Germans with local connection do presentation for seniors
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Stefan Walter, left, and his son Lukas are shown in front of the wall-mounted TV screen that's part of new audio-visual equipment installed at the Chinook Senior Center. Stefan and Lukas were helping Millie Hall Walter with a presentation about their home country, Germany.
Millie Hall Walter, daughter of Ben and Patti Hall, was back in Chinook recently with her family on a visit from where she now lives in Germany. Stefan, her husband, and their eight-year old son Lukas accompanied Millie back to Chinook. Millie met Stefan when he was an exchange student attending high school in Turner for a year. After both finished college they married and she moved to Germany.
Ben Hall, Millie's dad, is on the board of directors at the Chinook Senior Center. For the past year the center board has been trying to bring new programming for the folks who come to the center. Ben Hall suggested that when Millie and her family came this year they might be willing to do a presentation about Germany. Until COVID especially messed up international travel, Millie and her family would come back to the state about every year and a half with her parents also making visits to Germany.
Millie and Stefan took advantage of the new wall-mounted TV equipment in the center to do a Power Point presentation. Rather that a regular 'travelogue' the couple challenged the audience with questions about Germany. For example (this one tricked me, actually): What does BMW stand for? I always thought it was British Motor Works, it's really Bavarian Motor Works. You get the point of what they were doing.
I found it interesting that Germany is the seventh largest country, land mass-wise, in Europe and is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Yet, the land area of Germany with a population of 83 million is just slightly smaller than Montana...and we fuss about the 'population boom' in some Montana cities.
About the Walters family
Millie Hall Walter greets folks at a recent lunch at the Chinook Senior Center. Millie is the daughter of Ben and Patti Hall and has lived in Nuremberg Germany for more than a decade. Trained as a nurse in the U.S. she will soon qualify as a pharmacy technician in Germany. Millie, her husband Stefan and their eight-year old son were visiting her family in Chinook.
Millie graduated with a nursing degree from MSU and worked for a time as a nurse at Benefis. In Germany she would have had to start all over to do nursing, plus the language challenge. She is finishing a two and a half year program to become a pharmacy technician which will still keep her in the medical field.
I visited with Stefan when he and Lukas came with Ben to work the Lions' pronto pup stand (grandpa's shop as Lukas called it) during the recent fair. Stefan is an engineer for Siemens in the company's division that designs, builds and markets locomotive engines for freight trains. He mentioned Siemens has also made engines for Amtrak.
While volunteering at the pronto pup stand Lukas became a specialist at making snow cones. He could knock them out in record time and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to learn a new skill.
The Walter's time in the U.S. will soon be over for this time. Soon they will fly back to Nuremberg, their home town for the past 11 years. Talk about culture shock, going from a couple of weeks in Chinook back to a city with more than a half million people has to be an bit of an adjustment.
We wish them a safe trip and thank them for sharing their info about their home country.
