His father, a dentist, tore from an office wall a required picture of Adolph Hitler. His mother made prank telephone calls to neighbors whom she knew to be Nazis. When Ernst Floeter was growing up in Germany, these actions made clear his parents’ attitude toward the ruling Nazi regime.

Thus, when Ernst was drafted, he made a secret wish to be captured by the Allies, whom he felt were the good guys in what would become known as World War II. Twelve days after D-Day, Ernst was captured by American troops. From that day he believed he had a guardian angel watching over him.

Ernst was happy to be sent to America. Having seen movies from his wondrous nation, he had fallen in love with America as a boy. Assigned to pick cotton in New Mexico, he was treated kindly by the officers in his prisoner of war camp including German food at mealtime! When, in January 1946, he boarded a ship in New York Harbor to take him back to his homeland, he informed the Statue of Liberty: “I’ll see you again.”

Living in war-ravaged Germany was not easy. He attended photography school, married and fathered a child, but he longed to be back in America.

Ernst, his wife Walburg, and daughter Dorthea, through the sponsorship of an East Lansing church - arrived in Michigan in January 1957. Although Ernst easily found work as a photographer in Lansing with the Norm Shaver Studio, the family moved in 1960 to nearby Grand Ledge, where he established his own photography business. Ernst was loved by all - taking school pictures of children in Grand Ledge, playing his harmonica at musical events, and portraying Uncle Sam in the town’s annual Forth of July parade.