Rowan Farm by Margot Benary-Isbert

First published:Die Ebereschenhof, 1949 (English translation, 1954)

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Coming-of-age, family, and war

Time of work: 1948

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Hellborn, Germany

Principal Characters:

• Margret Lechow, a sixteen-year-old refugee from East Germany who is the kennel maid at Rowan Farm
• Bernd Almut, the son of the owner of Rowan Farm
• Christoph Huhnerbein, a young teacher in Hellborn
• Bomu, pen name of
• Bobbi Muller, a young reporter from a Frankfurt paper who sympathizes with returning prisoners of war and veterans

The Story

Rowan Farm takes place in 1948 in West Germany. The country is in chaos; the villagers distrust and fear returning veterans and refugees from the East. Everything is rationed, and there is little food, fuel, clothing, and medicine. An unfeeling, overburdened bureaucracy controls employment, housing, and ration coupons. To get anything from this bureaucracy involves standing in endless lines and dealing with unreasonable officials. Getting a new pair of shoes is a major ordeal. Uncertainty prevails; no one knows where his food will come from, what will happen to refugees, whether and when the currency system will be changed, or what has happened to family members.

Though the setting is bleak and chaotic, this is far from a bleak novel, for amid the chaos exists an island of serenity, Rowan Farm. In the main house live the widowed owner of the farm, Anni Almut, her son, Bernd, who has just returned from the war, and an assortment of minor characters. The real center of the farm is a family of refugees from East Germany, the Lechows. The family lives in “Noah’s Ark,” an old railroad car they have made into a home. Sixteen-year-old Margret Lechow, the main character, is the kennel maid (the farm breeds Great Danes) and is an extremely talented animal handler. Her older brother, Matthias, is an apprentice gardener, and her sister, Andrea, is a scholarship student at an Ursuline Convent high school in nearby Hellborn. Her younger brother, Joey, is eight, as is Hans Ulrich, an orphaned refugee whom the family unofficially adopted. Mrs. Lechow’s strength and nurturing got her family through the war, but now she is exhausted and very much in the background. Dr. Lechow is also in the background; he had been a prisoner of war in Russia and only gradually regains his health and spirit during the year.

Margret is the real center of Rowan Farm, both in the sense that everything is seen through her eyes and in the sense that her energy and enthusiasm inspire everyone. Much of the novel realistically describes the day-by-day struggle for survival: planting, harvesting, the birth of new animals, the endless chores. Paralleling the hard work are the good times: occasional social events, such as the dances and plays in town, and the warm family exchanges.

Everything good that happens on the farm or in the surrounding communities happens because of the young. The adults are too exhausted and disillusioned by the war to be of much use in rebuilding Germany, and the children adopt the role of adults. Their endless energy and enthusiasm, their ingenuity and selflessness carry the adults in the community.

The book is extremely episodic, and many of the chapters are really self-contained stories. There are two substantial subplots, however. One involves Margret’s growing attraction to Bernd and her jealousy when both Bernd and her brother Matthias “fall” for an older, sophisticated college student from Frankfurt. The second revolves around the idealistic young schoolteacher Christoph Huhnerbein, a veteran who has been crippled in the war. He has his students help him rebuild a damaged farmhouse; his intention is to use it as a home for returning soldiers who have lost their families and homes. The community opposes him, and eventually their hostility leads to the suicide of a young veteran who was going to be returned to the East. Christoph has to rely on a young journalist, Bobbi Muller, to increase public awareness of the plight of veterans and refugees. Benary-Isbert wraps up all the loose ends from the various episodes and subplots very neatly at the end. Matthias decides to leave for America, but Margret commits herself to Rowan Farm. Bernd and Margret reconcile as Bernd leaves for the university. Christoph and Bobbi’s crusade pays off and not only does the community accept the home for veterans, but also the bureaucracy embraces it as a model for what is necessary to rebuild the nation.

Context

Rowan Farm is the sequel to Benary-Isbert’s first novel, Die Arche Noah (1948; The Ark, 1953); she has numerous other novels for young readers, several set in Germany after World War II, but The Ark and Rowan Farm are her best known. The Ark introduces the Lechow family; it begins with the arrival of the mother and four children in Hellborn, tells the story of their arrival at Rowan Farm, and concludes with the return of Dr. Lechow from a Russian prison camp. It is much more family-centered than Rowan Farm, and there are fewer subplots. The books can be read and appreciated independently of each other, but taken together they provide a comprehensive family chronicle.

While The Ark and Rowan Farm are authentic and certainly autobiographical, they are not as harsh as other German works for young readers which deal with World War II and its aftermath. Two well-known works by Hans Peter Richter, Damals war es Friedrich (1961; Friedrich, 1970) and Wir waren dabei (1962; I Was There, 1972), deal with similar events in a much less sentimental way; they make an excellent balance to The Ark and Rowan Farm.

Rowan Farm can be compared with many classic works of children’s literature. As a family chronicle, it is frequently compared to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868-1869). As a celebration of the healing powers of nature and the simple life, the title character of Johanna Spyri’s Heidi (1884) does many of the same things. The details of the day-to-day life on the frontier and the strong family bonds and strong female main character in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series are similar to many of the episodes in Rowan Farm, and the parallels of life on the frontier with the rebuilding of Germany are striking. Ultimately, however, the work is significant because it is unique; the setting is as bleak as one can get, yet the book itself is full of hope and celebration.