This reading comes from Chapter One of Deitrich W. Botstiber's 2007 autobiography, "Not On The Mayflower."

Dietrich Botstiber was born in 1912 in Vienna, Austria, during the final years of the Habsburg monarchy when the country flourished with abundant natural resources and high culture. In his memoirs, Botstiber writes about his life in Austria during the first part of the twentieth century, and describes an Austria of great beauty and bounty that, over those years, diminished in size, culture, wealth and prestige, due in large part to the breakup of the Habsburg Dual-Monarchy, the 1938 Anschluss and the ensuing war. Botstiber witnessed the most unsettling times in Austrian history, but in Chapter One he poignantly recounts the innocence of his own youth in 1931 when he was 18.

On September 29, 1995, Dietrich Botstiber penned his name to a trust that would be the governing document for the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation. In the trust, Botstiber set forth his charitable intentions: to provide scholarships to talented students of good moral character in the fields of science, technology and commerce; to promote an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria; to support programs that prevent cruelty to animals and human beings; and to reform education systems in the fields of science, technology and commerce.

Growing from its roots, today the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies and Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control continue to advance the mission of the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation.

The full book, "Not On The Mayflower" (2007) can be found here.