By Janis Siegel , JTNews Correspondent
Kline Galland has seen many interesting and dynamic individuals in its 90-year history. As a part of the home’s anniverary celebration, JTNews is profiling some of its current residents.
Henry Eisenhardt
Henry Eisenhardt saw of the most notorious battles of World War II. He volunteered for duty when Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in the invasion of France at Omaha Beach, the Battle of the Seigfried Line, the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of Nuremberg – to name a few – and he’s got a hearing aid because of it.
“The only thing is that my hearing is bad and I need a couple of hearing aids due to the concussions of all the bombs,” says Eisenhardt, 93, a Berlin-born resident of the Kline Galland Nursing Home who fled his native Germany on a Dutch freighter as Hitler rose to power.
One of the 25 percent who survived the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhardt has some war stories he’d rather not remember. Others are worth telling.
At the end of the Battle of the Bulge, he said, it was he who spied an approaching soldier flying a white flag while carrying a conditional letter of surrender from the highest officer in the German army, to be given to his superior, Gen. Paul.
Though Eisenhardt encouraged his commanding officer to accept the offer, when Paul read the letter, he thundered, “No, I don’t care. We will only accept an unconditional surrender.” The next day, says Eisenhardt, the Germans surrendered unconditionally.
Eisenhardt says war is a terrible, destructive thing that one wished and hoped could be eliminated, but that as long as we’re human we will have construction and destruction.
“My belief helped me survive all the things that I went through and I am grateful for many things,” says the Seattle businessman who also helped liberate concentration camps in Czechoslovakia.
Using the degree in Economics that he earned from the University of Berlin, Eisenhardt planned to use the skills to be a timber grader, as his father had taught him in Germany. But he had to abandon that career path due to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Instead, the resourceful young Eisenhardt caught a freighter that eventually brought him to Seattle.
Eisenhardt met and married his wife of 53 years, Mila, and had a son and a daughter after he returned from his military service. He and two partners built a successful sanitation business called Janco United, Inc. and he has served in many community organizations.
Now, at the Kline Galland Center, his artistic skills as a master stone carver and woodcutter are fast becoming the talk of the place. A former skier and tennis player, Eisenhardt now keeps busy with his art and his love of chess.
Lorraine Sidell
Lorraine Sidell has always been very impressed with the men in her life. They have inspired her every step of the way.
“My father was an adventurous person and my uncle was the smartest man I knew,” says Lorraine Sidell, a former journalist for The Jewish Transcript for 10 years.
“My grandfather was always an impresario on the edge of success, and he always had these grandiose ideas which always involved my father and my uncle.”
Born in 1920, Sidell and her family were on the go, moving around the country looking for the next best opportunity during the Depression. Her father sought his fortune in Chicago, Florida and Mississippi, but ultimately moved the family back to Chicago, where she spent most of her youth.
But it would be her second visit to Seattle in 1949 to visit relatives when she would meet and marry Irving Sidell, the man in her life.
“We were driving over the old I-90 Bridge and he was talking and rambling on,” says Sidell. “I knew what he was doing. Then, he asked me and I said, ‘Yes!’ He was a real sweet person.”
Sidell also worked as a Jewish historian and in a public relations firm, but her newspaper work may have been the most challenging of her career.
According to Sidell, she always had plenty of stories to cover at the local Jewish paper. Her recollection of a lecture about Israel on the University of Washington campus during the 1960s could be written today.
“All of a sudden we had to vacate the building because there was a threat,” says Sidell. “There were at least a hundred people all together. We never did go back in.”
After leaving The Jewish Transcript almost 20 years ago, Sidell has written extensively for the Jewish Historical Society. Her research material has been referenced and acknowledged in Family of Strangers, a book on Washington State’s Jewish history that released last year.
Sidell now volunteers for Senior Rights Assistance, an advocate group that helps seniors with legal, financial or other issues.
Fred and Sarah Roer
Every day, Sarah Roer must thank her lucky stars that she volunteered to be the chairman of the refreshment committee at her local Seattle social club back in 1952.
Even though Fred Roer repeatedly asked her for Coca-Colas that he never seemed to drink, she complied.
“We danced,” says Sarah, reminiscing on the persistent attention her husband-to-be was paying her.
She says that it was the invitation to a Yom Kippur Ball that really sealed the deal for the pair. But when Fred told her that he wanted to make it “a permanent thing,” Sarah still played it cool.
“I said I would think about it,” she says, “and the next day I told him I would marry him.”
That was the second beginning of a new family life for Fred Roer, the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.
From Kerpen, a small town in western Germany where his family was respected and had a profitable business, to a labor camp in Poland, then to Auschwitz and Regensburg, he was liberated during a forced death march to Austria, only hours from the inevitable.
“Over time you put it in the back of your mind,” said Roer, “but you can never forget it. My wife has a big family so I was accepted there and that helped.”
Sarah says that he has never lost his faith and, in fact, has only become more religious over the years.
When asked why he thinks he survived, Roer doesn’t pretend to know. “You were just lucky, you were in the right place at the right time.”
If you ask Sarah, I bet she’d agree.