Elinor had no choice but to return home to Milton in what she knew to be the worst-case scenario in her mother’s eyes: unmarried and pregnant with a German prisoner of war’s baby. And Elinor would be living alone with her mother since her younger sister, Ruth, had moved to New York and her older sister, Gladys, had moved away years ago. Her pregnancy would be considered an embarrassment; it represented behavior not befitting a member of the Powell family, and she knew her mother would be furious. Gladys had grown up in Louisville, Kentucky, around the turn of the century, when the roots of Jim Crow were just taking hold, and she managed to earn a college degree and have a teaching career, followed by marriage to an upstanding army veteran from an admired family in Milton. Having a daughter return home from the war with a “baby out of wedlock,” a phrase she would have used, would be enough to make her sick.

Elinor had no choice but to face her mother, along with any shaming that came her way. Deep down she knew she was strong enough to endure the admonishment. Frederick had promised to return to her, and that would get her through.

8. An Uncertain Future

8.

An Uncertain Future

WHEN ELINOR AND FREDERICK WERE FORCED TO separate, with an ocean between them and nothing but a promise to reunite, the war had been over for more than a year and the United States was still in the muddled process of shipping thousands of German POWs back to Europe. Just as the prisoners had no idea what to expect when they first arrived in America as captured soldiers, they returned home with the same degree of uncertainty.

Hardly anyone was shocked when Germany surrendered. Even before Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, many had long since realized the war was lost. A poem written by a German POW at Camp Florence and translated into English represented the thoughts of despair shared by soldiers in the Wehrmacht in the final months of the war.

Christmas 1944

I hear not the bells of our Homeland ringing,

I see not the radiant hearts of the children at the Christmas tree,

The presenting of gifts with joy.

Oh, you terrible war, bringing misery,

shattering much happiness,

now Fate has exiled me in a strange land.

Do you know of the longing for our Homeland,

with forests of firs and snow-capped peaks?

So here we stand behind barbed wire, as fit as fir trees.

We sing Christmas songs, each ringing true,

because each is thankful for his life,

and wish that they bring greetings to our parents, brothers and sisters.

The hope stays again with us, enduring the love of our Homeland, again to see.1