THE BORSINGER CHRONIK
ELISABETH MARIA GERTRUD,born Jan.20,1914,died Aug.20.1992, daughter of Joseph Alois and Maria,born Flueler, married to Flueler. Elsa was born at the Schoeneck,at 2 moved to Kastanienbaum,had a privat teacher and then went for one year to school in Horw by bicycle and in 1922 moved to the school in Lenzburg. After her 3 rd year jun.high, uncle Peppi,(Dr.med Joseph Flueler-Torche) who was an M.D. and director of a Belgian Childrens TB Hospital, “lumiere de vie”in Montana, had diagnosed enlarged glands and took her there for about one year, then she went to Fribourg for 2 years to “”Ecole superior de commerce,Gambach”. In 1931 at the time of my fathers death she was at the hospital for an appendectomy. For health reason again she had to quit Gambach, from very young age on she went through different treatment, in 1932 for 3 month by a professor in Lindau,Germany at the lake of Constance, where I visited her ones from Feldkirch. Then she helped my mother at the Hotel and went to England for about 1 year for her English and then to Portugal,where with Hedel,Josel and Wilma she was babysitter in related families and spent the summer in Porto. She returned home after 2 1/2 years over Tangier and Marseille, worked at the side of my mother and learned to cook under Ruedi Baehler, and excellent cook I brought home from my military service. How well it worked out, when the W.W.II broke out, Ruedi and I had to go into the Air force and Elsa had to take over the kitchen, which she did excellently. Elsa was a good pianist, and we played together frequently. On March 1,1947 when the Krone was sold she moved with my mother and grandmother to the former Mayors house at the Schlossgasse and went to work at the HERO Conserve factory, but did not like officework, she helped out Wilma, now Haller, with her children. At that time my mothers brother Alfred came from Santiago Chile to make contact with Swiss firms which after his return to Chile he represented,a total of 17, especially BBC and Landis and Gyr. He also found Elsa, he has not seen her since she was about 6. Returning to Chile he first had to get an official divorce in Mexico from the Peruvian lady,Meccha, which he married after Agne’ses death. Alfred called me when I was covering a Dr. Seiler in Uetikon. He said :”I am taking Elsa with me to Chile,” and I replied: wonderful, Elsa now has the opportunity to see more of the world! It came to me much later, what he really meant. Elsa arrived after a long flight, and the marriage took place at home by a Jesuit priest. Alfred had 4 girls from his first wife,Agnes Walker,, Marianne married Emil Baumgartner who worked for Shell in Caraccas,Venezuela,they retired in Switzerland. Nes,who married Roy Watts she was an interpreter for the governement and still lives in Santiago, Trudy who married Hennig Andreason, they were in Iran and now retired in Birkerod,near Kopenhage,Danemark, and Helen, who was born in Camden,when Alfred worked there for BBC, married Bernie Fahm (who visited us in Farmingdale),started to work in the Coopermind in Chiquicamata Chile until in 1971 the state took the plant over, then in Iran and settlet in Tuscon, Arizona, where they still live. Alfred and Elsa had two more children, Noldi 1950 and Ursula 1951. My mother visited them in 1952, 1959 and 1967, when Alfred retired and returned to Switzerland,via a boatride to San Francisco, a busride through the USA with all its siteseeing and they stayed with us in Stony Point for about 3 weeks. In Switzerland Alfred bought a new house in,Nassenwil, where they lived until he died in 1978. Noldi finished as construction engeneer at the ETH, Ursi was a lab technitian, did further studies and married,she visited us in Upper Nyack. Elsa then moved with Mama into a comfortable apartment in Niederhasli, where we were able to stay during our vitits to Switzerland, and continued to stay after my mothers death. In August 1991 she was operated at the University Hospital in Zuerich for Ca of the lung, did well for close to a year, then had a local recurrence and clinically brainmetastasis, she was in a coma for 2 weeks and died at her daughters,Ursula’s, home in Eglisau on Aug.20,1992 and is burried in Niederhasli near her husband and mother.
MAXIMILIAN KARL JOSEPH, born Dec.17,1914 and died July 14,1919 Son of Joseph and Maria,born Flueler Born at the Schoeneck Goodfather Karl Borsinger, godmother grandmother Maria Flueler Hess.He was born at the Schoeneck, a small feable baby (my mother vowed to make him a priest if he would survive!) but developed beautifully under the care of a St.Anna nurse ,which we all had for the first months . He had golden blond hairs and deep blue eyes. Since 1916 we lived at the Kastanienbaum, we had a French girl as “Kinderfraeulein” and in 1919 she let Maxli with a boy next door. There he filled a watering can with water from te lake, lost his balance and fell in the water, was able to get out but slipped again on the steps,fell back and drowned, a worked,the Villa was renovated, came not able to swimm himself tried to get him out of the water and when further help arrived,it was too late, our doctor worked on him for 3/4 of an hour. I remember him being layed out in one of our guestrooms. He loved a boat, called Delphin, which my father hired, his casket was in front,covered with flowers, a big cruisingboat passed us and all the men on board gave him the “seamanssalut”,they knew us,because we manned the boatrslanding. In Beckenried his white casket was put on a flat bed in front of our horsedriven coach, I was sitting on my mothers lap and cried,telling her “don’t put Maxli in the ground!” He was layed out in the St.Ann’s family chapel and burried in our family tomb behind the church in Emmetten. A family frieddn and poet, Isabelle Kaiser wrote a poem for him:
He heared from the dept of the waters,
which God created in his wisdom
as if angelsvoices would call for him,
and obedient he followed their call.
They have chosen the little boy
to bloom and grow in God’s house.
He is transplanted but not lost
and has only gone ahead of us.