Growing up in Bavaria during World War II, Ernestine Bradley came to know wartime dislocations and food shortages, along with the challenges of taking care of her siblings while her mother was ill. The men of her hometown were away at war, but their absence created an exciting unexpected freedom–a freedom she sought again at 21 when she became a stewardess, moved to New York and went on to marry a shy basketball star who played for the New York Knicks.