We Schraffls are a thoroughly sociable, fairly large family, ranging in age from around 10 to 80, now in our third generation!
When we’re all out and about together, things can get a bit lively – fun, witty, and sometimes with a few heated disagreements.
Except when we start sharing family secrets – then everything goes quiet and everyone listens intently, asks questions or quickly pulls out a pencil;
stories simply have to be recorded.
We’ve been collecting these stories for several years now, and today we’re putting one of them down on paper – or rather, on the screen.
"It all began when, so to speak, a chef (now Grandad Hubert) and a waitress (now Grandma Maria Anna) fell in love",
that was the opening line from Mum & Grandma Maria Anna on a lovely spring’s day, when we were all out and about together once again, always accompanied by good food and fine wines.
“When I reflect on <40 years at the Zirm> in four paragraphs, I feel a real sense of pride; actually, everything – and then some – has worked out!
We had always had the dream of running our own guesthouse in mind, so in 1978 – whilst we were still tenants of the ‘Reiderbar’ in Sesto – we bought a sloping, marshy meadow in Geiselsberg, as we only realised later.
We were young, optimistic – and also a little naive: full of anticipation and plans, we submitted our building project for a 45-bed hotel to the municipality of Olang, which was soon approved.
After the access road had been built, the diggers set to work on the hillside, which turned out to be rather spongy. The geologists we called in quickly established that extensive hillside stabilisation work had to be carried out before excavation could begin.
And so, after a few months, we were the proud owners of a stabilised hillside – and a huge hole!
However, there was a gaping hole in our budget too: the money we had saved up over the past few years had been used up.
"Let's just go for it", we told ourselves.
My husband looked into financing options, whilst I brainstormed ways to fill our beds – after all, we didn’t have any guest contact details yet and were completely unknown. On 1 December 1980, the time had come: we left our leased premises, set off for Geiselsberg and threw ourselves into the work.
As well as cleaning, preparing and tidying up, a mishap seems to have brought us that final bit of luck we needed:
on opening day, whilst I was busy placing all the glasses we’d bought for our guests on the designated shelf, and the very last glass had found its place, !! Wrrruuuummmm !!, the entire assembled rack, complete with wine and water glasses, crashed to the floor. A loud bang, thousands of shards, and what was surely the start of a future marked by a great deal of hard work but also blessed with good fortune – shards do bring good luck, after all, and I’ve never forgotten that moment :-).
And since I’m on the subject of happiness, our family life wasn’t neglected either; in fact, it was just as important to us as running the hotel.
Evelin was born whilst we were still running the inn in Sexten. From morning till night she would sit in our bar and, one might say, direct the passing villagers and bar-goers – she must have picked up her leadership skills back then!
Things then moved quickly at the Zirm: Anni was born in September 1981, followed less than a year later, in July 1982, by Hans-Peter – who completed our family.
The most important thing for my husband and me has always been harmony within the family, and we are very grateful for the strong bond that exists among us Schraffls.
The fact that our final major task at the hotel – handing over the reins to our daughters – went so wonderfully and respectfully fills me with great pride and joy. Since then, I’ve been able to spend plenty of time with my grandchildren:
being a granny is surely the icing on the cake of life..."