Category:Rosemarie Durst

Short Biography

Timeline of Life Events

1953

• Confirmed
  • Rosemarie Hinderer Our first watch was a confirmation present from our parents
  • Rosemarie Hinderer From the church we got a new Testament, there were 30 of us' It was in 1953.My brother who is 16 month older was confirmed with me

Waterville Empire Express Article

By Karen Larsen Empire Press Correspondent

This is the first in a series of articles about people who have come to Douglas County from places near and far and have thrived here. Some came through marriage, some have retired here and some are young couples that have found this to be their place of choice for raising children. All have become active in the life of the community and have come to call this home. The first article is about Rosemarie Hinderer, a native of Esslingen in southern Germany, who came here in 1959 to marry her fiancé John Hinderer.

Rosemarie (Durst) Hinderer turned 20 on Nov. 4 of 1959. Her family gave her a big suitcase for a present, knowing that at the end of the month she would be traveling from their home in Esslingen, Germany, across the Atlantic and all the way to the west coast of the United States to marry her fiancé, John Hinderer of Waterville.

As a resident of a city and a daughter of an accountant in Germany, she would come to settle in a small town on the other side of the world and be a farmer’s wife.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” she reminisced.

She and John had met at a family Christmas party in 1957. John’s grandmother Clara Schneider, who immigrated to the United States, had three sisters and a brother who had remained in Germany. One of the sister’s daughters, Hedwig, had married Rosemarie’s uncle Herm Durst. John Hinderer was in the army and was stationed in Germany from 1956-1958. Since he was close by, he often went to visit the Dursts and they brought him to family functions like the Christmas party.

Rosemarie Hinderer said that it must have been love at first sight because she and John dated for just six months before they became engaged. The Dursts may also have had a part as they arranged for John to sit right next to her for the Christmas dinner.

Rosemarie still had one year of schooling left, and John was discharged two months early since he was a farmer. The two were separated for one and a half years.

During this time, Rosemarie graduated as a kindergarten teacher and took a job with an American dentist who was stationed with the Army in the area and whose wife had just had a baby. She worked to help them for six months so that she could learn English.

On Nov. 28, 1959, Rosemarie made the trip to Waterville. When she arrived she stayed with John’s aunt Julia Lemon.

That first Christmas, John decided he should bring his fiancé a Christmas tree, so he went to find one on Badger Mountain. His twin brother Paul saw the tree and thought it wasn’t very nice. He went to the mountain and found a better one. Their mother had died in 1956, so the family Christmas ornaments hadn’t been used for a while. The brothers went to the upstairs of the old family home and found some to give to Rosemarie to decorate the tree.

But what really made Christmas special was an invitation to the 40th wedding anniversary of Ted and Margaret Mittelstaedt.

“All of the old ladies from Waterville were so happy to see me,” Rosemarie said.

Most of them had spoken German at home and they were eager to get to know someone from the old country.

“That was really, really nice. That just did it for me,” Rosemarie said.

The ladies began to invite her for tea and to other social functions.

John and Rosemarie married on Feb. 7, 1960 and moved into a residence the family owned at the bottom of Brown’s Canyon in Orondo.

That wasn’t a very snowy winter, but it was often foggy and dreary. Though Rosemarie had met a few contacts through the anniversary party, the majority of her time was spent with John, Paul and Lemon. There was no telephone and she did not know how to drive. Loneliness continued to be a major problem.

“I was in shock,” Rosemarie said of her new situation. To this day she feels that Gloria Bourton saved her.

Bourton was a neighbor in Orondo who was 12 years older than her and the mother of four children. She took Hinderer to her children’s school functions, invited her to social gatherings with her friends and taught her to garden and can.

“She took me under her wing,” Hinderer said.

John, Paul and their brother Mark were used to bachelor life and a bachelor’s way of arranging finances. John would tell Rosemarie to get what she needed for groceries from the farm account. Rosemarie didn’t feel like she knew whether this money belonged to her and John or whether it belonged to the other brothers. To remedy this problem, she got the brothers to start paying each other annual salaries out of the farm account.

John and Rosemarie traveled up to Waterville on Sundays to attend church at what was then the American Lutheran Church. After church, they were often invited to have lunch with Lloyd and Helen Peterson or with John’s father and stepmother, E.P. and Olga Hinderer.

Two and a half years after they were married, the Hinderers first child, Martin, was born. That was exciting for Rosemarie and she was becoming more and more comfortable in her new home.

Since she was caring for Martin, she started babysitting other children, too. She took in up to nine children of the women who were working as apple packers in Orondo.

“Through that I made friends, too,” Hinderer said.

When Hinderer’s grandmother passed away in 1962, she inherited $600. She spent that money to travel back to Germany with Martin in February of 1963. She wouldn’t be able to visit again for nine years.

In 1966 and 1967, John and Rosemarie built their current house up in Waterville. John had warned Rosemarie beforehand that since they were using their money on the home they may not be able to buy plane tickets back to Germany.

At the time, Rosemarie didn’t think that was a big deal. She had Martin and she would have a nice new home, what would she need to go back to Germany for?

But later, the reality of not being able to visit her family hit her hard. She set about working to earn the money needed for another visit. Every spring she would work to thin apples and in the fall she would work to pick the apples. By 1972, she had saved enough money for the whole family — which now included Betina, born in 1968 — to travel to Germany. John stayed just a few weeks, but Rosemarie and the children stayed for six weeks.

In 1973, Hinderer and Betina were able to travel to Germany again to take part in Hinderer’s brother’s wedding and Betina was the flower girl.

Paul married Lois in 1965, and that made things nice for Rosemarie. Paul and Lois had their first child, Shannon, in 1967. The families spent a lot of time together and it was an important social network.

Hinderer continued to work in the orchards until 1977, when Harold Badten — owner of the Mercantile Shop and a member of the Lutheran Church — offered her a position. The Mercantile later moved to the current location of Waterville Family Grocery, and eventually changed hands to become Bayless Foods. Hinderer could now earn $5 an hour, and her work was stable throughout the year.

Later, she worked for 14 years at Ken’s Pharmacy in Wenatchee and finally worked at the Orondo Post Office until she was 72. This was especially fun as she got to see the people she had known in her early days of marriage.

“To me, my working days were probably my happiest,” Hinderer said.

Now that she had a larger income, she started returning to Germany for regular visits and, especially, she visited on her family members’ milestone birthdays. This was a way for her to show her love for them and also was a lot of fun, as in Germany milestone birthdays were big occasions.

Church had been an important part of Hinderer’s life since she was small and so being involved in Waterville’s Lutheran Church came naturally to her. She served as stewardship secretary, taught Sunday School and sang in the choir.

She also volunteered as a Cub Scout den leader for Martin’s den and as a 4-H leader for Betina’s 4-H club.

She wanted to be involved in a group outside of church, so she decided to join Waterville’s Philomathic Club and still takes part today.

Asked how she feels her life may have been different if she had stayed in Germany, Hinderer said she feels that though she knows family members in Germany who still keep their Christian faith as an important part of their lives, many Germans don’t. She always has a feeling that God protected her by bringing her to Waterville.

“I always felt that God led me that I kept my faith,” Hinderer said.

She added, “I’m happy here.”

Death

Marriage

Memories

Related Links

References <references/> Family Histories: Harms -- Jaus -- Lieske -- Hinderer -- Baur --

Genealogy Sites

• WikiTree.com
• FamilySearch.org
• TheKleistPage.com
• RobertFGray.com
• Geni.com
• MyHeritage.com
• MN Historical Society people search
• Teamster.org Teamster History

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