Independence
By: susan peterson stamis
Tags: foreign service, independence, nanny, ocean liner, state department
Category: Uncategorized
Ocean liner was the mode of travel across the Atlantic Ocean, back and forth from New York to Gibraltar, Genoa and Naples, and there are quite a few pictures of those beautiful and majestic ships floating my little family to its next destination.
In 1952, when my father left Germany for home leave prior to his new assignment in the Philippines, we bobbed back across the waters in the SS Independence. We were accompanied by the German nanny, Christina, who had become an invaluable member of our household in Dusseldorf soon after I had made my grand squalling entrance into the family.
Christina had the responsibility of chasing my energetic toddler self around the big boat, alternately chiding and cooing at me in German. My father snaps pictures as Christina warns me not to go past the chain at the top of the steps, averting me from the terrible dangers lurking beyond its restraint.
Maybe she’s explaining the reasons I shouldn’t proceed, believing that my two-year old brain will grasp her meaning, or maybe she’s just waggling her finger, murmuring, “Nein, nein, nein, NEIN, Liebchen;” and hoping against all of her practical experience of the willful little me, that I will this one time, actually hear and obey.
Didn’t Christina see those great big letters over my head?
Nein.
She hauls me down the stairway as I wistfully gaze back towards the verboten area now rapidly receding from view, and the exasperated Fraulein Christina appears to be glancing down over the rail to calculate the distance between me and the deep blue sea.
NANNY – 1 INDEPENDENCE – 0
3 comments on “Independence”
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About Me
My father was a Consular Officer in the United States Foreign Service. He was first stationed in post World War II Berlin, where I was born in 1950. Subsequently, we lived in the Philippines; Jamaica; Guatemala; Washington, DC; Greece; Ceylon and Mexico; visiting many places in between. I was reared by my parents and nurtured by the various amahs, nannies, and housemaids who, every two years or so, entered and exited my little life.
I was educated in American Schools in “foreign lands,” but the most fascinating classrooms were the exotic locales where we lived, and the most inspiring teachers were the colorful people of those exotic and ancient cultures.
The bi-annual “home leaves” which my family spent at my grandparents’ homes in Los Angeles, California provided a sense of constancy to our nomadic lifestyle. My many aunts, uncles and cousins lived there and I eagerly looked forward to those vacations. We were 1st and 2nd generation Greek Americans (all 4 of my grandparents had immigrated at the turn of the century), and thus had foreignness stamped onto us even though we were Americans.
Two of my father’s siblings were also in the diplomatic service, and we world-traveling cousins were a source of endless curiosity to our domestic counterparts when we came home speaking English with unusual accents, reducing the statesiders to hysterics.With his various cameras, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, 16 millimeter, Super 8 and Polaroid, my father rarely lost an opportunity to document the events unfolding around us. After years of waiting patiently in boxes under the stairs, these photographic records are now fulfilling their purpose as mnemonic retrievals of my little life.
Mnemonic Retrievals 
You go girl, Christina has nothing over you
I remember that ship and her sister, the USS Constitution (we traveled on both). I was particularly fond of the kid’s playroom. Your Teutonic tutor probably lost 10 lbs on that crossing chasing after you!
Such a treat as always!