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Proud to be an American for 50 years

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Written by Gene Morris

Wednesday, 25 February 2009 08:00

Elizabeth Stubbs of Paola, who recently celebrated 50 years as a U.S. citizen, holds a D.A.R. Manual for Citizenship she studied from to pass her test in November 1958. (Photo by Gene Morris)

Growing up in Sonnenberg, a small town in East Germany with a population comparable to that of Paola, Elizabeth Stubbs has always been a quick learner.

Sonnenberg’s population is about 7,000. The town is a suburb of Wiesbaden, a city of more than 250,000.

She picked up English during World War II, which proved helpful in her courtship with Bob Stubbs when he went to Germany with the U.S. Air Force in 1951. Elizabeth later learned French just by listening to people at the markets when her husband, Bob, was transferred there in 1958.

Before she was able to make the trip with her husband, whom she married in Wiesbaden in 1953, Elizabeth had just two months to learn all she could about America before successfully taking her U.S. citizenship test in November 1958.

Now, 50 years later, Elizabeth still talks about how much Germany owes the Americans for what they did during the war.
“All of the Germans should be eternally grateful to the Americans for keeping us from starving to death,” she said.

Elizabeth Born met Bob Stubbs in 1951 and the two fell in love, marrying on Friday the 13th in November 1953. The Paola woman recently celebrated 50 years as a U.S. citizen, remembering how the process began when she learned about Bob before he ever stepped foot on German soil.

Bob and Harold “Duke” Stubbs, twin brothers, enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on the same day, Friday the 13th in April 1951. The two were sent to San Antonio for basic training.

One evening, a church choir Elizabeth and her parents sang in was having a dance, and a number of American soldiers, hearing the music and dancing, stopped in, thinking it was a beer establishment.

“The guys came in, thinking it was a beer joint,” Elizabeth said. “There was beer and also girls.”

Harold “Duke” Stubbs was one of the American soldiers who met Elizabeth that evening and began telling her about his twin brother, Bob.

“I met his twin brother before I met him,” she said. “When we went home, Duke traveled up that way, so he found out where we lived. Duke showed up, and we went out a few times.

“He kept telling me about his twin brother,” Elizabeth said. “We were not really dating, but he was persistent.”

It would not be long before his twin brother, Bob, made it to Germany, stationed in a military hospital as a cook in the diet wing.

“When Bob came over, that was the first thing he did — introduce his twin brother to us,” she said. “His (Bob’s) twin brother lost out.”

When the courtship got serious, her parents, Paul and Rose Born, knew it could mean their only child Elizabeth might one day leave for America with him, but they did not end the relationship.

“They really didn’t relish the idea that I might move to the United States and some day leave the country, but they didn’t try to break us up or anything like that,” Elizabeth said. “They just told me that would be a big move for me, and you wouldn’t be able to come home every weekend.”

Bob asked the United States military for permission to marry Elizabeth and had to wait nearly a year to get word back, allowing the United States time to conduct a background check on Elizabeth and her family.

After waiting about one year on the news, it was granted, and the couple was married in Wiesbaden on Nov. 13, 1953.
The Stubbs left Germany in 1955, when Bob was transferred to a base in Texas.

Stubbs wanted to take a tour in Europe while he was enlisted in the Air Force and moved to France when an opening became available.

Proud American

She got a letter that the family was going to be sent over to France to join Bob and had to get their passports and all of the paper work ready.

When Bob left the base in Texas, Elizabeth and the children moved to stay with his family in Platte City, Mo. It was several months before the military sent her information about joining Bob in France.

Before she left, they wanted her to get her citizenship.

She had a book to study for her citizenship test from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

“In high school, they give students a year to study that,” Elizabeth said. “I had to learn it in two months.”

She went to the courthouse in Kansas City, Mo. to take the test, Nov. 26, 1958.

There were more than 30 questions on the test. There is one question Elizabeth said she will never forget.

“One, I remember now, because it was so funny,” she said. “He asked what President was on the back of the penny. I happened to know.

“It is a very interesting book, if you ever had time to read it,” she said of the citizenship booklet. “You would be amazed.”

Following the written test, the examiner has the option of granting citizenship or asking for more study.

Elizabeth was granted her citizenship and given a time to report for her swearing in, taking the oath for becoming an official citizen of the United States of America.

“I was glad it was all over with,” she said. “I was proud to become an American citizen.

“When we had the swearing in, they gave each of us a little American flag,” she said.

Coming to America with Bob is a decision Elizabeth said she would gladly make again today.

“Later on, when we would go back to Germany, my friends would ask me if I ever regretted going to America,” she said. “I always said no. They wanted to know if I wanted to go back and live over there. I said no.”

A war education

Elizabeth went to school for eight years. Then it was time to join the Hitler Youth, something everyone had to do.

In 1943, she had the option of spending a year in a household and learning to cook and clean and keep a home or spending a year on a farm.

Seeking some adventure and different surroundings, she chose to spend the year on a farm.

“For two weeks, we would go out into the fields and help the farmers,” she said. “Then for two weeks, we would stay home and learn to cook and house clean.”

Then, there were the drills.

To prepare for an attack, the women were drilled on using gas masks.

“You have to remember it was during Hitler’s time,” she said.

“There were 40 of us women on the farm,” Elizabeth said. “In the barracks, there were four bedrooms with bunk beds with straw mattresses. Every morning we had inspection to make sure our bed covers were neatly tucked in.”

Part of her education was a business class, where she was taught short-hand and was first introduced to English.

“My brain must have been geared to picking up languages,” she said. “They came pretty easy to me.”

The education abruptly ended one day in 1944. A brutal reminder of the war.

“One night we were bombed, and the school burned down,” she said. “That was the end of my higher education.”

Play a happy song

News traveled by speakers in small towns when Elizabeth was growing up in Germany.

The news always began with a song.

“They used the speakers to broadcast the news,” she said. “You could tell if it was going to be good news or not by the song. If it was a somber song, it was going to be bad news.”

The war kept coming closer to Wiesbaden. As more and more bombs began falling around her, Elizabeth’s parents decided to send her to the rural farming community of Gleichamberg to live with her grandparents.

Her parents tried to keep her isolated from the war, as much as they could. It was a subject they never brought up in her presence.

“Everybody thinks Hitler only sent the Jewish people to concentration camps,” Elizabeth said. “He sent a lot of Germans to be killed there, too.

“My parents never discussed the war or politics of any kind in front of me,” she said. “Many people got turned in after someone heard their children talking. They would hear the children talking about what their parents said, and the next day, the secret service police would show up and take them to the concentration camps.”

Gleichamberg was a place to get Elizabeth away from all of that and the daily reminders of war. She was safe there.

“That’s where I was when the war ended,” Elizabeth said. “On an Easter Sunday, the American troops came into that little village without a single shot being fired. A few days earlier, we could hear the big guns being shot off.

“But, when they came to town it was quiet,” she said. “I guess by then, the war was as good as over. The soldiers were giving kids chocolate and candy. A few months later, the war was over.”

Coming home

When news that the war was over spread, her father, Paul, came for Elizabeth to bring her back home to Wiesbaden.
It would be a long journey back.

Transportation was limited. There were no buses. No one had a car.

Elizabeth began her journey back with her father on a wagon. When they crossed the river into the next little village, word spread that a military transport vehicle would be stopping to pick up people.

It was standing room only, but they were able to get as far as Hammelburg.

From there, word spread again that an empty coal train was going to be passing through. They stood in the coal cars to ride as far as Frankfurt.

“We were lucky enough to get on a passenger train there,” Elizabeth said. “It was packed. People were standing everywhere. They were standing between the cars where they connected and some were sitting on top of the roof of the cars.

“I guess you could say I was well traveled,” she said.

A new life

While she didn’t have to learn English when she came to the states, having already picked the language up during the war, Elizabeth did have to learn much about America.

“Everything was different,” she said.

Where she lived in Germany, there was no need for refrigeration. All of the meat and bread was fresh. And, it was all a short walk away.

“I had to get used to grocery shopping and taking a car to shop,” she said. “When I grew up, we had a butcher shop right across the street, and two houses down was the bakery. There was a general store in our neighborhood for everything else.

“We didn’t go to the store once a week like we do here,” she said. “If we needed something, we just walked across the street. Using a car to go buy groceries, that was something totally new to me.”

Following Bob’s tour in France, the couple moved back to the states and made their home in the Ozarks until Bob moved to Paola to work for the railroad, and his family joined him a few months later.

The couple has lived in Paola since 1965. They bought their home on Peoria Street in 1968 and have lived there ever since.

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