Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland

I have visited Stuttgart several times over the years, anywhere from one day to six weeks—her beautiful streets, hillside neighbourhoods, Staffeln (stairs) ascending and descending between neighbourhoods, the founding Waldorf (Steiner) School on Haussmannstrasse, walking the woodland parks, and cycling through the surrounding countryside.

I visited in August 1968, six weeks in July–August 1981, one to seven days every summer of 1984 and 1986 and 1987 plus the occasional long weekend in those same years, and again shortly in October 1989 and December 1990.

My paternal grandmother left Hamburg, after its enormous bombing and destruction in summer 1943, and moved south. My father followed in 1945. First they lived in a town (Sindelfingen?) just south of Stuttgart, then in an apartment in Ostendplatz. Father lived off and on with his mother in Stuttgart until his departure for Camphill near Aberdeen, Scotland in February 1951. Grandmother lived there until the early 1980s. My paternal aunt Michaela still lives in Stuttgart. My mother worked as a garden teacher (Gartenlehrerin) in the Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe garden an die Rote Wand from October 1956 to 1961. And we have long-time family friends in Gablenberg.