Man behind the marriage battle

Family | Massachusetts constitutional convention and pro-family activists have an opportunity to reverse the status quo | Heather Scarano

"To see this affront happening in our own country was just totally incomprehensible"—Mineau

NORTH READING, Mass.— His first glimpse of the United States came from an airplane above New York City. He was 7 years old and amazed by what he saw: so many skyscrapers, so little rubble. He asked his mother, "Why are these buildings still standing?"

"Because the war never came here," she answered.

It was 1949 and Kristian Scheuermann was on his way to Worcester, Mass., where he would live with his mother Mary and her new husband, American Army Lt. Earl Mineau. Kristian's father had "disappeared" during World War II. His mother married Mineau after he helped liberate the small town of Tützing, Germany, where they lived.

Born in Berlin in 1941, little Kristian knew nothing but leveled cities and bombed-out buildings. When he first saw New York City, he thought to himself, "This must be a wonderful land."