A thank you for a beautiful life in the city: Irmgard Stronk and Mayor Christoph Böck unveiled the clock on the front of the town hall. © Dieter Michalek
On the occasion of her 100th birthday, Irmgard Stronk gave herself and the city of Unterschleissheim a special gift: a clock for the town hall.
Unterschleißheim – Irmgard Stronk could not have imagined the eve of her three-digit anniversary more beautifully. Her 100th birthday was to be heralded by the new town hall clock. "That's what I wanted," she said, shortly before Mayor Christoph Böck (SPD) unveiled the gift of the senior citizen.
In fact, the new watch was long overdue. The predecessor on the opposite side of the town hall square, at the IAZ, had been smashed by vandals years ago. So it was a good thing that Stronk wanted to combine her 100th birthday with a good deed and at the same time fulfilled her heart's desire.
"The Town Hall Square needs a clock"
Dressed in a bright yellow costume, the wiry elderly woman pressed with a beaming laugh on the buzzer that the mayor had set up to let the white tarpaulin on the front of the town hall sink to the ground and reveal the clock. "The town hall square needs a clock," Böck rejoiced and turned to the spectators. "Why, you may ask," he continued, nodding to the guest of honor with a friendly smile: A town hall without a clock is not a real town hall. A clock conveys order, is a sign that things are going their way – and not only in the town hall.
Irmgard Stronk looks back on an eventful life. Born in the Rhineland, the family was bombed out during the Second World War. At a young age, she lost her mother. "I guess I'm a bit feral," she said in an interview with the Münchner Merkur. Her second mother, who lived to be 98 years old, helped her mature into a personality. "I've had a good life here," she continued: She owes the city her gratitude for what she and her family have achieved.
With the carriage to the folk festival
The opportunity to honor an "unusually round birthday" is not something that even a mayor of Unterschleißheim encounters every day. "With ladies," says Böck, "you don't reveal your age." In this case, however, he allowed himself to make an exception: "The donor will be 100 tomorrow," he shouted to the applause of the audience. And no one in the family has ever grown older. At least not since 1550, said son Detlev, whose genealogy goes back to the year when Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria died and knee-length breeches replaced harem trousers in Europe.
The jubilarian, Böck summed up, has sufficient expertise to be able to estimate the value of time. Böck praised the senior citizen as an excellent skat player and a valued neighbor who loves to travel. Her husband Wolfram, who died in 2003, played a decisive role in shaping the fate of Unterschleissheim as 2nd and 3rd mayor from 1972 to 1990. "So much grassland here," Stronk recalled, her husband said to the mayor at the time: "We'll make something out of it!" Son Detlev made it to the state secretary in Berlin.
While the procession for the folk festival was forming in the background on the town hall square, Böck invited the elderly woman to take a seat on the float. Together, by the way, with citizens of the city who celebrate their 70th birthday during the folk festival – young people compared to Stronk. Pulled by two stately horses, the now 100-year-old rocked with her 70-year-old companions towards the Lohhofer Volksfest, which is being held for the 70th time this year.
More news from Unterschleißheim and the district of Munich can be found here.
