Thanks all. I really don't need consolation. I just wanted to share him with some people I know who didn't know him. To celebrate him a little.
Stray, in college I interviewed my grandparents for an anthropology class. It was a little food history paper. Ask your GPs what types of food they grew up on, how things were different then. Food and families are a good mix - they'll get talking about all sorts of stuff.
littlek,
Were your grandparents born here, or did they immigrate from Italy?
The reason I ask is, I have to admire people who come over from another country, learn the language, integrate into a whole new culture and manage to make a go of it!
Especially, say, back in the 1940's or so. It wasn't so easy for people back then to just hop on a plane and go, like it is today.
My great grandparents (both sets of my granparents' parents) came from italy. They all came from the same town in tuscany. My grandparents lived in different states (MA and IL), but the italian immegrant grape vine was thick. They knew of each other before they met. My grandfather's sister married a man from yet another state (NY) who came from a different town in the same valley in tuscany.
Even now, 3 generations later, there is collaboration between italian families who's members met decades ago. My cousin married a man who is a vetinarian. He has been asked to come work for a business owned by the grandson of an immigrant whom my grandfather's family helped immigrate here.
We still have family - FAMILY - in Italy. Many of us have been back to visit with those who's parents stayed behind. My great grandparents siblings who stayed there. I can actually see that they are family, not that we look alike, but we almost think alike. It's very weird.
So, the initial immigration of my ancestors happened at around the turn of last century - right around 1900. My grandparents were born here in the teens. Through their histories, I know what old chicago was like and that worcester was once largely rural.
Hmm...if they came over in 1900, they must've passed through Ellis Island. Have you ever been to Ellis Island, littlek? If you haven't, it's really worth a visit. It's a fascinating place. They recently renovated it -- one of the biggest renovation projects New York has done in recent years.
You walk into this big "gallery" area, which is where the immigrants would sit waiting for the immigration officer to question them. (He'd be up front at this podium sorta thing.) He'd ask them a few questions about where they were from. The questions were easy, but rumors had gone around among the immigrants that the questions were very hard, and if you didn't answer correctly, you'd be sent home.
Imagine these people with their few belongings sitting there, not able to speak English, worrying that they were about to "tested" and if they "failed," they'd be sent back!
They said that the locals would sit in the balconies overhead and watch the immigrants go through this process -- like a form of entertainment!
The real test came when they had to go upstairs for the second part of the process. The immigrants had to walk up two or three flights of stairs, and there was a doctor stationed at the top of the stairs. They put the doctor there so he could watch as the people walked up the stairs. If he saw anyone who was having difficulty or breathing hard, he'd pull them aside and examine them. (If you were sickly, and therefore unable to work, you'd be sent back home!)
They also have a gift shop area, that has a computer set up to trace your family tree. If you know where your grandparents, or great-grandparents are from, they can run their names through the computer and trace their ancestors for you. Pretty cool, huh?
I have not been to Ellis Island, though I do know the old stories. Funny enough, my italian ancestors kept their surnames intact, but my british ancestors had theirs truncated. We got cheesy little certificates with our family members' names on them from the island gift store, no doubt.
Do you have family who came over then?
Thanks for sharing those memories littlek. Very touching.
I was only able to get to know one of my grandparents, and always wondered what stories I missed out on.
And, even after years of knowing my grandparents, I still ownder what stories I've missed out on!
Moral: don't take your grandparents for granted. Ask questions, write down details........
Yep.
My F-I-L is putting together not only his own family's history but sozlet's, which means my history -- he's doing great work.
All kinds of fabulous stuff surfacing though, census forms from 1910 and 1920, interesting misspellings of my very unusual (maiden) name, information that my paternal great-grandfather was Russian but my paternal great-grandmother was Austrian, which I hadn't known (all I knew was "from a small city just outside Minsk", which I guess was just my great-grandfather)... lots and lots. Amazing what you can find on the Internet these days.
No, wait, Minsk was my grandmother -- so my grandfather was half Russian and half Austrian, my grandmother was I think all Russian.
I love that stuff. But, I can never remember even the names of all my living relatives. I know the faces like I know my own, but names? Nope. So bad. Big hugs, kiss-kiss, how is your artist daughter? Does your son still teach? But, I won't be addressing them by name. Terrible.
Oy, names. I sort of have an excuse, but not really. I'm terrible, too.
My most recent ancestor who came over from Europe would've been my great-great grandfather who came over from Germany. But that was in the late 1800s, so I think his arrival probably pre-dated the whole Ellis Island thing.
Another cool thing to check out the next time you're in New York is the Immigrant Museum, which is on the Lower East Side (I think it's on Houston Street, but I can't really recall offhand).
It's a tenement apartment building, and they researched the families who used to live there. They've recreated each apartment to look like it did when each family lived there. They used the memories of people who grew up there to do the recreations. (One is from the 1880's, one is from the early 1900s, one is from the 1930s, etc.)
There was an Italian family who lived there in the 1930's, and they recreated their apartment, using the memories of a woman who grew up there. She recalled how tough it was during the Depression, but they managed to have some happy times in spite of it all. The tenants shared what little they had, and they all looked after each other's kids. They also got a small wooden "relief" box from the government once a month.
She said one of the things her father missed the most about Italy was having his own little garden. So one day, he took one of the wooden "relief" boxes and planted flowers in it. He used it for a window box. The flowers were the trailing sort, and they grew up around the windows, framing them. The museum people had recreated that.
That really touched me, seeing those flowers framing the window in that little tenement apartment....
Stray - that sounds like a wonderful museum.
My father's family history is older here, but I am not sure by how much. His father had a rift with his family and had cut ties. It was around the time of prohibition that this happened. We thought maybe that caused the rift - seems silly to me. Anyway, someone else had compiled a book of info which incorporated our family name and history, but it was someone we never knew - a distant relative.
It's such a complicated piece of geneology that I can't quite follow it. I do know there's a town in MD named after a relative on my dad's side. And that our name used to have a Mc or Mac in front of it. But, not much else.
