from whence one comes

[Toastedturningtidelegs]

Cherokee indian,french canadian and irish!

[djones520]

My moms side of the family is predominantly Scottish.  My dads side, we got no clue.

[franksolich]

My great-grandfather, obviously, started out life in America mining coal; and as mentioned earlier, the mining companies preferred dwarves, midgets, short men, and boys, as the anthracite coal veins were very thin, and there wasn't much use in tunneling dirt so as to make it so taller men could go through without getting down on their hands and knees.

And so the coal-miners tended to be short, squat Slavs, Hungarians, Italians, and Greeks.  As there were not many short Irishmen, those tended to work aboveground, out in the sun and fresh air.  The sons of Eire also tended to have the desk sorts of jobs, and were paid better than the little guys actually doing the work.

What my great-grandfather resented the most was that these Gaels actually used poles to jab and stick and poke the miners into the tunnels, if they didn't think the miners were trotting to work fast enough.

However, as my great-grandfather had had the foresight to heed the advice of the madman in the jail in Boston, unlike many tens of thousands of others, he was never in debt to the coal companies, and by the early 1890s--he had arrived in 1885--he was working in the mines less and less, his carpentry and woodworking skills becoming more and more lucrative.

And there was the farm.

And there was the boarding-house he had got for his wife.

My great-grandfather worked in the mines as late as before the year he died, in 1938, but it was only a work-as-one-wishes sort of deal, maybe a few days every six months or something, if he was bored.

The sole exception was during the first world war (1914-1918).  There was a manpower shortage, and two of his sons were with Pershing in France, and in that case, my great-grandfather worked because he had to, not because he wished to.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

My great-grandfather had married in 1887, after which he set up his wife in business in a distant town.  This itself caused little or no stir, as it was rare that such people enjoyed the luxury of living together.  However, about a year after the marriage, the local priest counseled my great-grandfather that, despite his loathing for his wife, for the greater good it was obligatory for them to have children.

Children are the future, he was reminded, and the priest was absolutely right.

After which occurred 14 births the next 16 years, eight boys, six girls, and of the fourteen, thirteen of them destined to grow into old age.

In a reversal of the usual custom, it was my great-grandfather who had the children as infants (after weaning, of course) and toddlers, and my great-grandmother who got them after that.  This was because the air was fresher, the land was cleaner, out on the farm as compared with in the city.

And besides, my great-grandmother was a very busy woman, running a boarding-house that never lacked for guests, and there was a whole lot of back-breaking work to do with that.

At first, my great-grandfather had hired the sister of a fellow Slovakian to help with the boarding house, a giantess of Amazonian proportions who was, apparently, mentally-retarded.....but as strong as an ox.  As things evolved, my great-grandmother was reduced to merely cooking and sewing, as the giantess did all the heavy lifting.

The giantess alas was killed when a hillside trolley-car rolled over on top of her, but by the time of that most unfortunate accident, the older children were 8, 9, 10, and 11 years old, and dispatched to work for their mother.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Of the thirteen children who survived into my own childhood and adolescence two generations later, I met ten of them, most of them several times.  Of the three others, time and chance and opportunity never coincided.

There exists two photographs of the entire family, both of them taken in a studio, one of them in 1910, and the other in 1926.  There are other photographs, but these are the only two in which both my great-grandfather and my great-grandmother appear in the same one.....and even then, they are not next to each other, or even near to each other.

Genetics appear a most capricious thing; myself at 6'3", I am exactly twice the height of this great-grandfather, and even more of that, than this great-grandmother.

Even most peculiar, all thirteen children (out of fourteen; one had died at the age of 5 years) towered over their parents, even as children.  My grandmother was the tallest of the daughters, and she attained six feet; I have a photograph of a wedding, circa 1916, in which she was part of the party.  She is posed with the men instead of the women, simply because of her height.

My own mother was the shortest of the children of my grandmother, at 5'5", all of her sisters and her brother at, or near, 6'.

All the male descendants of my great-grandfather--and there are many of us--are 5'11", 6', 6'1", and 6'2", and one would hesitate, unless one is 6'3" tall, to call any of the female descendants "short."  I have no idea why I am the tallest of the males, by about half an inch, but there you have it.

The shortest of the children of my great-grandfather was a son, who grew only to 5'4", and although born in the middle of the family, was his father's favorite.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Women who kept boarding-houses sometimes, or most of the time, had, uh, dubious reputations, especially if the husband were not present.

However, the most prominent physical feature of my great-grandfather were features suggesting the leonine (my great-grandmother looked pretty much average), and that is seen in the features of each of his then-surviving thirteen children, the indisputable mark of paternity.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

My great-grandfather remained illiterate to the end of his life, as did my great-grandmother.  My great-grandfather was born speaking Slovakian and later learned Dutch.  My great-grandmother was born speaking Yiddish, picking up Slovakian at a young age, and then after coming to America, learned competent English; she preferred however using Slovakian and English so as to communicate with her own children, who knew nothing of Yiddish.

Of the thirteen children, two of them finished the second grade, three more of them completing the eighth grade, two further of them finishing high school, and six of them obtaining four-year college degrees.

These statistics are impressive in this time and place, when considered against the academic statistics of the blue states and blue cities.....and even more remarkable for an immigrant family circa 100 years ago.

What generally happened was the older ones went to work, and ultimately financed the educations of the younger ones.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of the seven sons that survived into adulthood, six of them served in the U.S. Army exclusively, two during the first world war and four during the second world war.  The first two were simply draftees; the later four were officers because of their academic and professional qualifications.

One son served not at all, being classified during both wars as "essential agricultural manpower," which was a pretty good thing, as he was the best farmer in the family anyway.

Of the six daughters, two of them served in the U.S. Navy; and actually, the younger of the two was the first woman commissioned as an officer in that service.  They were both registered nurses (R.N.s), and the elder of the two was also commissioned later.

The younger one happened to be in Manila, the Philippines, in December 1941, and missed the whole second world war, not coming home (from Japan) until October 1945.  The older one happened to be in Seoul, South Korea, in June 1950, and missed the whole Korean police action, not coming home (from North Korea) until August 1953.

I am sure all of the ancients were medalled and decorated for many things or other, but when they were alive, I was courteously hesitant to ask, as none of them ever seemed enthusiastic about "war memoirs" anyway.

to be continued

[RobJohnson]

Frank, this is great!

At first glance I thought it said: My great-grandfather packed his cell (phone) rather then: My great-grandfather was packed into a cell

[franksolich]

The older one happened to be in Seoul, South Korea, in June 1950, and missed the whole Korean police action, not coming home (from North Korea) until August 1953.

This is one thing that has always made me suspicious of generals and somesuch who seem overly decorated.  And I'm not talking about only Soviet generals.

The United States had no military presence in South Korea in June 1950.

But apparently it was a habit then, to assign essentially "redundant" millitary personnel to odd jobs, such as humanitarian work, wherever one could put them.  In 1950, I suppose this particular great-aunt was "redundant," having been in the service since the 1920s, and by then in her late 40s.

There were, apparently, some American military personnel there, but not of the fighting type.

Immediately as the North Korean socialists came over the border, this great-aunt was put in charge of evacuating a large orphanage.  Someone hurriedly painted very large red crosses on the roofs and sides of the railway cars, to show it was carrying civilians, but the train had not even left the station before the North Korean socialists poured into the station, shooting everything and anything that moved.

Smashing in the skulls of little kids.

My great-aunt, being obviously of European derivation, was seized, not shot, as too were about six others, young U.S. military guys in their late teens, early twenties.

There were other Americans in Seoul that day, including a U.S. Army general who, upon learning the center of the city had been overrun, immediately commandeered a large airplane and flew out of the capital to safer places far far far away.  The airplane was very large and could perhaps carry many, but it carried only this general.

This general--one assumes, another "redundant"--was subsequently decorated and well-pensioned, for having made "a heroic stand" at Seoul.  By Douglas MacArthur, no less, who usually knew a fraud when he saw one.

My great-aunt and the other Americans at the railway station were bound, and then set in an ox-cart, and moved north.  Other than my great-aunt, I have no idea the fate of these Americans; probably only God remembers them.

[franksolich]

The children, one supposes, had a reasonably competent upbringing, as none of them ever ended up on the public dole or were known to exhibit any neuroses or psychoses.

As mentioned earlier, after each infant had been weaned, it went from its mother in the town to its father out on the farm, and then later as the children grew sufficiently that they could be of use to their mother, they were sent back that way again.

It did not appear to be a permanent sort of assignment; it rather more appeared that there was much movement, much shifting, back-and-forth, between the boarding house in the town and the farm, as needed.

Of course, no family is perfect, and I am sure there were personality conflicts among the two parents and the fourteen (later thirteen) children, but the only cases of which I was illuminated were that my great-grandmother preferred her oldest daughter, and that my grandmother, the second-oldest daughter (and fifth child), entertained what appears to have been some intense hostility with my great-grandmother.

I have no idea what was up with that.

My grandmother was raised wholly on the farm, which explains why she was one of the two children who only ever completed school through the second grade, while all the rest but one went on much further.

The oldest daughter, the one favored by my great-grandmother, early married an affluent brakeman on the Lehigh Valley railway, but their fortunes declined in life, during which time she evolved into being fat, enormously dropsical, lazy, and of the self-pitying sort.

My grandmother, the second daughter, did not marry until her late 20s, and when she did, it was to a poor hydraulic engineer, a B.S.E., whose fortunes substantially improved in life during their marriage, a marriage and a career alas all too short, but long enough to produce six daughters and at the tail end, a son, my grandmother ending up being a widow much longer than she had been a wife.

But on the whole, if photographs are interpreted correctly, and reminescences were related to me accurately, despite the dislike of my great-grandfather for my great-grandmother, and the feelings reciprocated by my great-grandmother towards her husband, their children appeared to enjoy a childhood and adolesence much better, much happier, than the fates of so many others in that time and place.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

One summer day--this was probably circa 1910--my great-grandmother sent one of her sons to see his father at the farm; she needed a new hole dug for the backyard sanitary facilities of the boarding-house, as the then-current one was getting full.

My great-grandfather questioned this, and went to check.

His curiosity was also piqued by that he had been "getting word" from some boarders that while the food was excellent, it was rather, uh, skimpy.

My great-grandmother purchased most of the groceries from the Irishman O'Fallon, who was also in the saloon business with the Irishman Cavanaugh.

O'Fallon, the grocery-dealer, and Cavanaugh, the full-time bartender, had the usual standard customary saloon, where beer was five cents a glass and free lunch included.....six days of the week.  On the seventh day, payday for the coal-miners, beer was twelve cents a glass, and no free chow.

My great-grandfather exploded when he noticed the outhouse was packed near to the top of the hole, with rotten and rancid produce and other groceries.

What had apparently been going on was that O'Fallon, accurately perceiving my great-grandmother as just an illiterate naif not acquainted with the ethical practices of merchants in America, had been for some time loading old produce and rotten groceries on my great-grandmother, who had no idea she could protest.

She took what she got, and dealt with it the best she could.

After making arrangements for a new hole to be dug, my great-grandfather went to visit O'Fallon.  My great-grandfather did not patronize saloons, preferring his home-made winery, and so had never been to the imbibing establishment of O'Fallon & Cavanaugh.

It took him a while to find the place.

O'Fallon and Cavanaugh were standing at the bar, counting the day's proceeds from a cigar box that served as the cash-register.  They looked up in startled unison when suddenly, the front door burst open and off its hinges, and they were confronted with the apparition of a very angry dwarf.

My great-grandfather, remember, was powerfully muscled, and it was always a good idea for one to leave him alone, even if one was two times his size.

O'Fallon and Cavanaugh stared in open-mouthed astonishment as my great-grandfather knocked down, and even broke, chairs and stools, shouting at them, "YOU CHEAT MY WIFE!  YOU CHEAT MY WIFE!," interspersed with hearty obscene scatological curses in Slovakian and Dutch.

Seeing the cigar box with all its coinage and currency, my great-grandfather seized it, dumping its contents into a wooden keg that served as a spitton; a keg that had not been emptied for some time.

Then, before leaving, my great-grandfather scornfully watched as O'Fallon and Cavanaugh got down on their knees, frantically trying to retrieve the coinage and currency sinking to the bottom, their arms up to their shoulders in the spittle.

to be continued

[franksolich]

When I was still a little lad, beginning this "project" of learning about those who had come before me, I operated under the apprehension that time was running out, the well was drying up, and so it was urgent that I see as many ancients as possible, to wring them dry of information.

Of course, as a little lad, the ancients seemed ancient, but actually I ended up having circa twenty-five years.....but there was another problem.

The next-to-the-last daughter of my great-grandfather died at the age of 74 years; she was the first one to go, other than a long-ago five-year-old older brother.

This was the ancient who had been held prisoner by the North Korean socialists 1950-1953, and they obviously worked her over well.  In her prime, she had been 5'11" tall, but by the time I knew her, she was only slightly more than half that, in the shape of an upside-down "L."

Before then, I had, and since then, I have, seen all sorts of human grotesquities, but I do not recall seeing anyone who was nearly-perfectly at a 90-degree angle.

She walked with a cane, permanently in that angle.  The first time I saw her, she was feeding ducks at the farm, and unusual for ducks, the ducks actually beamed sparkling smiles upon her, as if they were very happy she was there.

After being released by the North Korean socialists in the last half of 1953, she returned to White Haven, to the farm, which was inhabited by a widowed older brother of hers.  Once there, she never left the farm, and we are talking more than three decades here.

She was however not isolated, given that the farm was a popular place to congregate, and so there were always other people around, everyone from her peers visiting to kids "camping" on the grounds for a few days.  And because she was who she was, if she needed someone, that someone came to her; physician, priest, businessman, attorney, the Internal Revenue Service, &c., &c., &c.

She was the only ancient, the only child of my great-grandfather, who died lucid.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

All of her brothers and sisters lived into their 80s and 90s, but by the time I was about 12 years old, I noticed something disconcerting, starting with my own grandmother.

The onset of senility, which was explained to me; ordinary run-of-the-mill average standard senility (i.e., not Alzheimer's or something like that).

I imagine this was something renal, whatever it was that caused this petrification of the cerebral cells, as kidney problems ran in this particular branch of my ancestry.

Ordinarily, one would worry, but one has to remember that, unlike the primitives on Skins's island, such senility arrived only after the ancients became truly ancient, very old.  And if one is very old, in his 80s or 90s, naturally one is going to deteriorate.

Throughout my adolescence, the ancients had "good days" and "bad days," but by the time I had graduated from college, there were only "bad days". 

Even after the hopelessness of senility became clear to me, I tried desperately to vaccuum the ancients of information, hoping to find some "key" that would give me at least a brief glimmer of what was going on their memories, behind that Iron Wall.

One December afternoon four years after I had graduated from college, I essayed to see one of the ancients, an older brother of my grandmother.  I had met him several times many years before, and he had been more than animated.  He was a retired CPA (certified public accountant), and even though most of his working life he had a desk job, he remained muscular, solid, firm, steady.

He was living with his daughter, an R.N. (registered nurse), in the same town as my grandmother.  I was cautioned that he was "no longer here," but I insisted upon seeing him anyway.

It was one of those customary winter days in northeastern Pennsylvania; snow on the ground, all grey, and the temperature just high enough for drizzle rather than snow.  Mid-afternoon darkness.

As his daughter worked, there was a "home health care aide" at the house who, having been forewarned I was coming, let me in.  She introduced me to the ancient, who physically looked hale and hearty, still strong, but who indicated by no signs or words that he knew I was even present.

He simply sat in an upholstered chair, the only movement being the modest up-and-down of his chest as he breathed in steady rhythm, his unseeing eyes gazing ahead.

I held his hand and silently watched him for two hours, hoping to grasp something, anything.

The room got darker and darker, but as light apparently bothered him, the only light was from the lights on the Christmas tree.  I wanted so badly to catch something, anything; I wondered if he understood that my grandmother, a younger sister of his, was dying (which was why I was in Pennsylvania, and in fact my grandmother did die late in the evening that same day).

One of his grandsons, a guy my own age, came there about suppertime, to take over from the outside help, and because I thought I should be back with my grandmother, I took my leave, gently kissing the ancient on the forehead.

I so badly wanted to know what he was thinking about, behind that Iron Wall.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

On a summer day, when my grandmother was seven years old, she and her five-year-old brother took a stroll away from the farm, through the forests.  My great-grandfather was doing casual labor at the coal-mines that day.  The two children had been instructed to not leave the farm, but being children, well.....

They saw smoke rising from a faraway ravine, and rushed over to look at it.

There were adults burning a whole lot of stuff (I have no idea what), and the fire although very big, was well under control; apparently just a normal standard everyday burning job.

The ground was wet.

My grandmother, being slower than her younger brother, stopped at the edge of the abyss, so as to look down.

Her younger brother, running, slipped on the wet ground, and then slid down the side of the ravine into the midst of the flames.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The adults at the site scrambled to save the boy, at great peril and actual injury to themselves.  He was extracted and carried to the barn.  Someone dashed to White Haven to get the physician and the priest.  My great-grandfather was far away, deep within the bowels of the earth, and would not return until late evening; there was no way to get a hold of him.

Telephones were rare, but the pharmacist in White Haven had a line to the pharmacist in Freeland, 15 miles away, and a message was conveyed that my great-grandmother must come as quickly as possible.  There were three or four different languages used, and by the time the message reached the latter town, the word "widow" was used, insinuating something entirely different had happened.

The boy was laid on a blanket gotten from the house.  His hair had been burned off, his eyes burnt out, and his flesh melted, but incredibly he still survived, although it was the fervent hope of all that God would take him away quickly.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

My great-grandmother, who had not been to the farm since the morning after her wedding, and operating under the assumption that she was now a widow, went to the local livery stable to rent a horse and carriage, a boarder coming along to translate.

At the time, the anthracite coal regions of northeastern Pennsylvania were served by trolleys, trams, and "interurban" railways winding and curving up and down the mountains and through the valleys.  This was the way the children of my great-grandfather, when going from the farm to town, or from town to the farm, traveled, it being a five-hour ride.

The stable owner, who knew my great-grandmother, but had never rented anything to her, was dubious.  It was not that she would run away with his property, but it was noon, and all he had available at the moment was a light two-seated carriage rented for courting and wooing, and a single horse more suited for heavy drayage.

The horse was too much for the carriage, or the carriage too little for the horse.

Not to mention my grandmother had never driven before, and all she had with her was an eight-year-old son, familiar with animals on the farm, but not with reins.

The stable owner however hitched the horse to the carriage, and giving the boy some quick-hurry-up lessons on the reins, sent them on their way, saying that as soon as one of his own men got back to the stable, he would send him chasing after them, to take over. 

Road-maps not being invented yet, the boy at the reins headed for the farm following the only route he knew, that used by the trolleys, trams, and interurban cars.  The problem with that was that such lines zig-zagged and back-tracked through the mountains and valleys, and so rather than 15 miles, one went about twice that distance, from town to the farm.

Fortunately, after less than half an hour of jolting, jumping, swerving, bouncing, the carriage was met by one of the hands from the livery stable, driving a milk-wagon, who recognized both the horse and the carriage, but not the passengers, and hailed it.

The situation explained, the livery hand pointed out the boy was going the wrong direction.  The man took the reins to the light carriage and its enormous horsepower, and sent the boy back to town, driving the milk wagon.

The physician and the priest were in the barn when my great-grandmother alighted, still having no idea that the situation involved a son of hers.  She had no idea who, or what, the physician was, and was perturbed at the sight of the priest.

My great-grandmother, from her arrival into America until her death, was a practicing, but not a baptized, Roman Catholic.  It was never exactly clear to her what she was doing, and of course given her childhool experiences as a Jewess in an area dominated by Roman Catholics, perhaps there was a mixture of fear and contempt.

The physician, she obtained the idea he was that, because of the carriage outside the barn with what was obviously medical things.

The physician and the priest escorted her into the barn.

No one ever had any idea, what my great-grandmother thought when seeing her son.

She could not hold him, as there was nothing that could be held without falling off.

She collapsed onto the blanket-covered straw, weeping and wailing and touching her son.

The physician had some hours ago administered morphine that was judged sufficient "to kill an ox," but the boy would not die, his reddened and bloodied chest constantly heaving up and down.  Eyeless, he could not see, and his tongue having been burned out, all that issued forth was choking sputtering groans.

For fourteen hours, the boy stubbornly lived, until his pain and agony was surrendered to God in the middle of the night.

to be continued 

[franksolich]

During which occurred the event first described at the beginning of this story, where the neighbors had locked my great-grandfather in an outbuilding, lest he see his dying son. 

Their Old World peasant sensibilities had perhaps cautioned them that while my great-grandmother could endure being with her son, my great-grandfather had not the emotional and spiritual strength to survive it.

There is a vast difference between the sight of someone still living, in great agony and pain, and someone who has been released from this time and place.

My great-grandfather entered the barn, and stood silently as his wife got up.  Taking one last look at her son, she stoically walked past her husband out of the barn, and went to the house to clean up.  It was still dark, but the summer sun was going to be coming up soon, and after the first light began showing, she and the livery hand boarded the carriage and slowly went back to her own home.

This was only the second time she had ever been to the farm--the first time being her wedding night--and was to be the last time until about 30 years later, after my great-grandfather had died, when she returned to live out her life there in comfort and security provided by that son she was then carrying inside of her.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Nearly all of this I got from people other than the ancients, generally immediate descendants of those who had seen the boy slide into the conflagration.

As a little lad, I had been warned by my parents to never, never, never inquire of the ancients, but by coincidence of geography and timing, I had ended up being a descendant of these others, from the family of my mother's father (my great-grandfather and great-grandmother as described here, remember, were the family of my mother's mother).

One time when I was still young, and my grandmother was declining into senility, I did pose the question.  Her eyes snapped wide-open, and she made a sign of the Cross.  It for some reason was a disturbing sight, after which I decided my parents were right, that it was not decent and civilized behavior to mess with weakened minds of old people, and so thereafter never even tried.

There had been, apparently, circa 30-40 people who actually eyewitnessed the event, and perhaps a hundred more who had been at the farm when the boy was still living, but dying.  It had a powerful impact upon such people.

The first part of the last century was a dangerous time to live, and to work, especially in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania; miners crushed by cave-ins, miners smothered by poisonous gases underground, trainmen blown apart by boiler explosions, trolley-bridge outages, those sorts of thngs.

But those were things that usually, one only ever heard about, and not seen first-hand and up close.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

My great-grandfather had left the Carpathian Mountains a long time ago by now, and having left it at a young age, it is doubtful he had ever learned the ways of his people who had given him life, and so it was only by instinct that he did what he did.

The child had to be buried by sundown, and it was very early in the morning.

My great-grandfather proceeded to build a coffin with his own hands, as God and tradition had compelled, so that the father could atone for any sins, advertent or inadvertent, he had committed against his child.

By mid-morning, all was done, and the coffin loaded onto the back of a light-weight farm-wagon, after which my great-grandfather led the horse through the forests, to the cemetery at White Haven.  He did not ride; only the dead were to ride, while those still living walked on foot.

His coming was spotted by passers-by on the road, some of whom rushed to notify the priest, who was at the cemetery when my great-grandfather arrived.  Word of the tragedy had long ago reached all in the town, and a grave had already been dug by unknown others to receive the coffin. 

Those inhabitants of eastern European derivation had understood, following the customs of the time, this was to be a private funeral, with only the chief mourner and the priest present, someone with a shovel standing at a distance, out of sight, until father and priest left.

But the ways of the Carpathians were not the ways of the German farmers.

As the priest began the service, there appeared 10-12 neighbors of my great-grandfather, who stood atop a ridge at a distance, following in unison the words and instructions of the priest.

The priest delivered a sermon, in Slovakian, to my great-grandfather, and seeing this audience, repeated the same sermon, in German, for them.

The "theme" was that it was a Mortal Sin to lose hope, as when one lost hope, one was denying the Power of God to heal, and thus denying God.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Some days later, after which the event as described in the first part of this story, the destruction of the farm.

While it was okay to have all the children there, my great-grandfather did not wish to live under the roof of his wife, and so took accommodations at another boarding-house in that town, sometime later moving to a second boarding-house back in White Haven.

He and my great-grandmother were to have four more children over the next five years after the tragedy, but nearing middle-age, the bloom was off the romance.

My great-grandmother's hair, dark black, despite that she was only in her late 30s, shortly after the tragedy, turned grey.  My great-grandfather to his death kept his dark black hair, he slowly starting to look younger than her.

My great-grandfather never again went out to the farm, but as it was a good farm, he rented it to German tenants.

It was shortly after my great-grandfather had returned to White Haven that the Dutch-speaking insurance salesman visited him.  They had hung around much--once a week--in past years, as youths growing through their 20s, but time had altered their association, and collection of the three-cents-per-week premiums changed.

His visitor had three forms for my great-grandfather to fill out.

Now, my great-grandfather had never understood exactly what it was, for which he was paying three cents a week multiple times, on himself, his wife, and each of his children.  He appeared to have a very vague notion that he was to get some "benefit," but not for many years, even decades, or even at all, in which case those who survived him would get them.

In his earlier years, he had humored the Dutch-speaking insurance salesman, now also a banker, by buying, and paying on, such policies simply out of fear that he would lose his Dutch-speaking companionship.

My great-grandfather, being illiterate, could not fill out the forms himself, and was even puzzled as to what they were.  His Dutch-speaking friend explained things to him, and sent him to the priest, who was literate, to ensure the forms were accurate.

Which was done, and some weeks later arrived three checks, each in the amount of $500, in payment on the policies he had held on his late five-year-old son.

In a time and place where anthracite coal-miners were fortunate to earn $400 a year--provided there were no layoffs, no shut-downs--my great-grandfather was suddenly a rich man.

After which he became pursued by every gold-digger, every fancy lady, every painted woman, even decent and civilized women hoping to escape desperate poverty.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Now, my great-grandfather was a dwarf, and he knew it, and so was little susceptible to the wooings of harpies and floozies, but in any case there was little time for that.

Shortly after delivering the son she had been carrying at the time of the tragedy, my great-grandmother came down with typhoid fever, and had to be sent away.  The ancients disagreed how long she was gone, some recalling half a year, some three quarters of a year, some a full year.

So my great-grandfather was compelled to leave his temporary quarters in White Haven, going to Freeland to run his wife's business.

Everything was in good order, but he already knew that before he arrived, as the boarding-house had long ago stopped costing him money, and his wife had even managed to start banking some revenue.

At the time my great-grandfather arrived, there were three employees of the boarding-house, one garden, and chickens. 

My great-grandfather decided his wife too modest, and immediately set out to expand things.  He and his older sons built an annex to the boarding-house, to serve as private quarters for his wife and whatever children were with her.  For years and years, they had slept in the kitchen and parlor, so as to save beds for paying customers.

He added a second garden, and pigs.

And a stable--the family owned no horses, but there was a shortage of places to store horses owned by other people overnight.

The payroll increased from three to six, one of the additions being a Magyar lad thought slow but who was just deaf, to take care of the gardens, livestock, and stable.  This son of Hungary eventually became the first automotive mechanic in the town, and his descendants wax fat and prosperous to this day.

When my great-grandmother came back, there was nothing for her to do.

My great-grandfather again left for White Haven, taking three of his children with him.  He told his Dutch-speaking banker-insurance agent that he was tired of building things for himself.  He was happy to build things for other people, because it produced money, but for himself, he would just as soon buy things ready-made.

So he obtained a house in White Haven, six rooms, and with a concrete foundation, which at the time was a rare luxury.  Very soon there was a veranda encircling half the house, trellises, rose bushes, tulips, croquet, brick sidewalks, and porch-swings.  Without realizing why or how, my great-grandfather had inadvertently created small-town Ohio or Platte River Nebraska in the midst of the coal-fields of Pennsylvania.

This was the house that the younger half of his children remembered.

to be continued 

[franksolich]

It was in 1926 that my great-grandfather and great-grandmother last saw each other; he was in his late 50s, and she in her early 50s.  The occasion was some sort of all-family thing for the youngest child, a girl, in the family, who had graduated as an R.N. (registered nurse) and joined the U.S. Navy, and was now headed for the South Seas.

All the other children had been married, and gone onto occupations different from in which they had been raised.  There were lots and lots of grandchildren, too, who spent much time with either their grandmother in Freeland, or their grandfather in White Haven.

My great-grandfather began worrying about the future; this after all was long before social security and other retirement plans.  One of his sons, the son who had been born shortly after the tragedy, had a desire and talent, but no funds, to go into farming.

My great-grandfather, who had rented the farm to German tenants, after the lease was over, deeded the farm to this son, with the provision that he "pay" for it by taking care of his mother in her old age.

The Great Depression descended.

My great-grandfather had nothing to lose, and so lost nothing.

My great-grandmother, feeling the burdens of age and now assured a place, sold the boarding-house business in Freeland, but both the buyer and the bank went belly-up, leaving her with nothing to show for 45 years of labor.

She moved out to the farm, where she was kept comfortable, happy, and healthy.

My great-grandfather died in 1938, his last words--in Slovakian, of course--reaching out to his long-ago mother who had been dragged to her death.

My great-grandmother died in 1943.

They were buried in the same cemetery, but at opposite ends.

the end