Chapter Seven

On January 8, 1935 two descendants of Valentine and Christina Pressler were born in Tupelo, Mississippi. At 4:35 a.m. Gladys (Smith) Presley gave birth to an infant son, thirty-five minutes after she had given birth to his twin, who tragically, was stillborn. The stillborn twin was called Jesse Garon Presley, and the live-born twin was given the name of Elvis Aron Presley.

Elvis Presley burst upon the American popular music scene, unlike anyone before or since. He was the world's first, true "rock 'n' roll" superstar. Overnight he became known in almost every household in America, and around the world---a "nice southern boy," who was adored, despised, ridiculed, and admired, all at the same time. An older generation could not understand the attraction, and even, in some cases, felt threatened by this young man who sent teenage hearts into such a flutter. To a generation of young people he was the epitome of "cool" and rebellion, with great looks and a musical talent that is rare indeed. He possessed a stage presence and a magnetism that people are still trying to analyze.

From July 1954 when he had his first recording session at Sun Record's studio in Memphis, his career took off. The rise in his fame and popularity was meteoric. In 1956 he performed at the Louisiana Hayride eight times, gave eighty-two concerts, appeared eight times on television, appeared in one motion picture, and sold ten million records.

On September 2, 1957, Elvis performed at the Ranier Ballpark in Seattle for 30,000 fans. On September 27^th, in his hometown of Tupelo he performed a benefit show which drew 12,000 attendance. On October 17^th, his movie, Jailhouse Rock, premiered in Memphis. Nine thousand fans attended a concert at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles on October 29^th. On November 10^th, Elvis performed at the Honolulu Stadium to 14,963 fans. His recording of Jailhouse Rock remained at number one on Billboard's "Top 100 Sides" chart for six weeks.

At the height of this early fame, Elvis received "greetings" from "Uncle Sam." His army draft notice was personally delivered to Graceland on December 19, 1957. On March 24, 1958, he reported to the Memphis Draft Board, was processed into the United States Army, and boarded a bus for Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas. Four days later he traveled with other recruits to Ft. Hood, Texas, for eight-weeks of basic training, followed by an additional fourteen weeks of advanced training as an armored crewman.

Although Elvis approached his army duties with full sincerity and determination, Colonel Parker kept the glare of publicity on his army activities, and others also capitalized, as well. Television comedian Phil Silvers produced a show which included a song called Brown Suede Combat Boots.

In September of 1958, following the death of his mother a month earlier, Private Elvis Presley traveled with his Army unit to Brooklyn, New York, where on September 22^nd, they boarded the USS General Randall at the Military Ocean Terminal bound for Bremerhaven, West Germany. Only two days earlier, youthful fans in Chemnitz, East Germany, rioted because police in that communist country would not allow Elvis' records to be played.

Elvis Arrives at Bremerhaven (Andrea Schröer, Private Presley, The Missing Years--Elvis in Germany (New York: William Morrow & Co, Inc., 1993))

On disembarking at Bremerhaven on October 1^st, he was greeted by hundreds of fans, then boarded a train with his buddies. When the train pulled away from the docks, the words Welcome to Germany, Elvis Presley were seen painted in white letters on the side of one of the cars. They traveled all day through West Germany until they arrived at Friedberg Kaserne, also known as Ray Barracks, twenty miles north of Frankfurt and the home of the U.S. Seventh Army.

Ray Barracks, which had been used by German troops in World War II, contained steel-framed beds, linoleum-covered floors, showers, latrines, a mess hall and a PX. Elvis Presley was assigned to Company D, 1^st Medium Tank Battalion, 32^nd Armor, 3^rd Army Division. He was given field gear, including a steel helmet, water bottle, boots, and assigned to bed 13 in barracks 3707, ground floor, where he found a sack of fan mail waiting for him.

The next morning he attended a gigantic press conference, and for the next three days the army allowed the press and media to roam freely on the base for interviews and photographs, after which the base was closed. His assignment was changed from a tank driver to a jeep driver in a reconnaissance platoon.

A few days after his arrival, his father, Vernon Presley, and grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley, along with friends, Red West and Lamar Fike, arrived in Germany, and moved into the Ritter's Park Hotel in Bad Homberg, near Friedberg. On the day that the base was closed, Elvis was given a pass to visit with his family. Then, on October 7^th they all moved into the Hilberts Park Hotel in nearby Bad Nauheim. The presence of attention-getting King Ibn Saud of Saudia Arabia and his entourage at the hotel must have been disconcerting to the Americans who had no previous experience with travel and with foreigners, so on October 11^th, Elvis moved his family to the elegant Grüenwald Hotel in Bad Nauheim.

The Grüenwald was a nineteenth century hotel with antique furnishings frequented by elderly people visiting the health spa town. Elvis rented four bedrooms, along with another room on the floor below to store his fan mail (and later to house his secretary), and he made special arrangements with the hotel to have his and his family's meals served in their rooms.

On October 23^rd Elvis visited with Bill Haley and the Comets who were giving a concert in a Frankfurt theater. Then, on November 3^rd, he joined the 32^nd Tank Battalion at Grafenwöhr near the Czechoslovakian border for several weeks of maneuvers. In freezingly cold and primitive conditions he practiced his map reading, marksmanship and observation of enemy positions.

Presley's presence in the border area was no secret to the media, and the result was a virulent "anti-Elvis" campaign in the Communist press, which described him as being a "Cold War Weapon," "an advertisement for NATO," and a tool of the West for subverting Communist youth. Juveniles in East Germany were arrested for buying Elvis' records, performing his songs, and displaying his picture. The U.S. State Department wanted him to perform for the troops, but Elvis, who wanted to be a "normal" G.I. and was proud of his army achievements and promotions, refused. It earned him great respect amongst the American public.

It was at Grafenwöhr that Elvis met his first German girlfriend, Elisabeth Stefaniak, visiting her home and taking her to the movies. He called his father in Bad Nauheim every day. On November 27^th he was promoted to Private First Class, and on December 20^th he returned to Friedberg, where he received a three-day pass as reward for his performance while on maneuvers. Elisabeth, with her parents' permission, returned with him to serve as his private secretary and interpreter to deal with the mountains of fan mail. She lived in a room at the Grüenwald and then later moved with the rest of the entourage to Goethestrasse.

The boisterous Americans residing in the ultra-conservative Grüenwald Hotel (Elvis played a piano in the suite and sang with his friends; Red and Lamar were into partying, wrestling and playing pranks) led to complaints from the other elderly guests of the hotel, so consequently, in late December they all moved into a three-storied, four-bedroom, rented house at 14 Goethestrasse in Bad Nauheim, where they stayed until March 1960. The owner, Frau Pieper, agreed to rent the house for 1000 Deutschmarks (then $800) per month, with the provision that she remain in the house, living in an attic bedroom and sharing the kitchen with Minnie Mae Presley.

Elvis rented a piano for forty Deutschmarks per month from a local music store, which he played frequently in the evening. Minnie Mae also played and sang country and western songs. She became friends with Frau Pieper, sometimes going shopping with her, enjoying coffee and cognac together in a local café, having long, mutually half-understood conversations, and fighting over the kitchen. Minnie Mae prepared all of Elvis' meals and tried to learn how to prepare German dishes.

Privacy was particularly important to Elvis, who acquired the services of a dentist who opened his office especially for him in the evening, a hair dresser who did the same, and a local taxi driver who became his chauffeur. Fans continued to gather outside his house, but after the initial excitement, he was able to move about the old town more freely than he could in the United States. For a time he was able to play football with and enjoy the company of the local young people. However, as time passed, it became more and more difficult to avoid the autograph hunters.

He drove back and forth to and from the base in a second-hand Mercedes, often driven by Lamar Fike, or in a BMW which he purchased. The thirty minute drive was followed by routine army duties, his day broken by his return home for lunch simply to avoid the stares and approaches of other G.I.'s in the chow line. He would arrive home at six o'clock in the evening for dinner, then go outside to sign autographs and chat with fans.

His first car in Germany was an old Volkswagen. He owned the black Mercedes, and then, when he returned from maneuvers, he bought a white BMW 507 sports car upholstered in white leather, which had been used by German racing driver, Hans Stuck. The purchase was arranged as a promotional event at a purchase price of half the car's value. Elvis, unable to read the German contract, was later to discover that the supposed purchase was a leasing agreement instead. The BMW dealer demanded the return of the car before he left Germany and was infuriated that Elvis had had the car painted red in August 1959. The car was repainted white, and subsequently red again, and is still making appearances at classic car shows in Germany. Meanwhile, the Mercedes was totaled on New Years Day 1959 by Vernon in an accident on the Frankfurt-Kassel autobahn five miles from Bad Nauheim.

On his birthday, Elvis gave a telephone interview with American Bandstand host, Dick Clark, and on January 16^th he was one of 178 G.I.'s who gave blood to the German Red Cross, the only one to attract significant press attention. German teenagers were reported to have asked a teen magazine if they could purchase his blood from the Red Cross to inject into their own veins.

Elvis Driving a Jeep (Andrea Schröer, Private Presley, The Missing Years--Elvis in Germany (New York: William Morrow & Co, Inc., 1993))

In April Elvis was one of the hosts for an open house at Friedberg Army Base, and on the 17^th he supervised a crew of soldiers sent to Steinfurth to aid the town in erecting a World War I memorial statue. He was promoted to Specialist Fourth Class (Corporal) on June 1^st, and soon thereafter he was hospitalized for five or six days for tonsillitis at the Frankfurt Military Hospital. It was at this time that he learned of his father's planned marriage to Mrs. Davada "Dee" Elliot Stanley.

Later in the month, Elvis received a ten-day leave, during which time he went with his entourage for three days to Munich where he visited the home of a girlfriend, and then to Paris where he partied with his entourage at after-hour clubs. Within days of his arrival in Germany Elvis had begun dating German girls, and during his stay in Germany, he dated many different women, along with meeting the press, giving interviews, and entertaining many visitors at his house in Bad Nauheim for weeks at the time. However, it was only privately at his home, or for some of his army buddies, that he ever performed, consistently refusing to perform publicly, in spite of numerous requests.

The 32^nd Armored Division was moved to Wildfliken near the Swiss border in October for war games, but on October 24^th Elvis was sent back to Frankfurt and hospitalized again for tonsillitis at the 97^th General Hospital. He was under increasing pressure from producers to commit to projects after his discharge, and to elude the ever-present fans at his front and back doors, who defaced his fences and car with messages of love.

In July 1959, U.S. Air Force Major Joseph Beaulieu, along with his wife and family, had been stationed at Wiesbaden Air Force Base, an hour's drive from Friedberg. Through a mutual friend, Elvis was introduced to Beaulieu's fourteen year old stepdaughter, Priscilla, whom he invited to his home in Bad Nauheim for a Christmas party. With her parents permission, Priscilla was thereafter driven and chaperoned several times a week to visit with Elvis.

In December 1959 he began to take karate lessons from the leading instructor in Germany, Jürgen Seydel. On Christmas Day he donated $1,500 to the Landesjugendenheim Steinmuehle orphanage near Friedberg to enable the purchase of Christmas presents for the 115 resident children.

In January 1960 Elvis was again on leave in Munich and Paris, and on January 20^th, he was promoted to Sergeant and assigned to command a three-man reconnaissance team for the 32^nd Scout Platoon of the 3^rd Armored Division.

In February, Minnie Mae and her daughter, Delta, Elvis' aunt, who had gone to Germany to help the family pack, returned to Memphis. His eighteen month stay in Germany was almost over. Late in the month he began the process leading up to his discharge, and the army began planning his departure to avoid any hysterical mobs when he left. On the morning of March 1^st a press conference was arranged by the army for Elvis. The next day he left Frankfurt's Rhein-Main Airport aboard a Military Air Transport Service C-118 with 79 other soldiers bound for the United States. No interviews were permitted.

The following day at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, he was discharged from the U.S. Army. Not only did his younger fans await him in the civilian world, but he had won the hearts of the older generation of Americans. His brief interval in Germany was over. Resuming his career, he, amazingly, never performed outside the United States due to the total control of his career by his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who had his own personal reasons for not wanting Elvis to do so. Indeed, he never returned to Germany.

On May 1, 1967, Elvis married Priscilla Ann Beaulieu in Las Vegas, Nevada. A daughter, Lisa Marie Presley was born to them on February 1, 1968. He and Priscilla were divorced on October 9, 1973, and he died suddenly at Graceland on August 16, 1977.

Elvis had achieved the American dream! He had gone from rags to riches, from barefoot to blue suede shoes. Certainly from the standpoint of career, fame, and fortune, he was successful almost beyond imagination. It was inevitable that his success should profoundly affect his life in many areas, both public and private.

His achievements had also affected the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen. This book likely would not have been written, except for what Elvis accomplished. Yes, it is likely that the research on the Pressler family ancestry would have been done, but the scope of interest would have been confined to those few descendants of Valentine who had a desire to know something of their family's origins.

For those extended family members, whose names had been anglicized to Presley, this unique individual made their family name a part of Americana. It meant that they would have memories of a young man with the same surname performing on black and white television. It meant hearing throughout their lives, the question: "Are you related to Elvis?" It meant heads turning when their name was called in a restaurant, be it in New York, Memphis, or Malibu. It meant the waiter in a pizza parlor, when he heard their name, asking, "Don't you want 'King' size?" It meant meeting the leader of a Bedouin tribe in a remote part of the Saudia Arabian desert who would ask, "Are you related to Elvis Presley?"

To family members, both in the United States and in Germany, who kept the original family name of Pressler, or some variation thereof, especially Preslar, the revelation that they are related to Elvis Presley has been received by an interesting mixture of disbelief, shock, dismay, and excitement. For some of the Pressler/Preslar/Presley family researchers, it was this possible relationship that stimulated their initial interest in the time-consuming hobby of genealogy.

Few people are given an opportunity to change America's pop culture. Few people have the ability to change the pop culture. Elvis changed much about the way we see ourselves and others. He influenced the kind of music to which we listen. He opened the door to many of those entertainment figures who followed him in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond. Elvis made no small contribution to life in America today. It is no small wonder that he is a source of family pride.

Finally, one can't help but ask the question: "What would Valentine Pressler have thought of Elvis Presley?" Allowing for the cultural shock of a 250-year time interval, he might in the end have been proud of his seventh great grandson. He would, no doubt, have seen the irony in the fact that he, a poor Palatine immigrant, would become the ancestor of a person known universally as "the King."

In the end, Valentine Pressler would have probably felt as many in the Presley family feel today concerning Elvis. Though he, like the rest of us, was far from being perfect, there will always be a warm spot in our hearts for him. He knew both life's sorrows and its successes. His time on earth was brief, but his family and millions of people worldwide will never forget him. We are very pleased and proud to claim the boy from Tupelo as our own.

© 1997 Donald W. Presley.   Reproduction of this material for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of Donald W. Presley.  No claim is made to previously copyrighted material.  Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

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