The 74-year-old grandmother of six, with the help of her husband Brian, has published 10 picture books based on her childhood memories and holidays.

“I think my primary motivation was to be close to my grandchildren,” Schaefer said.

The couple’s two sons, Craig and Andrew, have been living abroad for about 20 years after marrying a German woman.

One family lives south of Munich in Oberhaching, and the other in Bad Soden, near Frankfurt.

“Never in a million years did I expect my two sons to live abroad,” Schaefer said.

“We’ve been on Skype for a number of years – it’s usual for us on Sunday nights to save ourselves in case they want to Skype, we don’t go out on Sundays.”

During the COVID lockdown in Germany, the couple has become a telephone caregiver for their grandchildren three or four times a week.

“In the beginning it was a mess, and when the kids were finishing their schoolwork it was a bit difficult for the parents to do their work,” Ms Schaefer said.

So they asked ‘Can you help and keep the kids busy? “

“We were reading stories or maybe playing their machines and things like that, so it was really hard, but we managed to keep them occupied.”

Grandchildren range in age from 7 to 12 years old.

Ms. Schaefer decided to write stories as a way to improve their English but could not find any suitable Australian stories to read to them.

“At the beginning of COVID, I was going out for an hour walk and saying these things orally to my husband about how to develop the story.”

leave a legacy

Without experience, The Ten Stories and her husband wrote portraits of some grandchildren in Australian scenes.

With the encouragement of friends, the couple worked for three months to publish books.

The themes of the story were personal stories and memories and helped bridge the distance between Australia and Europe.

“The Pirate Story My grandson drew the picture on the front cover for me, so he’s really proud of his belief that his picture is on the front cover.”

Children appear in some books.

“In the Pelican story, we needed a boy pretending he was chasing a guana and so I asked my daughter-in-law to take a picture of her son holding a stick and running away from the camera.

“Then my husband, who does a lot of photoshop work, was able to get the boy out of the Bavarian scene into an Australian one as if he was chasing a Guana.”

“It’s not like you have your family here,” Ms. Schaefer said while the video calls were great.

“We were planning to go to Germany last year and booked 2019 a bit early for 2020 so it was cancelled.

“We live in a little bubble and we are safe from coronavirus here.

Ms. Schaefer has no plans for more books but she still gives lessons to her grandchildren.

“I’ve been a guest speaker at Probus’ clubs…One of our grandchildren is looking forward to seeing how I market myself,” she said.

She said the books created a legacy to bequeath to her grandchildren.

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