Alexander Phillip Dreith

(from interview with Grammy 1995)

<What would Grandpa have wanted his grandchildren to know about his life?>

I think right from the beginning coming over from Russia, that was quite an interesting story how his father came over first and his mother came over with Aunt Pauline and Aunt Katie and your grandpa and then there was another little boy that died, in fact I have been to his gravesite there in Colorado. The father came over first and got a job, made a living and got the house all. And she was quite a lady, she came out of Russia all the way across Europe, all the way across the Atlantic, to Ellis Island and from there to Colorado, it was quite a trip, and when you stop and think that was about 1917, 1918. <Why did they want to come to this country?>

Oh, I think that all the people over there, especially the ones that didn't have a lot of money. His father was a tailor over there and he became a tailor when they got to Colorado too and Grandpa when he got here, little boy, didn't speak a word of English so I guess it was kind of rough on him in school but there were probably a few more kids like that.

That was quite interesting too when that group of people, being pure German, when Catherine the Great married Peter she left Germany with this whole group of retainers, and then she proceeded to put them all alongside the Volga river there over a couple of centuries that community grew within itself, really quite interesting, I read a paper on it once but the next year I went back to Denver nobody seemed to have it, I would have loved to have kept it.

He spoke a little bit of Russian, not a whole lot, he spoke better German, it just like all kids who go to a strange country and don't speak the language, it is rough on them in school, it really is.

<Did he consider himself American, or Russian?> NO NO he was American through and through. He was really proud of that, Russian he never thought of that at all, the German part he liked but no he was 100% American. <He didn't speak with an accent?> No. He spoke pretty good German but he didn't get much chance to speak it only when we went back to Denver when we were there in the summer time, with a few of his friends he would speak it and I think his older sister Aunt Pauline, she spoke fluently. She was quite a lady. everybody loved Aunt Pauline. We used to go there almost every summer for at least a week and stay with Pauline and her husband Harry.

He was closest to Aunt Pauline, they sort of grew up taking care of each other in different ways and Helen was the baby and Katie was the in between one and she got married and got busy having children you know, and then he went off during those depression years, it was pretty rough, and he went off and tried to make a living and send money home and different things. I am not real sure, he did tell me , but I don't remember now how he met your grandmother, but I would say they had a beautiful marriage.

It was a nice family that's for sure, your Mom, Barbara and Phil they are all good kids that for sure. We managed, I guess it was easiest with Phil because he was young, he was only 9 years old. We used to have a lot of fun together the trips we took and oh, it was great and all those ship yard parties we used to go to. I never cared too much for parties of that type, I always preferred just staying home. Every chance I got, of course I was working all the time. I never stayed home with Phil I worked full time. The girls kind of looked after him and then he would come home from school and do his own thing and he knew right where I was he could get on the phone and call me because that store where I worked was real close, within walking distance.

Everybody was so serious they had just come through trauma, but I'd say they were pretty good kids compared to some out there.

<Where did you go on your trips?>

I think the very first trip we took was two weeks in Hawaii. We had met these Chinese people, we went over there on a two weeks vacation and I think that somebody from the shipyard, I think it was May's brother that's how we met them, and we were friends with them for years and years and years. I loved Hawaii I should have retired over there. Instead of going to Las Vegas.

One of the places that I went by myself after Grandpa died was to Bosnia and Hertzogovina. I took a seven day tour that took me through Checklosovakia and Italy, that was interesting, in fact that was the last big trip that I took. But before that I made it to England, I took a 17 day tour of France, then a two week trip to Hawaii by myself I guess I was lonesome and I was running all the time. I love to travel, I guess the only thing keeping me from it today is money. It is expensive. But I don't have the energy, but it is amazing when you get out there and start enjoying yourself you pick up a lot of energy you really do.

<What was Grandpa like?>

He was a lot like Uncle Herb, old country German, you know, no well I thought that he was pretty strict with the kids , he loved them dearly and had their best interests at heart that I always had known. And just like your Mom you had to admire her putting herself through college like she did cause Grandpa had two other kids at home and he couldn't working on a salary give her as much help as he wanted, it used to bother him but I think that in general the Germans have a little stubborn streak in them compared to the other nationalities. <Was he ever emotional?> He kept it hidden but I think he was pretty emotional in a lot of ways but he was stoic you'd never know a lot of times what he was thinking on the inside. In his free time he played golf. He played with three other guys from the shipyards Everybody else called them the grewsome foursome and oh rain didn't stop them nothing stopped them, they would be out there in their raincoats and somebody usually had a bottle in their pockets for warmth, no he loved his golf, he really did. He liked people and liked to do things with them, much more than me. I suppose it was pretty much how I was raised, I was pretty much a loner growing up. And then moving around as much as he did, you have to make new friends all of the time.

Melena is going to be very well educated people wise, well I think she already is, for her age I think she is brilliant for her age I really do, by the time she is 8 or 10 she could turn around and change the whole thing. Kids are like that.

<What would his advise be to his grandchildren> That one I really don't know. He was old fashioned, European type and his values were different than now, all of us growing up in the depression it was pretty rough, you could say that he came over during the depression because he was so young, he held a lot of different jobs. Phil has all of the movies, but there is even a motion picture of him when he was a Pinkerton detective. I guess he was after cattle rustlers, I didn't know that there were rustlers then, it shows him on a horse going real fast and coming to a stop.

He took his work seriously down at the shipyards, you know <did he like his job?> Yea he seemed to. That was a good job to have, a government job like that, it supplies me with a pension every month, with my social security so small. The years that I worked salaries were not very big and they were not withholding a lot of money people who are retiring today their social security is pretty good. But his pension it works out alright.

<Did he like holidays?> I think so, he especially liked Christmas. Did you come for a Christmas there? I know David, Craig and Rex used to have a riot. The three boys. <Did he like having grandchildren?> Yea, Oh yea. First Rex and David and then Craigy came along, Craig used to have a thing, I can still see him, I used to have these peppermint candies. Grandpa would palm them like that and one of the boys would come up to him and he would.. and he would..like that.. and whoa there was a piece of candy. Your parents probably remember that. If he did David first Craig would say me now Grandpa me now. Yea some of those Christmas movies and pictures are pretty good.

<when you went to Denver what would you do?> They talked. They would just sit around and talked about the past and the different German people they knew. And we spent more time with Pauline than the other two. Pauline and Harry were a lot of fun.