pursued by a bear

Every picture tells a story No. 35

Heinrich the cellist and Maria didn't have a car but they were close friends with a couple who had a VW beetle, and the four of them used this for many joint holiday trips in the 1950s, typically to the Alps and the south of Germany. (That must have been really cosy with four adults in the small car!)

There are many photos taken by one of the quartet showing the three others, but very few showing all four. Here's one taken at Titisee (a lake and town in the Black Forest) with the bonus features of a fake bear and a real dog (presumably the successor to Schluck the German shepherd). Heinrich and Maria appear on the right:

Update 6.5.22: I've been told there is an ancient Hotel Bären in Titisee, maybe the souvenir photo with the eponymous animal comes as part of their service?

Update 26.5.2024. Turns out there are lots of bear photos from other holiday destinations too, from the ski slopes to the beaches. So I had to do a new blog entry on the holiday bear which is now live.

A few examples of the trio format:

En route from Wuppertal to Idar Oberstein, Easter 1952. I'm assuming this was the car the friends had before the famous 1950s beetle, looks more like a pre-war model. I can't quite resolve the emblem - it's not like Peter Eberle's 1930s BMW, but a similar vintage and size from a different maker. Funnily enough, I don't have a photo of the beetle which they normally used. There is a photo with a beetle and a fifth person, but the registration plate doesn't make sense, so I'm assuming it's the other person's car.

Herrenchiemsee, near Munich.

This photo is also on flickr.

Every picture tells a story series so far:

1. string quartet Wuppertal Elberfeld 1927
2. greetings from Adamsweiler
3. Gastwirthschaft Ferd. Weirich
4. quartet times three
5. Neumühl 1923
6. Tangermünde railway station 1889
7. a singing lesson
8. bei Wilhelm Geppert
9. a bakery at Lorsch 1900
10. Consumgeschäft von Julius Düsselmann
11. Hanna and Ruth
12. a young chemist
13. school's out at Reichenstein, 1886
14. a patchwork family in East Prussia
15. the case of the missing grandmother
16. checkpoint Glaner Brücke 1929(ish)
17. finding Mimi
18. five sisters, five decades
19. happy at home
20. gone milking
21. steel workers
22. field work
23. what to wear at Porta Westfalica
24. a classic convertible
25. at the bottom of the steps
26. a forester's family
27. the Kaiser visits Allenburg
28. teaching the 'deaf-mute'
29. a guard dog called Schluck
30. party like it's 1956
31. the case of the mysterious uncle
32. three Hedwigs and a baby
33. a lost generation
34. lost illusions
35. pursued by a bear

Alternatively, you can use this twitter thread as an illustrated table of contents.

In a somewhat roundabout way, this series relates to my research for the family history music memoir I have now completed in a first version.