Women's Portraits

Margret Budde

Childhood

Margret is born in 1936 in Dortmund. She is the family’s third child. Her brother is seven years older, her sister five years. In 1937 the family moves to Lünen, a place in the country about 20 kilometres away.

Shortly before the end of the war her youngest brother is to due be born. While her mother and father are on their way to the hospital the nearby railway line is destroyed in an air raid. This dramatic situation is burned in her memory. 

Wartime

During the first years of the war the family finds shelter in their own basement, when they hear the sound of aeroplanes. The neighbour’s family is with them and the space for all is rather restricted.

They can watch the bombing of Dortmund from their windows. In the course of the war they have to move into a hole in their garden, one metre deep only covered with planks and some soil.

Margret remembers her parents often weeping because they know their sisters and brothers are in the city where the bombs are falling.

At the end of the war Margret is nine years old but even today the memory of her parents in such sorrow is alive. 

Adolescence and Professional Training

Margret visits the grammar school. At that time school-fees have to be paid. As her parents don‘t have much money, Margret has to leave with a junior’s examination. “Girls just need to get married” is the saying.

She earns her own money in various jobs. In the evenings she attends classes in a commercial school and she gets a job in an office. She continues her professional training in academies for social studies.

Family and Profession

Margret gets married in 1961 and she becomes the mother of six daughters. This brings many challenges and chores, but it is a happy time too.

Margret makes sure her daughters receive a good education. Today they all work in leading positions either at the university or in the commercial field.

She is fifty years old when she starts her professional training. She studies domestic science and becomes a Home Economics teacher. She gets a job in adult education classes. She specializes in working with multi-handicapped people. In this job she will stay until 63. In her leisure time she goes to lectures on psychology and philosophy at the University of Münster.

Active Retirement

After retiring she continues working in the field of disadvantaged people. She creates a self-help group for those who are ill or handicapped. Margret organizes weekends for patients.

She is an active singer in two choirs, she takes lessons in playing the piano and public speaking. Nevertheless she has time for her herself. She stays in contact with friends and neighbours and if needed she looks after her grandchildren. She doesn’t feel any unease.

Life in Older Age

By the time she reaches her fifties, she reflects on getting older. She’s not afraid of it but regards it as a time that has to be planned. Still she feels fine. She’s happy in her family life with children and grandchildren, but in the field of intellectual interests she would like to get more encouragement and instruction. She takes part in university lectures and studies what she’s interested in.

The New Challenge

In her sixties Margret suffers from several illnesses. For two years she needs artificial aids for walking. It seems there isn‘t any prospect of being healed. But in spite of this terrible diagnosis, today she’s able to walk on her own.

In her seventies she moves to the city, rents a flat on her own and creates her own way of living. Instead of following the lectures at the university, she discovers the internet and the ViLE network. She is the vice-president of the society and she has been trained to be an editor for the online journal Lerncafé. She finds that even in older age it is possible to learn something new. And she is prepared to do so. The two jobs make her happy, although they are time-consuming.

She is convinced that being active in a meaningful way helps to overcome the difficulties and troubles of older age.

Erdmute Dietmann-Beckert, September 2011