Profile of a Valley Leader
Helmut Holzheu: Part I
Santa Ynez
Valley (SYV) was established and largely populated by Danish immigrants in the
early 1900s, and many of their descendants still live here. However, in the years since the area
was first settled, the community has also benefited greatly from the
contributions of many others, who came here from elsewhere in the United States
or the world, a process that continues to this day.
We need only
to look around us to see the many ways in which the ongoing influx of new
residents, attracted by the rural beauty and casual lifestyle they find here,
continues to benefit the community.
One of the
people who has played an important role in the development of our Valley is
Helmut Holzheu, the founder of El Rancho Market. Helmut came to America from Germany in 1954, with his wife
Doris, and later moved to SYV.
Today, by virtue of their extensive involvement in community affairs and
their generosity, the Holzheus are widely recognized as important leaders of
the Valley community.
The following
profile describes how the Holzheus made their way to Santa Ynez Valley, what
motivated them to come, what they were required to do to become citizens, and
the important role they have played in our Valley life.
Harris
Sherline’s interview with Helmut Holsheu:
(Q) Starting
with the basics of your background: Where were you born? How old are you? Your
family situation, that is, number of children in your family, background, such
as religious upbringing, economic circumstances, i.e., how did your parents
make a living, their education(s), etc.?
(A)I am now 78 years old. I was born June
8,1929, the year the great depression started, on my grandfather’s little farm
in a small town, Ottobeuren, in southern Germany, in the foothills of
the Alps.
I was the oldest of four boys. We were brought up in a Christian family and went to church
on holidays, Christmas, Easter, funerals, and on special occasions like
anniversaries, etc.
Times
were tough. The depression was in Germany just like it was in the US. My
father found no work and then at low pay, so in 1935 we moved 60
miles to Augsburg, a beautiful old medieval industrial town where my
father found work as a bookkeeper.
The economy improved somewhat from 1937 to 1939. September
1, 1939 World War II started. My father was drafted, and by 1941 the
bombing started daily. We were bombed out several times, from 1943 to
1945. The reason for the massive bombing
was that Augsburg was an important supplier of diesel engines, and the
Messerschmitt fighter was developed there. When the war was over Augsburg was
80 percent rubble.
(Q) What
about your education? How much,
where, type? How has education
changed or influenced your life?
What languages do you speak and how did you come to learn them?
(A) My mother, grandmother and us kids spent World War II
in Augsburg, from shelter to shelter ‘till May 5, 1945. World War II was
hard on all of us, everything was rationed. My mother said, “Why don't you become a butcher, you will
never go hungry?” So, I graduated
at 14 from Grammar school in 1944.
In that year, the butcher shop I worked in was bombed
out three times. We moved from shop to shop and the last time, just as the war
came to the end, we lost everything, and my mother moved to the little
town of Obergunzburg, where my father was from.
The war years were very hard. I was not old enough to
be drafted, but old enough to help to put the fires out. You learn to be a
survivor. As a young person, you do not worry whose war it is, you just try to
survive another day.
(Q) When did
you first start working? What did you do? Did you learn a trade or have any
professional training? How did you earn your living after you finished your
education?
(A) It took three years to finish my
apprenticeship as a butcher and sausage maker. While apprenticed, we went to trade school, and by the time
I was 17 years old I was a journeyman meat cutter and sausage maker.
I really liked my job, it was competitive hard work, but we
got enough to eat and earned very little, worked long hours, but after what we
went through in the war, it was heaven.
You probably do not know (that) a sausage maker is
just like a chef in a restaurant. You need to have the right ingredients, just
the right amount of salt and spices, and the know-how to mix different meats at
the right temperature to cure, to cook, and smoke.
(Q) When, at
what age, and where did you meet your spouse? What is her background?
(A) After the war, things got back to normal again. Germany
was rebuilding again. I courted Doris, my childhood friend. By the way, Doris
and I went hand-in-hand to a kindergarten at 3 years old in 1932.
Doris also grew up on a small farm in Obergünzburg.
She apprenticed as a textile sales assistant and was very good in costumer
relations, where she advanced as buyer and merchandising of textiles.
In 1950, I moved back to Augsburg, where I worked as a
journeyman butcher and sausage maker. People were rebuilding again.
(Q) When and
where did you decide to come to America? How old were you at the time, did you
come with your parents and family or on your own? Did you speak English? What
influenced you to want to come here? How did you get to America (please
describe the process)? How difficult (or easy) was it for you to get here? Did
you come with the idea that you would stay and become a citizen? What made you
decide to come to California? When? To Santa Ynez Valley? When?
(A) In 1954, I married Doris, and the same year I was
invited to immigrate to the US. I was lucky my grandmother had two sisters in Santa Barbara, who
invited Doris and me to immigrate to the US and come to Santa Barbara.
(Q) Did you
enter the country legally? If you came in legally, what was the process you had
to go through to get permission to enter the country? Was it necessary to have
an American citizen as a sponsor and, if so, what were their obligations?
(A) In those days you could not just immigrate. You had to
apply and wait your turn, about nine months, until you got checked out, got the
permit from the consulate, and you had to have someone to vouch for you, put up
a bond so you could not become a burden of the state of California.
Did I intend to stay in America? Not at first.
It is not easy to pull up stakes, go to a different country learn the
language, different costumes, come to the land of plenty. Yes, we had relatives, but it was a
huge generation gap.
© 2007 Harris
R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved