Otto Franz Ludwig Eichler, was born on August 14, 1929 at Angerapp in East Prussia, which does not exist anymore and is now North Poland.

He was the oldest brother to Elfriede, Klaus, Gisela and Joachim, and son to Otto and Helene Eichler.

He was born into a farming life in Angerapp where dad and his family worked the farm and had regular large family gatherings which was a tradition that dad was to follow in later years. He tells stories of how some relatives would be rather full after a day of drinking and the horses somehow knew how to get the family home by themselves.

A few years into dads life an event called World War 2 interrupted his life a little. He told stories of how he would watch bombers fly overhead from Germany during lessons at school on their way to bomb Russia and Poland, and he really didn’t bother learning english at school because, “why bother, Hitler was going to win the war anyway……….”

At age 15 he joined the army for protection and he told one or two stories of how he fought with other German troops while his family had to flee to West Germany to escape the approaching Russian army. While his unit was fighting they fortunately were able to escape from coastal East Prussia by a stolen boat to an English ship moored off shore where they surrendered. As a result, he and his unit were incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in North Germany for a few months where they were guarded by English and American troops.

He said that the best guards were either the English or the African Americans because they treated the Germans so well, but not the white Americans.

After a period of time he was finally released and he searched for his family. He knew that there was a main relative who lived in Berlin where it was organized if any family members were lost or separated they should contact her and she would know where the rest of the family was. He eventually found them at Munster Lager, Central Germany in a camp. He told his family that because all his family believed him to be dead when he walked into the camp and saw his mother, his mother fainted from shock. He had a very strong bond with his mother all his life.

In 1954 Otto’s younger sister Elfriede, with her husband Tony and daughters Barb and Ginny,  left Germany for Australia however he kept in touch with her via mail where he would receive letters of how great Australia was and there was plenty of work, whereas in post war Germany there wasn’t much work. Dad persisted and stayed and, according to dad, did try to emigrate to America, however because he was involved with the Hitler Youth he was deemed not suitable.

Eventually after several letters from Elfrieda he decided to emigrate to Australia and nominated himself as a farmer, and boarded the Anna Salem which took immigrants via Greece and other ports to Melbourne.

Now, at this point I seem to believe dads stories most of the time, however he was prone to fib a little and give a cheeky grin as he told his little white lies, but those of you who know dad, this next part could be true, but could also not be true, but dads version sounds best so I will run with it.

Dad arrived in Melbourne and was supposed to go to South Australia which had a large German community at the time, and from what I understand he was meant to go to the Barossa valley. According to dad though, instead of going to the railway station to catch the train for Adelaide he found a pub, got drunk and missed the train. The story then goes that he went back to the immigration office the following day, and told them of his dilemma. He was asked if he was good with metal and welding and could he work at the Naval Docks in Sydney. Of course dad lied and said yes, and he got the job. He then ended up in Sydney.

Dad worked at the South Head naval docks for ten months and from digging though dads papers this week we found a work reference he received after working there. It says:

 “ To whom it may concern, this is to certify that Otto Eichler has been employed as a general labourer (cleaner and gardener) and has proved himself entirely satisfactory. He is honest and most hard working. A most desirable type of New Australian who will be an asset to an employer in any job he may be given. Signed R.H.Davis, Lieutenant Commander”

In 1956 dad found out that there was work going with Sydney Water Board, especially for labourers at Warragamba Dam. Dad went to the site office for the dam and, if you believe the story, kept pestering the site supervisor there for work, and after showing up four day in a row asking for work he was eventually hired as a pipe fitter.

Not long after starting work at Warragamba he met a lifelong friend, and partner in crime, Fred Lenz. Dad often called Onkel Freddy his Aussie brother.

Now, I’m not too sure were many of dad’s stories come from but he did tell one or two stories of times when he would go into town around Penrith, Walacia and so on and join in the 6 o’clock swill. According to Onkel Freddie they didn’t play up too much and they would play cards with Onkel Tony and Tante Freida, but occasionally he would mention the odd story of when things got a little out of hand, and yet again, I’m not too sure if they are true, but they are fun to tell and he would repeat them occasionally. I will mention one stories but names will be withheld.

Dad tells that one night a group of dads mates and himself were heading home from a night on the town they were pulled over by a motor cycle police officer who was not a really nice guy. All the boys were out of the car and waiting for the police man to do whatever he did, couldn’t find anything wrong with the car and allowed them to drive home. Shortly after they started driving off one of the boys said “He’s not going to get very far, I just pissed in his fuel tank while he wasn’t watching me”.

Another story dad would tell is that when someone decided the day was over and the gang should go for a drink, a certain song would be sung. When the foreman heard this song he knew the boys were ready to go out and party, but he knew that at 7 o’clock the next day the boys would be back to work another day.

After working at the dam as a pipe fitter for a few years dad and the boys were at the Log Cabin, Penrith one night and dad spied a young girl who took his fancy. Dad apparently was a bit of a charmer and got talking to this young lady and her parents who were out for the night. To prove how charming he was he offered to take this young lady and her parents back home, to Mt Druitt. That night changed his life forever, when he met mum.

From all the stories I have heard I believe there was a comment from mum’s father “He wont be back, he was too drunk to remember where you live”. The next day dad was back asking to take Brigitte out for another date. Unfortunately whenever he took mum out, both her parents had to go, or at least her mother, Oma Mayer, so dad had to work extra hard to charm her and her family.

After three years of courting, mum and dad got married on 29 September 1961. Eventually they had three kids, Angelika, Gabriele and myself. By this time we were living at Woronora Dam. As an aside mention, both mum and dad encouraged the German side of our culture and of course we were the “wogs” at school and grew up eating all that funny food  which included salami, black bread and sauerkraut.  I can also remember going to school wearing Lederhosen. And who can forget going to the Fairfield Oktoberfest’s!. My god. This was my introduction to beer (as a kid), but be careful of the cans of beer left on the tables which were being used as an ashtray.

During this time at Woronora mum and dad also bought a small block of land in Narooma in 1970 for $875 and slowly started to build their future retirement house. Even to this day there are many tools at the house inscribed with Sydney Water Board on them.

Every opportunity we could get we were back in Narooma and helping build the house, or just being kids while dad built the house with a bunch of mates or relatives and I know many of us here who we grew up with could probably remember Narooma and going fishing, swimming or just having fun while dad first built the shed and then the house. I can remember driving from the dad with a fully laden Kombi van with bricks, timber, cement and all sorts of  other stuff borrowed from the dam to build the house.

We had a great life at Woronora Dam and many of you here may remember the parties which mum and dad would organize. Those of you who did not grow up with us I should clarify something here. Dad was very embracing and took everyone into his family circle no matter whether you were related or not. One of dads more common saying was “We are all family, but some of us are prick related”.  The parties at Woronora were special and a close family gathering, much like “My Big fat Greek Wedding”, was a small gathering of 30-40 guests, but sometimes bigger.

In 1977 we moved from Woronora Dam to Nepean Dam because dad got a promotion. Here we met more “family” members, whether they were dads work colleagues or our school friends, who are still friends today and the tradition of small family gatherings continued.

At Nepean Dam us three kids grew up, finished high school at Picton, and moved into adulthood and moved on to our future lives. I can recall one of our final last big parties at Nepean Dam was my engagement to Libby, or Libbschen as he affectionately called her. We had a small gathering of about 120 guests and dad was organizing the catering.

Dad decided we needed to get fried rice from the Chinese restaurant in Bargo. Now dad had a strong Germanic accent, and he was talking to a Chinese chef. Can you see where this is going? Dad asked for Fried Rice for one hundred guests, but we ended up with fried rice for four hundred guests. We were eating that stuff for months!

Us three kids all got married, Angelika To Glen, and they have Shane, Gabe married Geoff, and I married Libby, and we have Steven, Hannah and Emma. Our family grew and dad loved us all equally, and considering my family moved a lot around NSW mum and dads influence touched many people, and both mum and dad are known to many of our personal friends as Oma and Opa.

In 1989 Mum and dad retired to Narooma and started a new phase of their life. Dad became involved in Community Transport and they continued to travel a lot, always on holidays and seeing new parts of the world, or Australia. We can remember they always travelled, especially to go back and see many family members in both East and West Germany, and more recently travelling to New Zealand, on the Indian-Pacific to Perth and to wherever family and friends were. I must confess that dad had an incredible mind for reading and memorizing maps, geography and mathematics. You could mention a trip and he could rattle off what towns were in between, distances, where cheap fuel was, or a good bakery. I’m not sure whether this was always true because every town seemed to have cheap fuel or a good bakery, but dads knowledge of geography was incredible.

Because of dads gentle nature, and his affection for all things in nature, dad was a great lover of animals, flowers, tree’s and especially Oak Trees as Eich, part of our surname, refers to Oak and our family crest actually contains an Oak Tree. We recently started planting a row of oak trees on our fence line in Bungendore and dad helped us plant one of the trees just last year.

Growing up we always had pets and from my early days we had dogs, cats, chickens, tortoises and all manner of animals. In mum and dads later years while they were at Narooma, after they didn’t have pets for a few years, dad became close to Gabe’s dog Buster. After Buster passed dad wanted another pet, and eventually he got Toby. Toby and he had a great little relationship with Toby sitting on dads lap at every opportunity, and Toby sitting next to dad to secure every little bit of food dad passed down from his meals even after we growled at dad to stop feeding Toby because he was gaining weight.

As you may all know, in dad’s later years he started to slow down and eventually Dementia started to take its hold. Yet again dads personality shone here and he was very gentle, relaxed and always smiled and greeted you with a warm welcome.

Because of the dementia he may not have known what was happening today, but he could rattle off details of many years ago, and started to prefer foods from his past and he had a great sweet tooth for ice cream or custard, and would prefer to speak in German if he could.

Eventually dad passed away peacefully at Moruya District Hospital last Sunday morning at about 4am. The previous day when we were with him he was peacefully laying in bed, looking at each one of us and smiling. It was obvious that he was proud of his achievements in life, that he had a great family and many close friends and that he had achieved wonderful and important things in life. He wasn’t in pain but he was ready to go and be with his family and friends, like Tante Edit, who had already passed.

On that Saturday he and I would look at each other and just stare. We didn’t have to say anything at all because we said everything by looking at each other and just smile. We had a deep conversation without words and I gave him my blessings and said to him it was ok to go.

In finishing I wish to say, if I achieve half of what dad achieved in his life I will be a great man.