Without music, life would have been unimaginable for Jakob Unterholzner. She had been with him since early youth.
Olching - At the age of five he learned to play the harmonica, and later the accordion and harmonium were added. He became an organist, choir singer and choir director. With the men's choir Olchinger Sänger, Unterholzner created an ensemble that enjoyed a brilliant reputation far beyond the local borders.
The farmer's son was born in February 1928 in Geigenkofen in Lower Bavaria in the Dingolfing-Landau district. His mother died of embolism when he was four years old. Jakob and his two brothers Simon and Lorenz were raised by the grandmother and later by a stepmother. Shortly before the end of the war, the 16-year-old was drafted in and, as he wrote in his memoirs, "was forced into a criminal unit with a pistol held up and the threat of execution if refused." Many of his comrades should no longer see the end of the war.
In 1947, Unterholzner became a member of the church choir in his home parish and soon also an organist. He has been at the conductor's desk since he had completed three years of music training with a choir director's course in Regensburg.
Professionally, he ended up at the Bundesbahn, where he initially worked in the repair shop in Munich-Freimann and then became a conductor and train driver. Countless promotions for the Unterholzner, who is now a civil servant, were to follow. He became chief conductor and chief conductor, train driver, chief train driver and finally chief railway secretary.
The Olching singers
The musical trainer got to know the love of his life - how could it be otherwise - on a train journey. Or at his home station, where he met a gentleman who wanted to put his daughter on the train to Munich.
Unterholzner went there too, and so the gentleman suggested that the two should go together. The short train journey turned into a lifelong journey. In 1960 Jakob and Maria Unterholzner married.
The young couple lived in the neighboring community of Maisach for the first four years before buying a terraced house in Olching. In July 1961, daughter Monika was born, five years later son Maximilian. In addition to the family, music continued to play a major role in Jakob Unterholzner's life.
He sang in the Eisenbahner Choir Munich-Freimann as well as in the church choirs of Maisach and Olching. In 1968 he founded the "Olchinger Sänger" and the "Olchinger Viergesang". With both formations he celebrated success in churches all over Bavaria.
When the one who was awarded many prizes for his professional and voluntary work took stock shortly before his death, he looked back on a happy life - especially on almost 60 happy years of marriage.
Together with his Maria, he also survived strokes of fate such as the early death of his brother Simon at the age of 40 and the life-threatening accident of his daughter. When she was 16, she was hit by a drunk on a bike and was only able to return home after a long stay in hospital. Jakob Unterholzner was 91 years old.