This week's podcast episode features Mark's mother, Karin Candelaria as they spent Mother's Day together visiting, cooking, sharing stories, and recording this podcast episode!

Karin shares the story of her dramatic childhood leaving everything behind to flee their home in East Prussia, Germany during WWII. The family then spent many years in hiding on farms in the Baltic Islands, then their journey continued to a refugee camp in Munich, then in Mannheim.

One day in her late teens, Karin met Don Candelaria, who was there with the Army, at the town's cultural center just a couple months before he had to return to America. The following year, when Karin was 18 she moved to Calgary, Canada and got a job as a nanny, which helped her learn English. All the while, her and Don are still writing letters. About two years later in 1959, Karin was persuaded by Don to take a Greyhound bus to Durango, CO for a visit while she was on summer with the family she worked for in Idaho. . . well the rest is history, listen in to hear what happened from there in her incredible life story!