Two well-travelled life artists

Erding - Eduviges and Theodor Brand from Erding celebrate 50 years of marriage.

Whoever enters their box workshop in the old town enters a colourful, diverse world.

But Eduviges and Theodor Brand, who recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, find their way around the apparent paper-and-cardboard chaos without any problems.

After all, their life has been similarly winding, they have truly experienced a lot together in 50 years of marriage.

The man with three passports

"I have three passports.

an Argentinian, a Swiss and of course a German,” says Eduviges Brand.

Her first name from the country of birth Argentina is translated as Hedwig.

Like three of her four siblings, Ernesto (67, lives in Eichenkofen), Pedro (63, Erding) and Pablo (61, Neumarkt), she was born in Bahia Blanca near Buenos Aires.

Only her sister Johanna (57), the youngest, was born in Germany and now lives in Freising.

Her father, a German from Upper Silesia, had met her Argentinian mother in South America in 1949 and married in 1950, two years later they became parents of Eduviges.

In the early 1960s, the entire family came to Germany and Eduviges attended school in Freising.

She then began an apprenticeship as a cook, but also occasionally worked as a waitress.

In 1971 she met her husband Theodor in Munich, a waiter who later also worked as a concrete drilling technician.

He comes from Basel, is now 75 and, after a brief stopover in Germany, moved back home with his young love at Christmas 1971.

They married there in 1972, and their son Oliver, who lives in Aufkirchen, was born here.

He is therefore also a German and Swiss citizen.

Daughter Denise was born a year later.

In 1974 the family moved to England, east of London

The good-humored woman with creative genes

In the end, the Brand family moved back to Germany in 1975, where they first lived in Freising.

Neufahrn and Titkofen were to follow as further stations, and finally Erding, where they now have their workshop and the center of their lives.

“I've worked hard all my life,” says Eduviges Brand, “in the 1980s I tried out clown dolls and marionettes, sold them at craft fairs.

But the effort and the proceeds were in stark contradiction to each other, and so I looked for a completely different idea.

In 1986 I started to fold boxes - and I still do that today.

For us, this activity is a blessing and a curse at the same time: on the one hand it is good for earning a living, on the other hand it has little prospect of a long future.

My husband and I are still quite fit.

Unfortunately, there is no successor in sight."

Her husband Theodor, also blessed with a lot of creativity, paints tiny stones and used to make detailed dioramas, masterpieces in a picture frame.

The elderly woman is happy about interested customers and is satisfied that "in our marriage two life artists have truly met".

District Administrator Martin Bayerstorfer and Mayor Max Gotz were also infected by this good mood and congratulated them with presents.

fez