity of living and working with seven farm
families in the Federal Republic of Germany as a
delegate in the International Farm Youth Exchange
(IFYE) program. The IFYE Program is sponsored by the
National 4-H Foundation in Washington, D.C., and part of
the cost of the exchange was provided locally by clubs,
civic organizations, businesses and individuals.
Fay is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Raymond Stoner
and will resume her studies this month at Millersville
State College where she is a senior majoring in
psychology. She returned to this country in early
December.
Fay is modest in talking about any great implications
her visit to Germany may have had, but she spoke with
>nthn«in«tm and humor about her experiences.
Fay’s seven host families were in seven different West
German states, so she really bad an opportunity to see a
lot of the country. One family lived in West Berlin, which
she explained, is not just a city, but a county as well with
parks, farms and open space.
The German countryside was not too different from
thickly populated eastern Pennsylvania. The families,
too, were like families in this country in many ways, but
Fay found some distinct and interesting differences and
customs.
In international living there is one common area of
interest to which everyone can relate: food. German food,
according to Fay was quite good.
Her German host families ate four meals a day, and in
one family there was even a fifth eating time, a second
breakfast. Despite all this eating. Fay seemed to have
remained slender.
Breakfast was a simple meal, Fay said, usually con
sisting of white, hard rolls, unsalted butter, jelly and
coffee. Occasionally there would be a variety of wurst
(luncheon meat) and on poultry farms there would
sometimes be hard cooked eggs. When asked if the men
fared alright on this seemingly meager breakfast, Fay
explained, “The men just ate more.”
She added, “The rolls for breakfast were usually fresh,
and sometimes I had to bicycle to the village bakery to
get them.”
The largest meal of the day was eaten between eleven
and twelve, according to Fay. She said her host mothers
always used a tablecloth and set a nice table. The meal
began with soup, either a hot broth of cold fruit soup,
sometimes served with a roll. If there was meat it was
probably pork, Fay said, and there were almost always
potatoes boiled in salt water. There were vegetables such
as string beans or spinach and fruit such as apples. Oc
casionally there would be a salad with a homemade
dressing of vinegar and cream.
For desserts there might be pudding, but never a cake
like dessert, said Fay. “The heavy desserts were reserved
for the afternoon.”
In summer there was iced tea, usually served lukewarm
and on dairy farms there might be milk. But, Fay said
normally there was nothing to drink. “They didn’t think
water was healthy.”
Every family took a break about 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. for
coffee time. The men came in from the fields and
everyone made a real effort to relax and enjoy them
selves, Fay said. At this time there was coffee, of course,
and often a fresh fruit cake served with mounds of
whipped cream. Fay said, “I always thought coffee was
coffee, but theirs was really different.” It was drip coffee,
and perhaps that made the difference, she said.
Faye Stoner looks at several slides taken in Germany. A German cookbook has also provided a number of special meals.
The evening meal was light. Fay said. There would be
several different kinds of bread and worsts and several
kinds of cheese. Occasionally there would be hot worsts,
which resemble our hot dogs, and sometimes there would
be soft cooked eggs served in egg cups and eaten with a
spoon. There would be iced or hot tea, depending upon the
weather, Fay said or flavor- * or unflavored tonic water.
Fay said it was her observation that her German hosts
had more household appliances than families here. Each
home had an automatic dishwasher and automatic
washing machines. There were also coffee grinders,
blenders, mixers, and no home is without a bread slicer
since all bread is purchased unsliced. Fay said, “They
had machines to do everything.”
Despite this, she observed, “The cooking was all done
from scratch.” Her host families were rather familiar
with the foods we eat and were very curious about the use
of prepared foods here. Fay said, “They wondered what
women do with aQ the time they must have.”
Fay made some American favorites for diem, Including
apple pie, which they all enjoyed, she said. But she added,
“None of them understood about pie crusts.” she tried
pumpkin pie twice, but had two failures.
She also baked chocolate chip cookies, working with
block chocolate which she cut up, and without baking
soda. “They were edible,” she said with a laugh.
Sweet corn, especially corn on the cob, is not well known
in Germany, bid is available in some markets. So Fay
purchased some and prepared it for two of her families
both of whom liked it.
Markets were common in every town or city, and often
they were outside, Fay said. She explained that there was
clothing, spices, fresh vegetables and flowers and just
about everything available at these markets.
Homesta
Grocery shopping for the families, Fay said, was done
at supermarkets. A marked difference, however, is that
the German Housewife provides her own container in
which to carry home her purchases, and die does her own
packing of the groceries. Also, Fay said, they often went
to the store several times a week.
Every farm home had a garden, according to Fay, and
she often helped her host mother with the garden work.
She said, “There gardens are amazingly neat and
everything is so precise it is incredible.” She said she
almost had the impression that everyone used the same .
blueprint for the garden because all the vegetables
seemed to be in the same place at each home.
Fay, whose American father grows lots of strawberries,
said the strawberries in Germany were “very tasty.” She
explained, “Because of the latitude it took a very long
time to ripen and they became very sweet.”
In Germany, Fay noted, there is “much emphasis on the
family.” She said Sundays are very important days for
the family - everyone dressed nicely and they did things
together.
She had expressed an interest in seeing retirement
homes there and said she found “some private and fancy
and some simply adequate.” But in many cases, she said,
the German families “felt the responsibility to keep older
members of the family at home.”
She said she felt this had some advantages to everyone.
“Younger people can see how older people live. But it was
a strain sometimes.” Frequently two generations lived
under one roof. She said only one of her host families
didn’t have a grandmother living with them, and in some
cases there were other relatives.
In one home the grandmother had her own fully
equipped apartment, and simply came by once a day to
say hello to the family. This, Fay said, worked out well for
both generations.
Fay said that in most cases she was received more as a
guest in the home than as a member of the family. But she
said, “I tried to help with little things around the home.”
She explained that with two generations in a home, and
often a young apprentice who was there to learn
homemaking skills, there really was not too much to be
done. Most of the women spent their days cooking and
cleaning, she said. The farms on which she lived were also
highly mechanized, and so the women did not need to work
outside the home.
Farm women would not consider a career outside the
home, Fay said, “They seemed fulfilled as a provider in
-ttehome. They felt they had a lot to do.”
But, she said, “For those who chose a professional
career they were looked at as equals. The professional
women with whom I came into contact bad an awful lot <m
responsibility.”
Fay characterized the clothing as being “nice clothing,
well-made.” She said the German women were stylishly
dressed, with up to date clothing. She said, “They seemed
to follow fashions closely. But they wear the same thing
over and over, and usually have plain, conservative
colors.”
Dirndls, the German dress with jumper, blouse and
apron, are reserved mostly for church and weddings. Fay
brought home an appropriate blouse and is now busily
sewing herself a jumper and apron which she will don
when she gives presentations on her trip.
In her opinion, the children with whom she lived were
not very well disciplined. She said, “They were treated as
though they had the right to have their own will and
opinion. little boys seemed to get away with more than
little girls.”
With a laugh she said that the German IFYEs who bad
lived in the United States had the opinion that American
children were not very well disciplined.
One real enjoyment for Fay was “the fact that there
was so much emphasis on exercise - bicycling, walking
and getting fresh air. The Germans are very health
conscious.” Often she said they will take their vacations
at a health resort.
Another good factor is that “their transportation is very
efficent. Even the smallest towns are connected by
railroad or bus, and you can travel to any remote area by
bus,” Fay said.
One large difference in the architecture was that in each
case, the house and bam were connected. Fay said, “It is
convenient and saves space. You had to go outside the
home to get into the bam.” There were no problems she
said, but sometimes “I could hear the pigs.”
Not surprisingly, Fay said there was much emphasis on
antiques in Germany. Most pieces had been handed down
over many generations. Fay said many of the farm houses
in which she lived were quite old, as much as 400 to 500
years old. She said it was a funny feeling to live in homes
which were build before the United States was developed.
History was always present in Germany. Every family,
Fay said, talked about the war. She said, “They wanted to
tell me about it, how it was for diem. The young people
didn’t understand the impact it had on their parents’
lives.”
(Continued on Page 44]
Reporter wanted
News reporter wanted for the Berks County area. Farm
background and writing experience helpful. Local travel
required. For further information contact Toaster
Fanning by writing to: News Correspondent - Lancaster
Fanning, 22 E. Main St., Lititz, PA 17543.
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