Day-in, Day-out
"The day I stop work is the day I die."
When my grandfather died in 1958, my grandmother Thresl took on the farm
and inn at Harhamhof, high in the Austrian Alps. Day-in, day-out, she worked
the farm and ran the inn. Fifty years on, Thresl is 99 years old and still working.
In summer, she enjoys life in Harham; in winter, it seems the snow will never end. Thresl mows the meadows around the inn with a scythe and stacks wood,
log by log, for the winter.
She waits on the guests at the inn; regulars stop by daily for a beer or two,
a home-distilled schnapps or a plate of Thresl’s famous "Kasnocken". Rest is of no interest to Thresl: "I’m glad to be busy. The day I stop work will be the day I die". Nothing would be worse for my grandmother than to be in a nursing home because
the younger generation have no time for her.
Thresl’s independence was hard-won; in the years after the untimely death of her husband, life was hard, the work unceasing. The inn was deep in debt, and the farm yielded just enough to get by with the two children, both put to work
early to replace their father. Yet, subsequent offers of marriage were turned down -
"I’m going to take orders from nobody." With the arrival of the main road, the
fortunes of the inn transformed and things started looking up for Thresl.
Yet not everyone likes how she runs the Harhamhof. Some say Thresl is too old-fashioned, not modern enough - and one of these critics is her son. Hans has been keen to take on the Harhamhof for decades; by contrast, her daughter Maresi is supportive. Thanks to the power of her will, my grandmother has placed herself beyond social conventions about how the elderly should be regarded. For her guests she remains mistress of a timeless world.