At Bedstemor's funeral on October 18, 2008 we met Claire Field who shared the following with us
:
Carlo Leth was living in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1945 as German refugees were placed in camps that had been occupied by German soldiers during World War II. Being an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he obtained permission to find LDS people in the camps-of-war to invite them to church services.
In 1945 Oma Kate Sprie (age 66) and her granddaughter, Leonore Kohler (age 12) were forced out of their home in Konigsberg, Germany, as the Russians moved in, bombed the city, and took over. Carlo found them and offered his assistance. He paid their trolley fare for them to travel from the camp to the church each Sunday for nineteen months.
At church the first Sunday, Carlo’s wife Melitta, who was German, was asked to look after Kate and Leonore. She invited them to lunch after the Sunday School meeting. They accepted. They became good friends. She fed them every Sunday for the next nineteen months.
Esther was Carlo’s daughter by his first wife, who had died. Esther helped too by giving Leonore some clothes to wear. Esther said, “We had nothing, no food, no clothes. The people in the camps had even less.”
Leonore filled out many Red Cross Cards to find her mother, Ella Sprie Srocka in Leipzig, and Kate’s other two daughters Leonore Sprie Field and Katie Sprie Paetz in New York. Leonore and Sam Field sold their car and sent the money to Melitta to pay the passage for Kate and young Leonore to immigrate to America.
In August 1946 Esther came to America to visit her sister, Marion, in Antonito, Colorado. Esther stayed with Sam and Leonore Field in New York for three weeks. While there she met and dated the Field’s next-door-neighbor Larry Johnson. After showing Esther New York for ten days, Larry proposed marriage to Esther. “No. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. We don t know each other. We don’t even speak the same language”, was Esther’s reply. Larry spoke English and Swedish. Esther spoke Danish. Esther left New York for Colorado and stayed with her sister for three months as she thought about it.
In November 1946 the papers were ready for Kate and young Leonore to go to America, but the money (from Leonore and Sam Field) had not yet arrived. They could not stay at the camp any longer. Melitta allowed them to stay with her in her one-bedroom apartment for six weeks. They slept in Melitta’s bed. Melitta slept on the sofa. Her husband, Carlo, was on a mission in another city of Denmark at the time.
On December 16, 1946 Oma Kate Sprie and Leonore Kohler arrived in New York by boat from Copenhagen, Denmark. Oma went to her daughter Leonore Field’s home.
Fourteen year old Leonore went to Katie Paetz’ home. Oma was very ill and was put into a Catholic hospital.
Esther returned from Colorado on December 31st and stayed with Sam and Leonore Field until she married Larry Johnson on January 16, 1947. Oma Kate Sprie died on February 9, 1947, fifty-five days after arriving in Zion. She had declared in 1937 she would return to Zion to die.
All this was learned by Claire Field, wife of Bob Field, son of Leonore Field, in December 2000. Young Lee (Leonore) Kohler, now Tish, remembered in a telephone conversation to Claire that there was a family who helped them during their stay in the camp of war. She couldn’t remember their names but remembered they had a daughter named Esther. Upon hanging up the phone, Claire inquired information of Bob, found Esther Johnson’s Christmas cards she has sent Leonore Field through the years, and phoned Esther in American Fork, Utah, just twenty minutes from where Claire lives in Provo, Utah. YES! Esther, now 80, was the Esther from Copenhagen, Denmark. AND Melitta is still alive at 95 living in Salt Lake City.
Claire interviewed both of them, recorded their memories, and has transcribed them. How does one ever repay the gift of life and love, caring and sharing these two women extended to two other women in need?
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