From when I was a very little boy I remember a picture of a lady sitting among roses on a balcony. I knew that this was "Mamma Frieda", my "first" mother, the one that gave life to me. But since I had another mother, Margarete, I didn't care much for that photo.  Later in life I came to know that mother Frieda had died when I was born. "Giving birth to a child is a dangerous business and some mothers die." That was just a fact that didn't move me very much.  I was born in 1930. Perhaps the doctors were not then as skilled as they are today, and of course now they also have better medications and instruments.  Only much later in life, when I was nearly 50, I began to wonder. Why did Frieda die? It seemed to have come quite suddenly and unexpectedly. What happend?

-- When I am gone you will have my papers and my diaries, he said.

Just a few weeks later I received a letter from some old cousin-in-law of my father's. It told me that an older relative had died. Among his papers they had found a letter from Dad to "Uncle Chris and Tante Lien". These were the grandparents of Frieda, and to them Dad had written and in detail related the circumstances around my birth and Frieda's death.

So I got to know, after all -- and from Dad himself! -- what I wanted to know!

It was a very sad story. Everything had started so well. Frieda's father was on journey from London to Switzerland and passed through Berlin to see Erik and Frieda. He came just in time to accompany them to the Maternity Hospital of her choice. Everything went well, and the day after he held me in his arms before he left. Erik and Frieda planned to bring me home in a couple of days.

Then suddenly Frieda got a high fever. The doctors first said it was temporary and would soon pass over. But it didn't. In the night they called father to the hospital and told him that since Frieda could not retain food or drink they would move her to the biggest and best hospital in Berlin. So they did, but in the new hospital the doctors gave no hope. To the horror of my father she just withered away, lost consciousness and passed out. Everything was over in a couple of hours.

What was the cause? The doctors did not know. Since Frieda had lived in Java for some time, she might have contracted malaria or some other tropical fever that had remained latent in her system. Some years previously she had had a spell of tuberculosis. Perhaps some remaining weakness contributed to the cause of her death. Only a few years later such things as sulfa drug or intravenous nourishment might have saved her. We will never know.

Father was very tacit, not only on the death of Frieda, but also on most other details of their love story, their marriage and their life together. I suppose it all had to do with his urgent wish not to revive the past.

All of Frieda's family were gone. Her mother Leonarda had died in 1924, long before I was born. Her father Johannes lived in Switzerland, and had died in 1947. I never met him. Frieda's two brothers, Chris and Leo, also lived far away and died without my ever having met them.

So my questions remained and grew. Frieda de Groot, my mother -- who was she? What was her life like?

In these last few years I have found one piece after the other of this puzzle. I decided to try to put them together. This is the Frieda story.

Take it from me -- it is really a story. You are welcome to join us!

Sven Wickberg
 

Back to top

Continue: How Frieda met Hugo

Back to menu

Updated:  1998 05 06; corr. 1999 03 15                 webmaster:  sw@abc.se