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On September 24, 1918, at 6 a.m., after the wedding night the Lechner’s small restaurant opened. “My mother had to wait with buying milk and bread until the first glasses of beer had gone over the counter. After the wedding father had not even a cent left. Thanks to his insistence that he had a full wallet, he had been given the first supply of beer on credit.”

Hans, their first child, was born exactly nine months later, on June 24, 1919. “At that time Mama had to pay 155 francs and 60 cents for her 13 days in the Frauenklinik, the women’s hospital. This was a vacation for her.” Usually they could not even think of taking any days off. For 7 years the young couple worked 17 hours a day in their restaurant, which did well; the workers from the nearby factories liked to stop at the place of the friendly Lechners.

By 1925 they had toiled and earned enough, and they got an offer to purchase the butcher store next door. “Now mother was in the store, father in the butchery.” Their hams and sausages were popular. “On Sundays father would usually go to the farmers in Rümlang or Wallisellen and buy cattle that the butcher helpers had to herd on foot to the small slaughterhouse behind the butcher store.” Father Lechner was a good businessman, had a wonderful way with people, and was lucky – with money too. Mother was the soul of the business. In 1926 the immigrants became Swiss citizens.