A young girl and her desease

By Erik Rosekamp

Green was her favorite color

Chapter 1

You ask me, why I’m digging so hard in the past – well, I’ll tell you: I’m digging in the past with that purpose to get it related to the present, and trough that I maybe can get an impression of the future. And if you then ask me what I, until now, have discovered about the future, I’m sorry to say, that I have to give you a disheartened answer: everything’s changing, either by changing it’s form or by constantly moving – except one thing, man, who opposite everything else, seems to be standing on the same place without moving anywhere. It seems that man is totally unaffected by the things going on around him, he continues to be quite the same, whether he is transported by a damp-locomotive or a moon-rocket. Obviously nature has thought that this condition must be the most suitable, however it imply that drawback, that mankind, generation after generation commit the same mistakes over and over again. Well, maybe it has to be so. As children we were imprinted, that mankind constantly was moving forward to a much better future. This is of course truth when it comes to material knowledge, and technical knowledge, but we have certainly not been cleverer when it comes to wisdom. And what concern our, high praised, material knowledge, which I just mentioned, maybe we still know nothing. In any case it is a fact, that exactly in this century, with all our progress, we also have had the most awful wars ever seen in the history of mankind.

This, that man apparently stand still as a rock and don’t move anywhere, is by many considered as very reassuring – but, I’ll tell you, I find it rather depressing. No, no – I don’t lay sleepless in the night – not at all – but if one should dare to suggest a possible meaning of life, it should have something to do with a mental community, in which we could help each other in the trying to be wiser – I know, I know – it’s a dream – but a beautiful one. Man is the same as he always have been – nor better nor worth. Still, there are some positive attitudes towards this - the fact that we shall die is not so torturing, when we know, what concerns the future, that we didn’t miss anything. Of course there will be built fantastic machines and even more fantastic weapons in the future – but, to be quite frank: isn’t it perverse to which eternal life just to see these things?

Well, - this is temporary what I have got by digging in the past. When you have read a good part of this book, which is about love, decease and dead, you will realize that mankind’s knowledge about medicine not have expanded so much as you maybe thought. In those decades which this book is about, they also have a lot of “alternative treatments” – exactly like today – they swear to funny stones and crystals, went to unlicensed practitioners and wise woman’s, and swallowed barrels of onion-juice, and there were those who, by means of electric machines, burnt their patients limbs into peaces and even took money for it. All this delusion is going on to this day. Well, the professional doctors and medicine scientists, wasn’t perfect, but after all, it is from those areas the results have appeared! The decease, which is the principal person in this book, is the tuberculoses, and the patient this book is about, died just at that time when penicillin was developed – too late. God knows, that the appearance of this drug and the vaccinations caused the break down of the tuberculoses. Therefore I can be very harmful, when these salvation drugs, among many others, today by some people have been a subject to hatred – but it is the loss of knowledge of the past, that’s course this (as well as stupidity off course) – people are without knowledge of the terrible sufferings and sorrow that influence life for not so many years ago. The killers of today, so as aids and cancer, really can’t beat the super-killers of the past! And it is a big paradox, that even when the condition of health today is the best ever since, there have never been so many sick people – God grief, how we have been soft and sensitive!!

When we got to Vejle, we took a taxi. Because of some contra dictionary information’s, the time have made progress – the case was, that the question suddenly appeared: where in the hell are we going? Our destination was The Sanatorium of Vejefjord - the one that have been a tuberculoses sanatorium back in the thirties. By asking in different places in the town, we have got different answers. Then we went to the City-archive where a kind employed told us that, as a matter of fact, there were two hospitals, and the one we were seeking was in a place called Stouby.

It’s a funny phenomenon one often come across, when seeking information’s about the past, that it is much more difficult to get information’s about things happened 60 years ago, than for example 400 years ago? Well, the things we’re looking for took place in 1937, but it would have been easier to look for things that took place in 1430. I’m sure that many believe that the opposite is the case – but it isn’t. For some years ago, my brother was a member of an archaeologic movement in Southern Jutland, and they have in commission to chart some small railroads that have been operating in this area for c. 60 years ago. They thought it would be an easy task – but no; soon it showed up, that it was a job, which contained so invincible problems that they nearly gave it up. As my brother said, “it would have been easier to chart something in this area that have happened for 800 years ago!” So, - take care – things from this century are disappearing and leaves no tracks behind. In 50 years it will be difficult to find out what we are doing today!

Well – let me admit something: We are on an Odyssey. We are looking for The Sanatorium of Vejlefjord because we had to! It’s a simply necessity! A beautiful young woman in an age of 24 was in the year 1938 been in hospital at that place – her name was Ingrid Birgitte Schou, and she was my aunt. She died d.11 may 1939. This death caused waves of shocks throughout the family, waves that even today still rolls. Even when death is expected, he is still not expected. Ingrid was everything, youth, beauty, intelligence, she was a clever rider and she possessed a daredevil humor.

When I mentioned that the shockwaves still rolls I have to explain: You see, when I was born in 1941, we lived in my grandmas house in Lyngby, in which my parents have taken place, to help and comfort my grandma, in her despair over the loss of Ingrid, and therefore I became the one who filled the emptiness, and became a subject of my grandmas infinitive love. Many members of the family later talked about, that I have been harmed by this overwhelming love, and some of them stooped to call me an “Ingrid substitute”. Well – I was good-looking, like Ingrid, and my hair was as fair as Ingrids was – but, I can tell you: they were all mistaken; all this miserable people, were all mistaken! My grandma’s great love has been a strength to me, in my hole life. She died of sorrow when I was 6 years old, and violently was taken away from her – but that’s a quite other story, that I maybe will tell you some day.

It was half passed four, and the weather was warm, quiet and sunny. The car moved trough extreme delightfully landscapes and I couldn’t help to break out in praise of this masterpiece of nature. Then the taxi driver begins to speak; he was born here and was very happy to hear, that we liked the district. I told him about our business, and it seemed to interest him, and then I asked him if he could tell, whether the appearance of the sanatorium was the same today, as it was 60 years ago, and I was relieved to hear him say, that it had not changed a bit – at least from the outside.

“And do you know what?” the taxidriver said, “out there the landscapes are even more beautiful”.

But, I’m coming to think of, that I better tell you about the letters and the photography’s. Look – in my family they have kept everything for almost 5 generations! And I mean, everything! I can tell you, for example, that when my great-grandfather got married in 1873, they rent a Singer sewing machine – believe it or not, but we still have the signed contract and the operating instructions. Of course, from time to time it have been a burden with all these things, but still I have been very happy with this enormous archive, because I, by means of this, have been able to go very close to my ancestors in an unusual way. Well – it was about the letters and the photography’s – this big archive was in a rather bad condition when I took it over, but I succeed in locating the letters that Ingrid wrote from the sanatorium, and I also found a photoalbum containing pictures taken at the sanatorium – the album was green. Green was her favorite color – almost everything she owned was green, hairbrushes, mirrors, furniture, bags, suitcases and her writingdesk, which I used in the early fifties to do my homework on – now it is gone.

My relieve over the taxidrivers statement, concerning the condition of the buildings, have to do with the fact, that we must concentrate in finding similarities, so we, trough pictures can prove our story. You see – in this very moment I can tell you, that out there at the sanatorium there is a flagpole, and there is a path around it, and there is a bench too. But the flagpole is curious because it stands on a tripod. You see – in one of Ingrids letters she tells that she’s slowly, as an old lady in Frederiksberg Have, potter about this flagpole and then sits down on the bench. By the way, there is a photo of this place.

What are you saying? – Oh, the letters, yes, that is the real reason why we are sitting here driving trough a scenery that we have not words to describe. I can tell you, that these letters is not ordinaries – she was a very talented letter-writer, very talented indeed, and this is also one of the reasons why this case is worth to work on. Ok, the tragedy is to be seen betweem the lines, but they are filled whit wisdom and humor too – and now and then comical as a farce. And at the same time they are telling medical history, which is not without interest in future. But – first of all it tells us about a little young girls hopes and happiness and sorrow and love, in a hopeless situation.

“No! This is not ‘big words’ – damn it, there are something in these letters that have to influence every reasonable person!”

The car moves from a rather high plateau, steep down through small winding roads. We look at the blue waters of Vejefjord deep down. The clock shows a few minutes passed five – and we have to take the bus back at 18.25. When the sanatorium was build, this road didn’t exist – al building material was transported and loaded at the seaside. Now the first buildings are to be seen – they are typical institutional ones – yellow and red bricks, most yellows – there are the buildings for the staff – there is a big one, it must be the for the senior consultant. Suddenly the whole sanatoriumbuilding appears as a giant – but compared to the valley it is small.

We pay the taxi – and now we are on our own. It is like the enormous gigantic building is asleep – no one is to be seen, not a sound goes into the ear. The sun is hanging low, and it is warm and sultry. The huge doorway is open, and look like a big mouth in a titanic face. A few steps to the left are the bus stop placed. This bus and this route play a little role in this story, because the bus transported the letters; every day at 5 o’clock the busdriver drained the mailbox.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” I cried, “Look! There is the mailbox!”

Unbelievable! There it was on its bar, not the same of course, but a new one – and the only thing that has changed was the timetable of the bus.

We are entering the hall, which no longer smells of hospital, but more like that strange odeur hanging over old hotel vestibules. The hall is decorated whit colored relief’s in 30’th stile. From the hall a robust staircase with iron banister, leads to the floors, of which there are three. In the other end of the hall there is a massive doubledoor whit glass-panels, through which we could get a gleams of a beautiful garden, stretching all the way down to the handsome Vejlefjord . “The Handsome Vejlefjord”? For heavens sake – I have heard that sentence before, but where? Oh, now I remember: It’s from the big poem “Adam Homo” by Frederik Paludan-Møller :

On the coast of Jutland, not far away from the city Vejle,

Jutlands pride, whit paradise infected,

On the shore of the handsome Vejlefjord,

In which the banks are just reflected.

…………………….

- God knows if someone reads such things nowadays? I don’t think so – but it’s a shame. Well, - at least we can conclude that people at that time (1822) also think it was an attractive place – so you can see, people haven’t changed. In the sultry heat of this warm afternoon, not a single sound is to be heard in the hall – we try with a peculiar low voice: “Hello – is someone there?” , but nothing happen. On our left side there is a receptiondesk, but it seems to have been abandoned for years ago. It seems that the house not at all expects that someone could think of being a visitor. Well, our mission is a strange one, admitted – so, how in the hell should the house know, that someone would come to visit it? And at this time! No, there is no doubt – the house is surprised! Believe it nor not, but in this very moment we are feeling that ghosts are looking down at us – ghosts yes, but friendly ghosts, they welcome us, and they are happy because someone come to visit them.

When it seems to be clear to us, that not a single soul is to be seen in the ground floor, my companion suggests that we move upstairs. I don’t like it – just walking in and up, that’s it! without a permission of some kind. Through the gardendoors big glaspanels we get a glance of some shapes whose sitting on a bench down in the garden. Well – cheer up! I went through the door. Five persons where sitting on the bench – they look normal, but yet a little funny. I asked if somebody her was employed – but no, they were all patients, but informed me that there have to be a nurse on the second floor. I better explain what this hospitals function is today: it’s a place where they treat and rehabilitate every sickness related to the modern society, such as victims of car accidents and blood-thrombus a. s. o. Tuberculosis is not the killer any longer, others have taken over – but still, they are not so effective as the god old TB. Later we learn, that the house also have a function as a conference- and course-hotel – so now are the participants sleeping in the same rooms where lots of young and brilliant people in the thirties was laying with blood on their pillows, and waited for death to come. Heigh-ho!

On the first floor there is a little more life. We meet two patients walking in stockinged feet’s. They confirm that there is a nurse on this floor, and her office is right over there; yes, but it is totally empty. The two patients looks guilty but suddenly one of them cry: “There she is!”

Out from an elevator comes a nice young nurse, who stares at us in an inquiring way (who in the hell are those people, and what are they doing here?).

“Hello!” I said, “my name is Rosekamp, and I’m coming all the way from Copenhagen - we don’t have much time – it’s about a relative who have been in hospital here back in 1937-38, and, if you don’t mind, it’s my intension to go an look at the facilities and to take some photos, an so on.”

She glances at me in an incredulous way – like she has never heard anything more foolish and mysterious. Then I come to the conclusion, that I must explain it in a better way. “You see – I have found a heap of letters written by this relative, while she was in hospital here, and these letters describes the circumstances in this hospital – you see, these letter are incredible interesting and funny, and therefore I have decided to write a book about it!”

She lightened a little up, but her face was still doubtful – so I go on: “Among others things, she describes how the doctors goes to bed with the patients!”

“Oh!” she said whit a relieved voice and a smile, “then it will be quite all right – I can see that you are historical interested, and out here on the mezzanine we have a glass showcase, which contains things from that time.”

She follows us out on the mezzanine, and we look at the showcase. I knew these things, from the letters – glass, porcelain and cutlery, all with the hospitals monogram (remember, it was a hospital for the rich) – but now it comes, the most frightening of the all: a black box containing the instruments used to the so called “blows” of the lungs! An operation, my dear reader, which you are going to read a lot about in this book, an in a way so you will feel that your lungs are hurting! There they lay – the torture-instruments, nice and clean in a box covered with velvet. On a distance it seems to be a box with a pair of compasses – very fine instruments. But it was not. The rubber tubes were intact (as brand new ones) and the hypodermic needles – long and thick as knitting needles, look like they could have been used yesterday. To me – who knows the story, they were talking their own silent language about fear, humiliation and decay!

Lets not dwell on that right now – it began to hurt in my lungs. We leave the nurse after promising to send a copy of the book. Then we hurried out in the garden.

When you comes out of the garden-door, and stands on the landing, you will have a brilliant prospect over the Vejlefjord. An enormous lawn, surrounded by tall deciduous-trees, slopes all the way down to the shore. The trees are as walls on both sides, and Vejlefjord brighten up as a deep blue field in the horizon with some white spots from sails. If any view may have a healthy effect – it must be this!

As a matter of fact,- what we have here, is a combination of both garden and park. Everything cared for in a tenderly way – on the lawns grew tuja and yewtrees and deep down a little lake have found a bed. Graveled paths leads everywhere and in regular distance benches are placed, waiting for the next human being, who, tired to death on both body and soul, sinks down, and for a few seconds feel happy because of these divine surroundings.

If you, after this, walk down the gardenstair will the first thing you meet be a rosebed in flower – white, red and yellow roses, and in the middle of this bed struts a little graceful statue made of granite showing a little girl in short jacket playing a recorder. This statue is used as logo on the hospitals letters – it’s a wonderful statue. The symbolic is not obvious – maybe there is none – and so what? The statue delights the soul – that’s the utmost importance.

We are moving down the graveled path to the left, and we have still a full view of the big lawn with woods on both sides, and suddenly I see it: The flagpole! exactly as it is in the green photoalbum. You know, there is something special with this flagpole – it’s not like so many others. It looks like those small flagpoles we place on the table on birthdays – standing on a foot, and, I must say, from a distance it seem to be a birthday-flag. And the bench! yes, there it is! No questions – it’s quite the same! There is a little maritime air over the pole, which leads us to look down on the white sails on Vejlefjord.

“What? – how I can be sure that’s the same pole and the same bench?”

“Listen! 58 years are really nothing. Things doesn’t disappear so fast, unless mankind want to! The railroads in southern Jutland, which I told you about, are gone because mankind have removed every single footprint. Remember, human beings are very clever in these things – take Copenhagen for example, we have now succeeded in removing every evidence of the exciting of electric trams. If we not have had the photos, nobody would believe that there ever had been trams in Copenhagen. Well, in a few places you can still se some rails sticking up from the asphalt – but that will soon be over. However – I’ll tell you a secret, they have forgot something: The hooks where the electric cables were fastened. They are placed on the walls in the streets. If you look up you can see these, made with great ingeniously in cast iron and with fine patterns. When you see such things in the streets, you know for sure that here have a tram been passing.”

“And by the way – my mother, who is born in 1906, in a age of 70 she wanted to se her childhood-home, which she never have been seen since 1917. Well – we went out there – it is in Østerbro on Engskiftevej in Copenhagen – you must remember, you were along with us? No private persons are living here any more – all the houses are sold to embassies or foreign company’s. There it was, nr. 6, the fine big villa, which my grandpa let build in 1908. Everything exactly as it was in 1916. But the most odd about this excursion was, that right over, in front of the house, there was a little park with a municipal bench, and when my mother saw this, she declared, that it indeed was the same bench, on which she have been sitting together with her playmate, Christian Gulmann, who lived next door. So, you see – my mother sat on the same bench, and I am sure this is the bench where Ingrid dwelt back in 1937.”

Besides, Ingrid was born in the house on Engskiftevej nr. 6, the 10 April 1914. But already in 1916 my grandparents was divorced. In spite of the fact, that my grandpa, at that time have to be declared as irresponsible (except for business), he got the custody over my mother, Helga, while Ingrid stayed with my grandma. There is no doubt about, that my grandpa, Axel Schou, was very ill. He has been inlaid on a nerve-sanatorium, but after a while he wouldn’t stay, and my grandma have to sign a paper, declaring that it was on her own responsibility that her husband was discharged. He behaves also rather strange, and sometimes even frightening so that everybody in the house became uneasy. To his more soft behaviors belong for example, to pour a bowl with salad of herring out over the head of my poor grandma. It was a great disaster for my mother, that she from her childhood to her early youth was forced to live under conditions dictated by this madman, who, never the less, was an outstanding businessman, with a perfect and absolutely blameless appearance, admired and honoured with medals as a knight by the King of Denmark! Alas!

You must understand – there was something particular concerning my grandma Ingeborg, - next to being in possession of an erotic aura, which infected every man she come close to – she also was unbelievable gentle, and her reaction to getting salad of herring in her hair was typical: she just sit down and cried, without doing anything at all. She better have stood up and said: “What in the hell are you doing, you idiot?” Well, we cant’ change our nature. Still, at last she couldn’t stand it any longer, and, as I told you, they were divorced in 1916. As my mother always said, and God knows that she was the right one to say it: “What does money and splendor do, when love and happiness is absent?”

If you ever should pass Engskiftevej nr. 6, so take a good look at the fine big villa - lavish it lay there, with its jugend-vindows and its cornices and with the rare and special sun-dial on the top of the gable, this watch which made so many troubles for the architect, Albert Oppenheim, and then – thougt about the madness going on behind those jugend-windows. There was no happiness, but violence and agony. In this atmosphere was Ingrid born.

You ask me what was the matter with my grandpa, and why he behave like he did?

Well, I told you he was sick. But, you, se, sickness can be many thing, and I don’t really think there can be made a diagnosis. Certainly there was mental illness in the family, but it was of a different kind. He have an elder aunt, who, he for the rest, was very nice to visit on the mentalhospital, where she have been for decades. She was very typical for the mental illness, because she seem to be quite normal if one only knew her in a passing way. Well, he visit her with regular intervals – and my mother was often along. And then they could sit for some time, calm and comfortable in the drawingroom of the hospital, drinking coffee, talking about the weather and other quite normal things, and then – suddenly the aunts face got very serious and she starred at my grandpa, and said: “Axel, I must tell you, it has happened again. He was here last night, you must promise me to do something about it! I tell you – he takes the children, lifts them up, and then he slaps them all up on the wall, and there they hang! You must do something, Axel!”

Of course my grandpa promised to everything he could, and a moment later the coffeedrinking went on, and everything was absolutely normal again. My grandpa’s illness has nothing to do with that kind of mental decease – he always knew what he was doing, but he was infinitely intriguesly, paranoid and hypochondriac, sickly suspicious, greedy of power, and cowardly. Well, this characteristic is of course not exhaustive. Human beings contain everything! Evil and goodness can live side by side in the heart of a human being. Once, when Axel Schou was a young man, he rescued a young man from drowning in Nyhavn in Copenhagen. Determined he jump in the icecold water and saved the young man. He got a medal for this – his first one. But – opposite – when he heard something move about downstairs in the night in the big villa on Engskiftevej, and he believed that is was a thief, then he wake my grandma up, and beg her to go downstairs to look, which she did, without any fear – the woman in her family have never been afraid of anything!

No, we just have to conclude that he was a neurotic – a distinct one. And therefore he was a pestilence for people around him. But it was only in the privacy that he was sick – outside his home, and in the business world he was correct and normal in his manners. There are still people who won’t believe it, if we tell them how he terrorized his family. However, the question is if one can call him “sick” in the real meaning of the word, when the “sickness” only broke out when he was behind the walls of his house? My mother said NO, he was not sick, he was a bastard! Or, as my mothers other sister Ida said, once they talk in the telephone: “No – he was a BIG bastard!”

Axel Schou and Ingeborg Lehamnn meet in the train betweem Taastrup and Copenhagen. She was at that time a teacher on a private school. They fall in love immediately, and I know that the first years were happy. In no time Axel Schou established a great firm with electrical equipment[er1] , and with a turnover of many millions. Of course it was a very hard work – and he really was a hardworkning man, but this is no excuse for being so nasty to his family. Things went wrong from the time when they moved into the big house on Engskiftevej. Typical – its going on all the time – the house is build and the children have been born – and then: totally dissolution! Cool hard words, and my grandma’s perpetual crying – that was my mother’s childhood in the villa on Engskiftevej! She feel better when she was not at home – when she for example were visiting her three aunts (my grandma’s sisters) Karen, Johanne (called Jo) and Gunhild, who lived in a apartment together with their old mother on Blegdamsvej nr. 109. She was also pleased and happy when she was playing outside the house, with her little playmate Cristian Gulmann, whit whom she have a common interest: animals – all kind of animals!

Now, one shall not think, that Axel Schou was a monster all the time – there is no doubt about that he was very happy when my mother was born, and I’m sure that he loved her, and when she grew up, he give her all kind of thing – animals too – so, she was the proud owner of a dog, a cat and a goat! This goat was a subject that my mother and Christian Gulmann cared very much about. They dragged the goat every day out to lawns where there was juicy grass – and they care for it in every possible way. That goat was playing a little role – that day in 1915 where everything exploded.

So you can see, that the trouble have already begin when Ingrid was born in 1914 – and this birth was no improvement – nearly on the contrary. I won’t say that Ingrid was delicate from her birth – not at all – but, on the other hand, there can’t be doubt, that her arrival to life among people that live their lives in the shadow of debasement, some way or another must have influenced her. In any case, she was snuffing and coughing in all her early childhood – but I won’t claim that there was a connection to the later catastrophe. She was crying all the night, which keeps my grandpa awake. Axel Schou was absolutely hysterical about his night’s sleep, and this screaming made him nearly mad. He accused my grandma for this, and claimed that it was her fault. He talked about stay the nights in hotels. My grandma cried, and her milk in her breasts disappeared – and then Ingrid was crying even more. The whole house was awake – and my mother lay in her room at was listening to all this.

As it so often happened with Axel Schou, the hypochondriac and the pretender showed up in full blaze. Suddenly he jumped out of bed, coughing and hawking, and moaning, while he cried: “I’m sick – I’m sick, I’m sick! oh, I am very very sick!” and then he rushed out into the bathroom, where he begin uttering sounds of vomit, with his head almost on the bottom of the toilet bowl. After this he began, in a dramatic way, to gargle his throat so loud, that it could be heard all over the big house, while he continued was moaning: “I’m sick! I’m sick!” Then he sat down on a toilet stool and looked absolutely miserable.

In these situations, my grandma never knew what to do – she run flustered up and down, between Ingrid and Axel Schou – who should she take care of? They were both screaming, and tried to call on attention, with equal power. She never saw, that it was a “play” – she just have faith in mankind, and her believe in this was unbreakable. She couldn’t think of, that someone have the heart to terrified others in this manner - why should they?

“Shall I call the doctor, Axel?” she asked him.

“No, no – and besides, it’s properly to late. I’ll go and see him in the morning – if I still is alive!”

And then he again put his head down deep in the toilet bowl, and it really sounded like he was throwing up dinners for the last two weeks, but the truth was, that absolutely nothing came out of his mouth! My grandma was clapping him at his back, while tears was running from her beautiful, sad eyes. Then she runs to the bedroom, to see Ingrid. Then she uncovered her breasts and let Ingrid suck. Ingrid sucked twice, and then started a loud hysterical crying – either there was no milk in the breasts, or the milk tasted nasty, I don’t know, but the crying continued to be louder and louder.

Then she hurried back to her husband in the bathroom, who really looked miserable - as my mother said: “He looked like ‘The death from Lübeck’ [er2] “

“But – what shall I do, Axel?” she asked in despair.

“You can’t do anything – in a couple of days my company will be bankrupt – I can’t take care of it, because of all this trouble in my house – we probably have to leave the house and everything!” he said, with the trustworthiness, which characterize a psychopath.

My grandma, who almost believe in everything being told, nearly cried her eyes out.

My grandpa stood up, with a frailed and weaken attitude, which have been worth a royal actor, and said with a pitiful voice: “My only salvation will be to go to ‘Silkeborg Bad’[er3] !” Out with the logic! – how in the hell could he afford to stay in this place, if his company was crashing in a few days?

And so it went on – day after day – the company doesn’t crashed, on contrary it extremely expanded because of the war, and my grandpa’s capital grows in the same time as the happiness of his marriage was sinking.

On day, in the beginning of July 1915, it had gone so far, that my grandma at last realized that it couldn’t go any further. Her mother and sisters have long ago been aware of the misfortune in the house on Engskfitevej. And with their help there a lawyer was engaged, and he informed Axel Schou that she wanted a divorce.

When the four girls, my grandma, Karen, Jo and Gunhild, was very young, they have promised each other, that they never would marry. How they regarded my grandma’s trait, I can’t tell. But one could get that idea, that they, in silence, maybe would say: “There you are – you broke the oath – and that’s the punishment!” Well, I don’t know – it’s for sure, that they got pleased when their sister got pregnant.

Of course Axel Schou’s mind was realistic enough to foresee, that it could end like it did, and yet it all exploded in a cascade of madness! My grandma, Ingeborg, was well aware that it was the most convenient, if Helga( 8 years old at that time), was out of the way, while the storm razed. She therefore arranged with the neighbor, the editor Gulmann, that she could stay with them in their holiday cottage in Esrom for some time.

“Do you realize, my little Helga, that your mother wants you to leave?” Axel Schou was saying in a theatrical voice, “leave your Daddy, who loves you!”

My mother, who reacted on the conditions, in a very normal way, just looked at him.

“Come, little Helga, let’s take a walk in the garden, so we better can talk about this.” continued her father.

When they were out in the garden, Axel Schou faced her daughter, and he suddenly say, in a strange business-minded manner: “Well – tell me: who would you like to live with, your mother or me?”

My mother run away from him, weeping and crying: “I won’t live with any of you!”

However, my grandma succeed in having Helga placed at the Gulmanns cottage.

How all this elapsed I know exactly because of a letter my great-grandmother wrote on 8 May 1915, addressed to Jo and Gunhild, who was on a vacation in Northern Jutland. (Adr.: Misses Gunhild and Johanne Lehmann, Post Restante, Thisted.) She wrotes:

Hello, my two loved ones, thank you for the postcard that I got at two o’clock, the place seems to be very nice and cozy, have you found at good place to stay over night, how is the weather, I hear that it is bad in many parts of Jutland, here in the city we have had a very fine weather, but around six o’clock it began to darken, and there was a few drops of rain, I don’t know what to do, it’s very dark, but no rain. I have an appointment with Karen, that we should meet in the allotment. Karen said, that she would do some shopping after her office-hours, and then take a bath, and then came out to me, but she haven’t arrived yet, I have been here since three o’clock, now I have sat a kettle over the fire for tea, I hoped that Ingeborg would come, I’m longing to hear how it was when Helga leaved this morning – now, I can see Karen coming. I have dinner for her, and then we will drink the tea, now it is raining but the sun also shines, but we stays, because we both thin it a beautiful place.

We went home in a tram around ten o’clock, and there we meet Mrs. Nielsen from the first floor, and she told us, that our dear Ingeborg have been waiting for us for hours – then she have walked home, and on the way she have seen us sitting in the tram – wasn’t it sad?

Our dear Ingeborg had many different things she wanted to tell us – among other things, that when Helga was leaving this morning, then AS have said: “Don’t be sad – I’ll come, and pick you up in a week!” Ingeborg wasn’t pleased with this, and therefore she ask Mrs. Gulmann to speak to AS – but he was just impudent to her. Well, the child leaved, and Ingeborg followed her to the depot, they have to rent a car. AS behaves as a madman – on the telephone he have asked Miss. Petersen [er4] to raise 16.000 kr. in the bank, and give each of his brothers and sisters 2000 kr., if it can be done I don’t know. Ingeborg called her lawyer at once. And then AS ask Miss. Petersen to set the villa on sale – I don’t know where it all shall end, and I look on it all with great sadness, must just our dear Ingeborg be healthy, but the little Ingrid is very bad-tempered, and requires much attention, and Ingeborg have no capacity for it – maybe it is wrong of me to write you about these things, but as you know, I got to have to give vent to my indignation. Ingeborg have a bright outlook on things, and she thought that all AS’s madness will help her in her case. When Ingeborg got home yesterday, after following Helga to the depot, she found out, that the goat was gone! AS had asked Jens [er5] to take it away. AS have said that he couldn’t stand to look at it! Then Ingeborg walk around for a while, trying to find the goat, - then she ask the maid, who told her, that Jens has brought the goat to the salesman. Then she phoned the office, to talk with Jens, but he was impertinent and said, that the goat was where it belong. In the meantime, Mrs. Enemark [er6] was arrived to see Ingeborg and she was very angry with AS for doing these things. Then Ingeborg and Mrs. Enemark went to the salesman, at get the goat back, and now the goat is kept in the henhouse of Gulmanns – you see, Gulmanns have taken the hens with them to the summer-cottage. If only this could come to an end – here is Helga’s adresse: Mrs. Editor Gulmann, Huseby, Esrom.

We where sitting on the bench by the flagpole, while I told the story of my great-grandmothers letter. My companion looks skeptical.

“Well – something indicates, that Ingeborg wasn’t so naïve and clumsy, as you have suggested.” she said.

“I know what you are thinking.” I said as I arose, and suggested that we walk down the path at the right, into the wood. “That’s about the fact, that she seems pleased with the mad behavior of her husband, and thinks that it will promote her case!?”

“Exactly, don’t you see, that it proves that her way of thinking are the same as any other woman?” My companion looked at me with triumphant eyes.

“I haven’t said, that her way of thinking as such was different – I tried to let you understand, that she was a remarkable person because she believed in people – and the fact that she have a bright outlook, could be caused by a family-weakness, or strength, if you will, namely that we always seems happy (at least when we are together with other people), no matter how unhappy we are. We are cheating our surroundings. Let me tell you something: I know, that there was a time, when my mother was very very unhappy, and that was when her father want her to go to a distinguished boarding school for girls in Switzerland, and at the same time my great-grandmother wrote in her diary, that Helga was bold and happy! So – you see, how much shall we believe?”

“In that case – it is a question how much we shall believe of anything, what we hear, and read –“ my companion said in a replying way, and actual she is right, if she just has added “and see”. No, the truth is a funny fish – difficult to catch.

“Besides – I really don’t understand,” my companion went on, “Why should one hide ones troubles – for what purpose, to pretend stronger, or what”?

“No, no – in our case it’s rather a question of politeness, like a consideration to the people around us. Why make people sad?”

“Well, maybe people could help, and besides, it’s very healthy to get rid of troubles, and to talk about it.”

“Listen – you a wonderful person, but the way you talk makes me sick! You are absolutely wrong – the troubles are inside your brainskull, and the solution is right there, and no other places. No one else but yourself can solve it!”

“After all, I think that Ingeborgs talk about advantage in connection to her husbands behavior, indicates that she was not so naïve as you think.” My companion continued.

“If she really should have talked like that, the explanation could be, that it was her lawyer who have told her so!” I said. “You must admit, that there is an air of ‘law-talk’ over the statement!?”

We walked down the path, and into the wood, and we passed a little bridge over a hollow. All these paths which were constructed with the purpose, that daily walks in the fresh air was a part of the treatment, had names, which refer to the doctors, who through the times have been important for the hospital: “Saugmanns Street”, “Williams Street”, “Graversens Street” and so on. We walked down Williams Street for a little while, and then returned to the big lawn. The view over Vejlefjord was indescribable. We walked over the lawn very slowly.

I better tell you about this Jens, who walked with the goat. You see, Jens was my grandpa’s nephew, he have a lot. This Jens showed very early a talent for office and business, and therefore he became an apprentice in Axel Schou’s company. As an apprentice his manpower was used to many different things, for example to walk whit a goat. As a child, Jens has had a strange nickname, namely “Uncle Car” – everybody called him so. The case was, that in 1909 my grandpa got his first car. It was an American car, marked “Reo”. The number plate showed the letters “K 21” – the “K” for København (Copenhagen), and 21 tells us, that there was 20 other cars in the whole city!! So, you see, it was a very remarkable thing to be the owner of a car. The fact, that my grandpa was an owner of a car, totally upset Jens and his brother in an exiting way; they were nearly euphoric, and cried to anybody they were near: “My uncle have a car!” – My uncle have a Car!” They were never tired of passing this unbelievable statement on. And therefore, at last, they got the nickname “Uncle Car”. And, by the way – when these nephews were visiting my grandpa, he always gave them order to do some work in the most peculiars way. For example he gave them order to take all their clothes of, and stand naked – then he gave them oilcans in their hands, and then he commanded them down in the grease pit, totally to rub the car with oil. When they get out again, they were black as Negro’s. But there was other commitments they have to fulfill. When they were staying over night, he forbid them to go and piss at the bathroom. They have to piss in a pottie! And in the morning they were commanded to climb out of a roof-window with their full potties, and walk along the roof to the gable, just where the big sun-dial was – that one I told you about. This sun-dial, which sits on the house on this very day, was something special: it was made of skilled copper, and should in some years become green of verdigris, but Axel Schou thought that this process were to slowly, and therefore he asked his nephews to pour their piss over the sun-dail – and it worked! But, you see, the nephews has nothing against doing these things, they look up to my grandpa, in a way you don’t believe, and this continued trough their whole life. Jens Jacobsen become later a big wholesale dealer – in electric articles – in the city of Aalborg in northern Jutland.

I don’t know what happened to the goat, but certainly it was gone when the separation was a fact, and my grandma, together with Ingrid, moved into a big apartment on the first floor of a big villa on Lille Strandvej 11, while my grandpa, together with my mother, moved into a luxurious apartment in Østbanegade 9, where all the floors was one big apartment with 15-20 rooms. It would be impossible to have a goat in such a place.

I’m telling you all this – not to make you tired, but because you must know a little about the figures you will meet trough Ingrids letters. Well, the separation was a fact in 1916. My grandma went empty-handed out of this marriage! She got some furniture, and I don’t think she got anything else. That’s very remarkable – as a result of my grandpa’s big fortune, she should have been a wealthy lady, but she wasn’t! I don’t know how it sticks together.

The villa on Lille Strandvej in Hellerup, was owned by a gardener, who was fanatic religious and in addition he was a militant believer of herbal medicine. Alas! – those persons also be at work at that time. He also was a vegetarian – so it couldn’t possible be worse – but he was a harmless man. He begged and begged my grandma and Ingrid to use the privy down in the garden because, as he told them, shit from man is the best to fertilize the strawberries! – and of course he was right. As a matter of fact, he has the biggest strawberries in this part of Sealand. Under the gutter-pipe he have a big barrel with rainwater, in which he every morning took a bath. On the first floor, Ingeborg and Ingrid could hear him blow and groan and splash – in the winters too. And he was convinced that this water, coming from heaven, brought him health, well-being and Gods blessings. And in the winter, when the snow covered the earth and the frost bites in the face, he was running naked around in Dyrehaven[er7] – uphill and downhill between the trees, and then he throw himself down in the snow, and rolled over several times, until his skin was dark-pink and burning. And then he continued uphill and downhill, until he felt that heaven was near him. Unfortunately one day, two elder ladies discovered him, and he was reported to the police and accused for indecent exposure. Well, no harm was done, and the police let him go – but he was very down in the dumps when he got home.

The big looser in this case of separation was my mother Helga because Axel Schou have got the custody over her. My mother never forgive my grandma, that she haven’t struggled harder to get both her daughters! And God knows that it was a complete hell for my mother to be living with my grandpa – and she leaved the day at her 21 birthday – without a word – and after tearing a savings-book, which contained a deposit on 20.000 kr. from her father, into pieces in front of him.

Axel Schou was convinced, that such an upper-class girl like my mother (and so she was), who only was build for a good marriage, impossible could live “outside the walls”. He was of that opinion, that she soon would return to the home – but she didn’t – and she never asked him for help! Never the less, and to be fair, I think that my grandpa was really unhappy and shocked when my mother leaved him – but it doesn’t justify his brutal and crazy behavior later on. He simply didn’t understand it, he believed that he had given her everything, love, money, education, - everything. The connection between them was never broken totally, - they saw each other on occasions, and they even talked together – but my mother always wear a shield in front of her. Maybe there was a little bit of doubt in the brain of Axel Schou, maybe he from time to time reflected on, that he perhaps have been a bad father? Many years after, I remember that he visited us as an old man, and I remember, when we were sitting at the dinnertable, that he suddenly began to sob, while he was saying: “Yes, Helga – I am full aware, that I haven’t been fair to you, I have not treated you so well as I should!” Maybe it just was an old man, who looked for pity – I really don’t know. My mother looked at him with icecold eyes, then she slashed him at his shoulder, and said, with a strange hard voice: “Ok, ok – you old fool, come here and get another brandy!” Her voice was hard as granite – I think she hated him, because it was impossible for her to love him!

Chapter 2

When we have walked quiet a bit down the big lawn – nearly to the bottom – we turn around, and looked up at the enormous building at the top of the hill. It was big as a castle and the architecture reminded one of old English manorhouses. Towers, spires, jutties and balustrades. Behind these distinguished walls, souls have been fighting their last fight for life – this life, which, like genuine art, is so valuable, and on the same time so senseless.

You ask me, when Ingrids decease started? It’s hard to say – deceases can be latent over a very long period – but as well as I know, it began in the early thirties. But, as I have told you, - as a child she have coughed more than other children. I know this from my great-grandmothers dairy from 1921, but on the other hand, - at that time everybody was coughing, so it is hard to say if this was the first signal? I don’t think she was really sick at that time, but she was a nervous child, and she was bad-tempered and irritable - as my great-grandmother writes in her dairy: Little Ingrid was here today – she was so lovely, and not at all peculiar—

But if she has been peculiar, you can bed on that there was an explanation. Now days we think, that it’s only in our times, that children have been pounce-balls between separated couples, as well as deadly weapons in the psychological war between those two delicate and egocentric souls, who couldn’t solve anything – God heavens! No, no – exactly the same was happened at that time, so, you can see, we haven’t learned a bit! Children are still suffering under adult’s weakness and shameless egocentric behavior.

I don’t know any specific about the conditions concerning my grandparents separation, but it’s for sure, that Ingrid was living as a true nomad, for several years – she constantly switched between them. Nothing seemed to be systematized – two days in Østbanegade with her father, then six days home with her mother on Lille Strandvej, and then again with her father for four days – an so on. There were big complications involved in this affair – you see, my grandparents would neither meet nor speak to each other. So, arrangements have to be entered with persons who were willing to pick up Ingrid and deliver her again. Naturally my mother was the first person, but my grandmothers three sisters, who, as I told you were living with their mother on Blegdamsvej 109, was very helpful too -

If you want me to continue – then mail me: [email protected]