As was usual in that part of the world, Josef Julen bequeathed his house in Findeln to his four children. Since it was bound to be too small for all four of them in the long run, August’s father Severin volunteered to run the farm single-handed and paid out his siblings accordingly. Severin’s wife Veronica was a scion of the Perren family of hoteliers and a truly exceptional lady: She was the mother of twelve children and a shrewd businesswoman and enthusiastic mountaineer. She was also the first woman from Zermatt to climb the Matterhorn. Veronica was also responsible for looking after the four cows the family kept in addition to their 100 sheep. In 1922, the year August was born, she decided to supplement the family’s very meagre income by opening a little teahouse which she called the Findelbord after the plot of land on which it was built. Her clientele were walkers and mountaineers who called in for a mug of milk, soup or tea ­– but not food, as most people took provisions with them in their knapsacks. Veronica’s teahouse was blown away no fewer than seven times in the course of its history, but earned her an additional ten francs a day on average.