Round Top writer tells her story
Book relates young girl’s immigration to America
The Daily Mail
Nov. 16, 2009

ROUND TOP — Round Top resident and business woman Waltraud “Wally” Maassmann has recorded her journey from Germany to New York in a new book she hopes will inspire others.

The book touches upon Maassmann’s family and life in Germany and chronicles her passage to New York in 1954 at the age of 13 aboard the Stockholm and her life since.

Maassmann said the book serves of an example of how someone can move from one phase of life to another toward success. Maassmann titled her book “A Path of Pebbles” as a metaphor for her journey.

“No matter how you struggle you can still achieve something in this country,” she said before a book signing Sunday at her family’s resort, Blackhead Mountain Lodge and Golf Course.

“You overcome resistance by consistent persistence,” she said, reciting her motto.

Maassmann said her parents did not speak much about World War II, but that the family’s house was bombed and the family’s war experience was terrible.

She said during the war the family received care packages that contained Lipton soup among other items from an aunt. Reading the labels, Maassmann said, made her want to come to the United States and learn English.

“I thought this had to be a dreamland and I wanted to come here,” she said.

She said the experience fueled her determination to achieve something in life.

As a young woman, Maassmann modeled and held several positions with the Freihofer’s Baking Company, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and a construction bonding company.

She married Ewald Maassmann in 1959, and in 1967, the couple and Maassmann’s parents purchased the then “Blackhead Mountain Lodge.”

Maassmann, 69, decided to write the book in June 2008, during, she said, a frustrating economic time.

“How does it come about that I am here, at my age, still struggling, still accomplishing things and working hard and how does one get to where one is from where one comes from,” she recalled thinking one night in bed.

So, she began writing her story for her two children and four grandchildren.

She consulted with some of her siblings during the writing process. The conversations, she said, later brought back memories that were then included in the narrative.

She said trials in life were like pebbles and rough stones, a metaphor echoed in the title of the book. And, she said, her home town had cobblestone streets.

The book’s cover shows the view of the Catskill Mountains from the family’s resort as well as a reproduction of a drawing of birds and plants done for Maassmann by a school art teacher in Germany.

The sketch was drawn in Maassmann’s diary-like poetry booklet before she emigrated. The resulting cover artwork shows how something can be achieved through hard work “and many, many pebbles,” Maassmann said.

The book, which was published earlier this year by Maassmann’s own company, Blackhead Mountain Publishers, has entered its second printing.

Already Maassmann is considering writing a sequel to the story that would focus more on Blackhead Mountain Lodge and Golf Course.

Maassmann said she wanted her book to encourage others to record their own stories of hardships and successes.

“Everybody can tell a story,” she said, “people should write things down (or) so much is going to get lost.”