Our “Golden Age” Home

My parents, Franz and Hilda Kusserow, had been zealous Bible Students, or Bibelforscher (Jehovah’s Witnesses), from the time of their baptism in 1924, the year I was born as their seventh child. The years of youth that we 11 children spent with our parents were a marvelous time. Since my father retired from secular work early in life, he was able to devote much time to us. This he did in harmony with Bible principles. Not a day passed without our receiving Biblical counsel and instruction. Our parents recognized that children will not automatically become praisers of Jehovah just because their parents are.

In 1931 Father followed the Watchtower Society’s invitation to move his large family to a territory where no local congregation existed at that time. In Paderborn and surroundings​—about 200 towns and villages were included—​we had a lot of work to do in preaching the Kingdom message. My oldest sister, Annemarie, served as a special pioneer, and Dad and my 15-year-old brother, Siegfried, as regular pioneers.

Even from a distance, people could see two big signs painted on both sides of our house in Bad Lippspringe. There, in German, Father had written: LESEN SIE ‘DAS GOLDENE ZEITALTER’ (READ ‘THE GOLDEN AGE,’ the former name of the Awake! magazine). The house was situated alongside a tramway line connecting Paderborn and Detmold. Whenever the tram stopped in front of the house, the driver would call out: “Streetcar stop, GOLDEN AGE!” And of a truth, our house, located on three acres (1.2 ha) of land and surrounded by a beautiful garden with bushes and trees, became for us a center of education and activity, all revolving around the golden age of God’s Kingdom to come.​—Matthew 6:9, 10.

Then in the spring of 1933 we came under scrutiny by the National Socialists, now commonly known as the Nazis. The secret police ordered that the signs on our house be painted out. But the paint in those days was so poor that you could still see “GOLDEN AGE” shining through! And the tram driver continued to call out: “Streetcar stop, GOLDEN AGE!”