From Munich to a lifetime of friendship: Betsy Goltermann’s JYM journey and the bonds that endured
Betsy Goltermann (JYM 1978-79, Northwestern U 1980) and her husband Ed Momkus took part in the JYM alumni Christmas market tour in December 2024. In addition to enjoying markets in Salzburg, Nuremberg, Munich and along the Teggernsee, they met up with friends that Betsy had made during her Junior Year in Munich. Betsy recounts how she came to study in Germany, her experiences there and how she created lifelong friendships.
As her family name suggests, Betsy’s relatives came to the U.S. from Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century. Her father was an entrepreneur involved in several businesses, including the import of German gift items such as Hummel figurines to the United States. Her mother studied German at Elmhurst College (now Elmhurst University). With a “sense of adventure and confidence that she'd be able to figure it out,” Betsy’s mother packed up her three children and took them to Germany for four weeks in the summer of 1973. That visit would become the first of many for Betsy.
Betsy studied German in high school where she had a wonderful and warm teacher who was originally from Lithuania. When she got to Northwestern University, she developed an interest in her major field, economics, while maintaining her connection to German through a minor. Her teachers were insightful and compassionate and she thoroughly enjoyed reading literature in German. Although she didn’t go to college planning to study abroad, Northwestern had a connection to JYM, her advisors presented her with the opportunity, “and it happened.” Betsy then spent the 1978-79 academic year in Munich.
Upon her arrival in Germany, Betsy moved into one of the new dormitories at the Olympic Village. As still happens today, her JYM cohort took part in an orientation that prepared participants to navigate life in Munich and at the LMU. The JYM resident director, Frau Doktor Riegler–known as “FDR”–made the new arrivals feel welcome and supported while also maintaining high expectations.
Betsy remembers, “Everybody was a little afraid of her.” FDR had “perfect posture” and “smoked stylishly,” which made her seem very classy. “She had standards and let us all know what was required. . . That kind of disciplined approach . . . served the students well. . . she was kind yet stern. It was just . . . this is what we do and this is how we do it and you’re going to do it that way.”
Betsy quickly made friends on the 11th floor of her high-rise dormitory. Friedrich was an engineering student who became a successful patent attorney; Betsy traveled with him and another friend to Venice. Another student, Norbert Frei, went on to become a professor of modern German history. Betsy fondly refers to him as her “famous friend.”
Through another connection, Betsy met Bärbel, who was 14 years older than Betsy and married to a kind man, Werner, who was employed by the Bavarian Department of Revenue. They had a 12-year-old daughter, Stefanie. Bärbel was “very bright and very positive and very fun-loving.” She and Betsy became close friends and they have maintained their relationship through the present day.
After more than four decades, Betsy recalls taking language classes at the JYM offices in the Leopoldstraße and then going from there over to the university with other students where they would try to make their way through courses on German history and economics, “taking notes and doing the best we could with the language. . . I remember it being very hard.” As those of us who have been abroad for a year know, the most palpable memories have to do with the feeling of being abroad for a year: “There just wasn't a lot of anxiety or worry, . . . There was just a lot of optimism and embracing fun.”
In her free time, Betsy enjoyed Munich’s good food and German beer. She had a typewriter on which she composed letters to send home on onion-peel-thin airmail paper. The Munich U-Bahn was newly built and made it easy to get around. She bought a Dirndl and attended Oktoberfest and she loved the English Garden. Bärbel and Werner were big hikers and Betsy spent many weekends exploring the Alps with them. In the fall of '78, the JYMers took a trip to West Berlin, which included a day trip through Checkpoint Charlie to East Berlin. It was interesting for Betsy to see the divided city and experience the “live-for-the-moment” feel of West Berlin.
Betsy was already dating her future husband, Ed, when she left for Munich. He visited her there and they traveled throughout Europe on Eurail passes: “Train travel was so easy . . . and it was always just kind of a fun challenge to see how fast you could do the change, you know, the three-minute connection, oh I can make that, . . . Gleis 14 to Gleis 17. . .. The printed tables were all exact and the trains ran on time . . . it was just really a lot of fun.”
The year in Munich was life-changing for Betsy: “I think learning the second language gave me an orientation around communication in language that was . . . very beneficial in my life. I think that being able to have a perspective other than the US perspective, even though it sounds trite, is . . . priceless in many ways. And then, . . .the independence that resulted from having done this . . . the capabilities . . . were super valuable.”
Recognizing that today’s students face different and perhaps greater challenges than students in the late 1970s, Betsy would tell them that studying abroad involves sacrifice and personal investment: “I think that if you're going to do it, you need to do it really carefully with a program like the Wayne State program, which really is strong on the integration and the support and it's not really just like a semester vacation.”
After graduating from Northwestern University in 1980, Betsy worked in econometrics and data analysis for Data Resources, Inc. She earned her M.B.A. at the University of Chicago’s evening program. From there, she got her CPA certification and worked in public accounting at Deloitte. Eventually, Betsy joined her family's business, KI Industries, Inc., where she held the roles of CFO and CAO. She helped grow the manufacturing business in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan by providing decorative plastic components to appliance and automotive manufacturers. She is now retired from active management in the business but serves on its board, as well as three other boards.
Betsy and Ed married in 1982 and they have three children. By maintaining regular contact with the friends she made in Munich, Germany continued to be a part of their family’s life. Bärbel, Stefanie and Norbert all came to the U.S. to visit Betsy and Ed.
The family traveled to Germany in 2000 and 2010. Betsy and Ed visited Germany in 2013 and 2019 and then for the JYM alumni holiday market tour in 2024, during which they again connected with their German friends. Betsy and Ed also attended a FC Bayern soccer game with Bärbel’s daughter, Stefanie and Stefanie’s family, including her son, Henri. As Betsy says, “JYM starts generations of connections!”
