3/30/2009 - German exchange student returns to Beaumont for 50th class reunion
By JANE MCBRIDE for
The Beaumont Enterprise
Seventeen-year-old exchange student Bettina Kuehnel was popular by anyone’s standards.
The friendly, outgoing dark-haired girl from Germany slipped easily into the Class of ‘59 at Beaumont High School.
“We called her our Beauty from Berlin,” recalled Linda Schumcker Elissadle. “She spoke with a delightful German accent, but she spoke English very well. She looked just like us, a typical 1950s girl. She was very popular. Girls liked her and boys liked her.”
Fifty years later, the girl her Southeast Texas friends called Tina returned to Beaumont from Germany to join in again, this time for the 50th reunion of the BHS class of ‘59.
“I just love to be around old friends. I’m trying to find out what has changed,” Kuehnel, now Bettina Knuth, said.
Knuth came to Beaumont under the American Field Service Exchange program, competing with other students to be chosen. She was sponsored here by the Anchor Club, a high school arm of the Pilot Club, one of the oldest service organizations in Beaumont.
Back in 1959, Knuth, who lived a more restricted life in post-war West Berlin, was impressed with the freedom her American friends enjoyed.
“The teenagers had a great time. It was much simpler in Germany. I was impressed by all the great things people could do here in the United States, especially the young people,” Knuth said.
One of the first things young Tina noticed was the differences in dating. In Germany, girls didn’t face the social pressure of having a male escort for an evening out.
“In Germany, you could go out with girlfriends. You weren’t dependent on the boy to go somewhere. Here, they wouldn’t go out alone without having a date. That was something new for me,” Knuth said. “But I got along with it pretty well. I went out on dates. I was acquainted very nicely with a boy from our high school. He even came to visit me in Germany.”
Knuth, who planned to be a lawyer, went on to spend 35 years as a judge in criminal and civilian law in a small town close to Worms, Germany.
While she’s in town, she hopes to get an education about 2009 America, courtesy of her friends.
“I want to know a little bit about school matters, perhaps a little about law. I just got to know Barbara McNeill’s husband is a lawyer, so I will ask him about matters of law, and about what the people I know have experienced. I’m interested in politics too, and want to compare it to European problems,” she said.
Pat Daleo, one of Knuth’s classmates, said the young woman who “jumped right into our world here in America” spoke at community functions during her year here, often on “A German Teenager looks at America.”
“One of the things she said was most important as a Berliner was to see her country united. Up until that time, none of us had paid that much attention (to the political situation in Germany). To know and be around someone who felt so strongly about her country impressed all of us.”
The class also was impressed with Knuth’s German education.
“She spoke of taking several languages, like Latin and Greek and she spoke English beautifully. She took French while she was here,” Daleo said.
Sunday, Knuth spent part of the day at McNeill’s Beaumont home, where she recreated her first time as an official Texan: riding a horse.
“I have a picture of her (from ‘59) on one of our horses. She had wanted to ride one. I told her, ‘We’ve still got a horse⦒ and she said ‘Yeah, I’m game.’”
Knuth brought her 28-year-old daughter, Julia, with her, so she could meet her Beaumont friends and see the place that played a big role in her education.
“I’m very curious about what their careers and families and lives have been. I’m also interested in how things change from the social side, the differences,” Knuth said.
“When I was here in 1958, it was the mother was at home and keeping the children and the father was working. It may have changed because more women go to work. Perhaps it is different. Perhaps it is not. I will see.”
Knuth also is hoping she will find a Beaumont woman she knew in 1959 as the wife of an American solider stationed in Germany.
“Her name is Debbie House. She visited in our home and we were together at Christmas. I lost contact with her through the years. Her husband’s name is Travis D. House,” Knuth said.
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