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He left by the front entrance after noonday Mass at St. Mark’s, she by the back. For she had come there from working at home for a prof over the summer, translating texts from German, and he from his office on campus, where he was working on his Master’s in Geography. They met out at the front of the building, on their bikes, to head off together for lunch, as if by chance, to SUB, a picnic, or for some Chinese. It just worked out that way.
He was from Switzerland, had heard her speaking German during coffee time after the service, and was impressed. She had seen him singing at the christening of a Swiss-Canadian baby at the campus chapel, and was moved. That’s how it began.
After lunch, on that very first cycle-rendezvous, he told her he was going to leave in a couple of months and already had his ticket for a Polish ship departing from Montreal. Would she like to have his German-English illustrated dictionary?
Susan and Ludwig in 1979
Danke schön, that would be very nice. And she made a mental note not to get involved – Vancouver to Zurich is just too far.
And so the golden summer of ’79 – one long sunny string of warm bright rain-free days – went pleasantly by. His parents and their friends came to visit, and she got a shock-immersion course in Swiss-German dialect while accompanying them on a tour of Vancouver Island.
When she returned to Toronto for a brief visit in August, he met her at midnight at the airport with the hugest bouquet of freshly picked flowers from the garden of an elderly neighbour whom he had charmed and enchanted with his request. Then she knew: He was the one.
He didn’t leave as planned, didn’t get his thesis finished in time. Pity! After knowing each other for barely three months of studying, cycling, touring, and communal meals at his Green House on the Hill digs in Point Grey, the moment came. He picked her up at Fellini’s where she worked, they went to sit on the cliff looking out to sea, and he asked her. So much for not getting involved. He wasn’t going to leave until she could come with him.
The Braun-Clarke family in 2001
At the St. Mark’s Orientation Weekend there was a tradition: someone always announced their engagement. Ludwig Braun and Susan Clarke surprised everyone when they shared their news around the bonfire on the last evening. Nobody had realized until that weekend that these two even knew each other. And they’d been meeting right there all summer at St. Mark’s, she leaving by the back entrance, he by the front!
It is now almost 27 years later: Zurich, Grenoble, now Munich, a glaciologist, a translator and five kids. That’s how it all began – we found love at UBC!
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