After a year in Göttingen, their second son, Christopher Wilhelm Farrow Albert, was born on June 17, 1953. Shortly thereafter, Frederick and Elinor decided to move back. The lure of family wealth didn’t outweigh their love for each other. Frederick would have to figure out a way to make the United States work, even though he hadn’t been successful the first time. He had to get Elinor out of Germany.

10. Finally Home

10.

Finally Home

FREDERICK DECIDED IT WOULD BE BEST TO RETURN to the United States ahead of Elinor and the children. He wanted to find a job and a suitable place to live before sending for his family. It would have been difficult to search for housing with two young children in tow. And the truth was that it was easier to get a lease without the landlord and neighbors seeing his black wife and biracial sons.

If there was one positive takeaway from their time in Göttingen, it was that they would never have to wonder, “What if?”. Frederick had gained the clarity he needed on many poignant levels. He now had proof that he could not comfortably and peacefully live in Germany with his African American wife and two mixed-race sons. The community in Göttingen wasn’t ready to accept his nontraditional family. And the move was further confirmation that Frederick could never work for his father and be happy. The two men would never be close. Frederick had tried again and failed—a hurtful reality, but one that gave him closure on the matter. The truth was that Germany wasn’t home to Frederick anymore, which meant the United States had to be. And Frederick was determined to make this move a good one for his family.

He applied for all kinds of odd jobs, mainly blue-collar. Although he was still passionate about art, his work experience was mostly in bakeries and most recently in his father’s factory. He temporarily lived in Philadelphia at the YMCA on Arch Street. It was a humbling experience to be reduced to transient housing, but Frederick had set his ego aside when he left Germany. His luck changed on August 11 when he received a Western Union telegram to report for a training program at Piasecki Helicopter Company in Morton, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. His experience working in the engineering field with machinery at his father’s company had paid off. He was instructed to bring his birth certificate and army discharge papers on his first day. It was a mechanic position, but Frederick didn’t care. The job would allow him to earn enough money—combined with the small amount of money he had saved in Germany while living in his parents’ house—to bring his family back to the States. Two months later, on October 6, 1953, Elinor and the children boarded a transatlantic vessel in Cuxhaven, Germany, to sail to New York, leaving Europe behind for good.