My father was the fourth son of a Swiss farm family (so he didn’t get the farm) and while still very young his mother (whose maiden name he took) introduced him to watchmaking at the Eterna watch factory in his home town where he started as a jewel setter for excellent wrist watches. Not content with that, he set out for America to retrieve a thousand dollar loan from a previous migrant.
While here, he learned all of the watchmaking art at the Bulova watch factory in Astoria, NY, and became a citizen. Now successfully independent, he met a mysterious damsel at a New Year’s masked ball in Switzerland. She wouldn’t give him her name or telephone number. She turned out to be the eldest daughter of Alfred Kurth, the famed watch manufacturer.
Providence smiled on him (he was a handsome guy), and he married her, Frieda, who gave him three sons. He came back to America, where he had a good job, to prepare a place for her, and she and his sons joined him in 1942. By the way, his friend repaid the thousand dollar loan.
Civilization 