Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
Don’t let hearing loss inhibit your travels Column inside
Travel & Adventure
Dec. 14 & 15, 2017
December Issue
Travels to Mexico, Europe are basis for Golden Valley author’s books that needed cosmetic improvements. W e lik e the di versity. W e lik e Faye Ber ger and her being in a foreign place. husband, W ilt, li ve in Figuring it out is lik e a Golden Valley for nine game. Mexico has been months of the y ear. such an ad venture f or Since 2005, they ha ve us.” spent the other thr ee WRITING: A months each y ear in COMPANION Mexico. TO TRAVEL “Wilt and I started Faye Ber ger is no short-term missions to Mexico in the 1990s , stranger to tr avel. Also through Calv ary Lu- in the 1990s , she and theran Chur ch,” F aye Wilt, w ho is an ar chisaid. “We gr ew to lo ve tect, took F aye’s dad, Russell E. Albr echt of Mexico.” They have driven the Morgan, Minnesota, 4,600 miles r ound trip on a 10-da y riding trip in all the other y ears across Eur ope to r ethey’ve gone , b ut this trace Russell’s infantry route during his service year they’ re going to in W orld W ar II. The fly. trip, w hich occurr ed Their mission trips began a t an ar ea in after Russell became a the mountains outside widower, included Russell’s meeting with a Mexico City . “They didn’t ha ve a pla y- German v eteran w ho ground, and w e con- became his pen pal. Their trip pr ovided structed one ,” F aye the gr oundwork f or a said. “Ther e w ere no book Faye Berger pubHome Depots there, so lished titled “Finding we used r ough w ood Foxholes.” Her first and old tir es. It w as a book, titled “Gumprough and tumble project, b ut it has serv ed tion,” contains lessons the comm unity r eally on old a ge and loneliness tha t she learned well.” In the pr ocess, F aye from her dad. “I had al ways been said, “W e learned to on the phone with m y meet the locals , spr ead dad, ga thering stories out and got to kno w about him and his budthe cities and the coast. dies and the friends he And we ended up b uymade tr aveling ar ound ing a very humble house the country,” Faye said. there. It was a fast deci“He w as a ca ptivating, sion to buy an old place
By SUE WEBBER Contributing Writer
small-town guy, a greatt ll t storyteller. He al ways could find a positi ve spin for everything.” She used a ta pe r ecorder during their trip to Eur ope, to ca pture her dad’s stories a bout being on the fr ont lines in 1944-45, being wounded twice , being hospitalized after the Battle of the Bulge, and receiving the Br onze Star. “I w as e xtremely lucky to be a ble to travel with m y dad when he w as 82, dri ving thr ough Eur ope with a ta pe r ecorder,” Faye said. “He w as a common small-to wn guy, doing his duty. He was in a foxhole for six days. It ended up to be a story a bout ho w the soldiers f ound f ood and sleep , and ho w he made friends. He was a long way from Morgan,
Minnesota.” Mi i t ” The soldiers caught and killed pigeons , holding them o ver the fire and then ea ting them, her dad recalled. Russell r ecalled r eturning home with no fanfare and r esuming his life as a small-to wn grocer, Faye said. “But he brought back first-class values,” Faye said. “He sa w America at its best. He saw people pulling to gether to support the war effort.” After gr owing up in Morgan, F aye became a home economics major at the University of Minnesota. Along the way, she and her family hosted f oreign e xchange students fr om Guatemala and V ietnam. She w orked as a la w firm par alegal f or 30 years, prior to r etiring in 2004. “R etirement
i id d with iith h m y dad d d coincided dying in 2003, and us buying the Me xican property,” she said, adding that Wilt retired in 2007. The tw o ha ve four children and seven grandchildren. Faye said she became interested in stud ying successful a ging after taking a class on a ging families a t the Uni versity of Minnesota. “Aging is r eally a series of losses,” she said. “No one is imm une. Positive a ging is ho w we deal with those losses. It becomes a way of thinking of the glass as half full.” She is convinced that veterans’ telling their wartime stories can bring healing to them, as w ell as inspiring those who hear the stories. “We need to start those con versations,” Faye said. “P erhaps
ABOVE: Wilt and Faye Berger are pictured at the grand opening of the playground their team built with rough timbers and tires at Mission Mazahua, near Mexico City. LEFT: Faye and Wilt Berger are shown at their casa in Mexico. America can get back to the pa triotism it once had.” When the Bergers are at home in Golden Valley, they continue a 35year tradition of hiking at Lak e Harriet with a gr oup of friends a t 7:30 a.m. on Sa turday mornings. They’ve also organized hiking trips at Lak e Superior, Faye said. “The YMCA is lik e our second home ,” she said. “We ar e so dedicated to e xercising five days a week.” She’s still writing and plans to publish a book on Mexico next year.