by Len Lear Most people celebrate their birthday every year in some way, big or small, to commemorate its importance. But Ingrid Schikor Brown, 81, has a bigger celebration on Oct. 25 every year, although it is not her birthday (May 8). This Oct. 25 will commemorate exactly 60 years to the day that Ingrid arrived in the U.S. at age 21 from her home in Germany. “For years I would have a big party, celebrate Oct. 25 more than a birthday,” Ingrid told us last week in the Chestnut Hill real estate office where she works (Berkshire Hathaway at 8400 Germantown Ave.; before that it had other names, most recently Fox & Roach). “In 1958 my family stayed in Germany. I bought an airplane ticket and came by myself. My parents saw me off at the airport. My dad wrote a letter, ‘Will we ever see you again?’” It obviously took courage for a young single woman to leave her family, her culture, her language and everything else she was familiar with to come to another country alone. But Ingrid’s home in Silesia, northern Germany (according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, most of Silesia became part of Poland), had been devastated during World War II and was mostly rubble. As refugees, Ingrid and her family left Silesia in January of 1945 because the Red Army, which had a reputation for raping and killing indiscriminately, was nearby. “The Russians were 10 kilometers away,” she said, “and apparently an alarm was given, first for women and children to leave and then for everyone else. But how? An open wagon, normally used for transporting hay, was placed in the center of the village. Everyone put some pieces of luggage on it and waited for horses to move it along, but the horses never materialized … “We piled our luggage into the open coal wagon and waited to get on when the overcrowded refugee train came through. This was a stroke of good fate. We got out ahead of the marching Russian armies. We did not know where we were going. We stayed for two weeks in a town called Bolkenhain. We went on trains and wound up in Bavaria. After leaving our town, we looked back and saw the buildings going up in smoke. Our dad worked in railroads, and he was released by the English from a POW camp after the war. Things were so bad in Germany that you always wanted to get out.” Former New Jersey U.S. Senator Bill Bradley was once married to Ernestine (née Misslbeck) Schlant, a German-born professor who wrote in a memoir that the best way to get out of Germany after the war was by knowing other languages. That is what worked for Ingrid. “I spoke English,” she said. “In fact, I had an English accent because I had been an au pair in London. I had good friends in London, and we all had plans to go to the U.S.” Ingrid has now been in the U.S. for 60 years and has been married for 59 years to Bob Brown, a Philadelphia native who was in the U.S. military when he met Ingrid at a German-American Friendship Club after the war. Bob’s parents sponsored Ingrid to come here. The Browns lived for three years in center city, then 21 in West Mt. Airy, 34 in Wyndmoor and almost oneand-a-half years at Normandy Farms in Blue Bell. “I went home to Germany from London,” said Ingrid. “I wanted to go to France. A French teacher said to me, ‘You speak such good English; come to my German-American club.’ At the club I met Bob, who said at the end of the year, ‘I’ll see you in the States.’ He went home to Philly, and I went to France to learn French because I wanted to become a stewardess. I corresponded with Bob, and his parents then offered to sponsor me. “They took financial responsibility for me. I stayed with them for two weeks and then moved to Harboro, then to the ‘Y’ in center city and then to my own apartment at 23rd & Spruce. I went to every airliner and filled out applications. I had $50, one month’s salary. I wanted to be on my own. I had worked for a year in Germany doing translations and had good office skills. I actually got a job offer my first day in town from a Unitarian minister named Jim Reeb. I am so grateful to him and to this country. Germany was too narrow. Every step you took, you were watched.” (Ingrid had a grandfather who was killed by the Nazis after he was overheard criticizing Hitler.) Ingrid worked for Rev. Reeb for five months. “Jim laughed a lot; he had a great sense of humor,” recalled Ingrid. (Tragically, while participating in the Selmato-Montgomery, Alabama, civil rights march in March of 1965, Rev. Reeb was murdered by white segregationists, dying of head injuries in the hospital two days after being severely beaten. He was 38.) Ingrid still talks to Reeb’s widow on the phone. She is in her 90s and lives in Casper, Wyoming. Ingrid started in real estate in 1975 with Lapworth Vecchioli on Cheltenham Avenue in Wyncote. Then she started with Emlen Realty in 1985. After a number of mergers, Fox & Roche sold the firm to Berkshire Hathaway, founded by Warren Buffet, one of the three richest men in the U.S. Ingrid still works full-time but is not taking on any new clients. Her husband retired at age 54 after teaching math and English in elementary and middle school in the Colonial District (Plymouth Whitemarsh).

“I'm grateful for all I was able to accomplish in America,” said Ingrid. “I’m grateful for the personal freedom. I’m still very close to my family, who all are still in Germany. In grade school a girlfriend mentioned the ‘United States of America.’ It had magic to it. America was the shining light for me, as well as England and France. My life has been very positive. I've been very happy in my work. Not many stay in this field for so long. And next April 3, I will be married for 60 years.

“I’ve only had one real negative. My son, Nicholas, was killed at age 17 in 1985 in a car accident when we were living in Mt. Airy. There is a bench in the Wissahickon at Kitchen's Lane with his name on it. He went to the High School for Engineering & Science and then to Springfield High School.”

For more information: Ingrid.Brown@foxroach.com