Two Stork Stories

My grandfather, Hugo Bartz was a great storyteller, often sharing stories of his childhood. Two stork stories stand out in my memory.

Hugo was a middle child in a large German family living in the Ukraine. They were farmers, but his father had also built a flour mill where he spent much of his time, often taking the older children along to help.

On this particular day Hugo was the oldest child at home. Suddenly his mother called him and said: Take the other children outside and watch them while they play. Then she closed the door.

A while later, as he was entertaining his younger siblings, he thought he heard a baby crying inside the house.

That's strange - we don't have a baby, he thought.

A few minutes later his mother came to the door.

Come and see what the stork just brought, she called to them. They came running and saw a newborn baby all washed and wrapped in a blanket. She had given birth alone without a midwife! With her husband and her older children away, she had no one to send for help. So she had managed to deliver the baby completely on her own.

She was strong, Hugo commented. Short - and wide - but strong. And, of course, it wasn't her first child either, so she knew what to do.

The second stork story may have taken place a few years later, when Hugo was a little older. The sky looked threatening, so his mother sent him to bring the cows from the pasture and put them in the barn.

As he was returning with the cows, his mother came out and shouted in a panic: Hurry up! Get them in the barn and come into the house. There is going to be a bad storm. That tree over there is going to be hit by lightning and burn up!

She pointed at an old dead tree not far from the barn.

How do you know all that is going to happen? he asked in amazement.

I saw the stork that has a nest in that tree leave the nest and take her young with her, she replied.

Hugo rushed to do what his mother told him. Soon the cows were locked in the barn and he was back in the house. True to his mother's prediction, lightning flashed around them until the storm passed.

When it was over, he went out to check on the tree - to see if his mother had been correct in her prediction. Sure enough, it had been struck by lightning, splitting it in two. But it hadn't burned up.

It was probably too wet to burn, he concluded.

The practical wisdom of that generation leaves me in awe.