Gertrud Susanne (Trude) Zeisl (Jellinek) - Gamma

My grandmother died 25 years ago today, Aug 13, 1987, in Salzburg, Austria after a lengthy family trip from Berlin, where I had been studying for 6 months, to Schloss Elmau in Bavaria, Lake Como, Italy and the Salzburg, Austria. She had a heart attack the evening of the Salzburg Festival premiere of Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron. My mom stayed back with her at the Doktorwirt Hotel in Aigen while the rest of us went to the opera. At the conclusion my father called and learned the terrible news. The entire family was in tears as we exited the Felsenreitschule. I remember the terrible taxi ride back to the hotel, with my grandmother's close friend, the writer Hilde Spiel, who had come in from Vienna just that morning to see my grandmother.

She had been sick for some time, but really wanted to make this last trip to Europe. With her broken hip and failing heart, she even climbed the stairs to see my tiny room in Berlin. We had a special bond. I had given her the name "Gamma" because as a baby I could not say the letter R. I was her oldest grandchild, and she herself had been the oldest grandchild of her grandfather Max, whom she loved very much. Gamma was the one who told me all the family stories when I asked her. My early attempts at a family tree were mostly the results of her memory of hundreds of relatives. It is thanks to her that I learned to love my own family history, because she also loved it. She was really my only grandparent, since my grandfathers died before I was born, and my other grandmother just three months after. She was my link to the past, which remains such a large part of my present.

I miss her every day.

Randy