Stephanie Kamola, Reflections on my life

The war went on and on, not seeming to end soon.  It was time for us to move to a house of our own.  Saying goodbye to our hostess Mrs. Emery was hard.  We moved into a house in a quiet, nice neighborhood on Irvin street, also in Hamstead. It was a town house with a little front and a bigger backyard.  In the basement was a playroom with a billiard table which we were all allowed to play on. As long as we stayed in London, my father had to report regularly to an authority because he was a native of an enemy country, and an Austrian citizen.  Otherwise we were not bothered. Our life continued quietly.  The boys went daily to school, my sister and I played in and around the house, and my mother was back to her duties as a wife, mother and housewife. My father met a young Swedish artist who had an atelier not far from us. He invited my father to work at his studio as long as he stayed in London. Mr. Akablad was gifted but was not acquainted with the use of wat...

René, Karl, Marie, Stephanie and Lily A few days before Christmas I was allowed to go shopping with Phyllis, Mrs. Emery's twelve-year old daughter. She had shoulder length golden brown hair with a bow holding it together and hazel brown, pretty eyes.  She was a beautiful girl. She had a long list of ingredients which were needed for the Christmas plum pudding: nuts, raisins, cinnamon, and much much more. During the days before Christmas, the kitchen was very busy.  Through the whole house spread the fragrance of baked cookies and the smell of the freshly cleaned house, decorated throughout with fresh fir branches. We children were full of anticipation and hardly could wait for Christmas Eve. When finally Christmas Evening arrived and the gong called for dinner and we were all seated around the festive dinner table lit by candle light, we were served a delicious meal. Finally, at long last, the plum pudding was brought in. Mrs. Emery poured cognac over the cake and lit it. A br...

War was declared and we were ordered to leave the island on September 4, 1914. My Mother was very nervouse packing trunks and suitcases while my father went to London to find loghing for us. He picked us up and we went to a boarding house on Eaton Street in Hamstead which belonged to Mrs Emery.  Here we waited for the end of the war which no one expected to last very long. The Pension Emery had a few other guests besides my family.  Mrs. Emery was a wonderful hostess, a lovely, caring lady.  She almost spoiled us children. We got porridge for breakfast, which was new to us, but we soon learned to love it.  At dinner time a melodious gong called the guests to a large white covered table.  After dinner, all guests retreated to the living room where a fire burned at the fireplace and tea was served.  Then we played card games together of which I liked "Donkey" best because I would beat grownups. Also, we found hidden objects by follwing the sound of a gong han...

 On the Isle of Wight The morning off to the shipwreck all passengers were waiting to board small boats which had arrived to carry us to a small pier in Waymouth, Portland. We had to wait there until all luggage was brought onto land. The passengers standing in line had to point out which pieces belong to them. All were remarkably patient. After we all collected our belongings, we boarded a waiting horse-drawn buggy that brought us to Southampton, from there we continued to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. My father had rented a house on the quay outside Ventnor, right above the beautiful beach. A stone banister guarding the white steps leading down to the sand became soon our only way to descent to our daily playground. All children did the same. I knew I was forbidden to glide down on the banister because my pants got torn, that my mother saw the pleasure I had and let me have the fun.  We spent wonderful weeks on the island. The weather was mild and mostly sunny, and we all we...

My parents planned to travel in the summer of 1914 to the Isle of Wight in England. My father had dissolved the partnership with my uncle Lucien Reiser already back in 1906 he was more interested in painting and in traveling than in photography. He had his art studio in Alexandria, where he painted many of society’s men and women, and sold landscapes and street scenes of Egyptian cities and villages to travelers and travel agencies. Toni became the official court painter of the Vicory to Egypt, Abbas Hilmi the second, Who is portray was hung at his big assembly hall in Cairo. The day before boarding the HSSS Bulow (see Summer, 1914”),  A ship of the north German Lloyd’s fleet, My father lined us kids up in front of him and gave each a spoonful of castor oil to cleanse our intestines and to avoid possible sickness. We did not like this procedure very much, but had to endure it. To ease the horrible tasting oil, we held our nostrils closed until the oil was completely swallowed. To h...

My mother did not want any more children and was therefore very unhappy when she found out in 1909 that she was pregnant again. This time it was me. The whole family spent these summer months, before I was born, in Germany. They stayed in Hals, a little village on the river Ilz not far from Passau. After I was born I almost never cried, my mother told me. One day, when I was already several weeks old, I suddenly discovered that I could cry and it took a while before I finally had enough of it, much to my mother's relief. She must ahve had lots of fun with me. She said that I made her always laugh, because I supposedly was so funny. I was always serious smiling or laughing only rarely. Lilly holding Stephanie My mother told me often that while I was still very small, I could tell when I was not welcome to be around. I would retreat quietly when I felt that I was in the way of the cook or the busy maid, or, if my mother had a headache. I knew instinctively that I should leave them al...

My parents married on September 29, 1899 in Alexandria. My mother wore a beautiftil dress of white satin with handmade lace trimmins and a long lace train. Her hair was combed high and crowned with a white little flower wreath. She still had the face of an innocent Iittle girl. Her hands and feet were tiny. The newlweds lived with Albert, now a member of the young Binder family, in a villa outside Alexandria, in Schuetz.  On their wedding day they left for their honneymoon to Italy on the S.S. Umberto. The ship sailed past Capri into the Gulf of Naples and had to stay six days in quarantine in Nisida, outside Naples. Tony let this not bother him. He found even there subjects for painting, which kept him occupied all day long. Finally they were allowed to go on land.  They visited Naples, Pompeii, Rome, Florence, and, for a longer stay before returning to Alexandria, onto the island of Capri where they spent about four weeks. Tony painted everywhere. He was obsessed with painti...

Tony Binder's story is much different. He was born in Vienna on October 25, 1868. His mother, Theresa Binder, was a widow. He had tow older brothers, Franz and Carl Vincent. They all were very close, caring greatly for each other. My father kept to his last days a life-sized photograph of his mother in his bedroom. It showed a darkhaired lady dreddes in a black dress that closed into a pleated blouse front with many little buttons.  She was fifty years old at the time this photograph was taken.  My father must have loved her very much. He did not talk much about his youth and I don't know anything about the family's social status, or their family lives in general.  During his first four years of schooling, my father attended elementary school.  For the six years afterwards, he studied at the Real Schule, a secondary school for boys, where he was taught mathermatics, sciences, Latin, and a foreign language.  He graduated with age sixteen. His brothers were always...