LJ Idol, Season 9 - Week 13
title: The Stories We Tell
topic: open topic
(note: this is actually non-fiction)
This is the story my mother tells:
When he was thirteen, her father - my grandfather - fell off a train.
He had left Lithuania with his mother and older sisters to come to America. (His father and older brother were already in New York, in the tiny upstate town where my mother grew up. His younger brother and younger sister were not yet born.) Somewhere between Vilnius, where they had lived, and Rotterdam, where they were to board the Finland, the ship that brought them to Ellis Island, my grandfather fell off the train. His mother - my great-grandmother - went to the conductor to tell him to stop the train. He didn't, of course. She and her daughters and the woman who was traveling with them (nanny? governess? she did not come to New York, in any case) disembarked at the next town.
How were my grandfather and his mother and sisters reunited? How did they get to Rotterdam in time to board the ship? Where was he standing that he fell off? How was he not killed? My mother doesn't know. She can add some details and speculation, but she doesn't know for certain, and so I don't know. I don't know how she even knows this story - did she learn it from her father? An aunt? Her grandmother?
I only know this for sure - when he was thirteen years old, my grandfather fell off a train.
One of my mother's aunts was a cab driver, in the tiny town in upstate New York where my mother grew up. One of her uncles, after whom I'm named, was a reconnaissance photographer in World War II. He took pictures out of planes. He married a woman who wasn't Jewish and he died before I was born. This is all I know about him. This is all my mother has told me.
We know the name of the ship that my grandfather and his sisters and his mother took across the Atlantic to New York. We have copies of the whole family's naturalization papers. We have my grandfather's discharge papers from the Army - he joined up in October, 1918, and received an honorable discharge a month later when the war ended. During World War II, he grew a victory garden like everyone else and belonged to the American Legion. My parents used to have his uniform in the basement of their house. They might still.
I have never been told how he met my grandmother. I should ask. I want to know.
This is the story my father tells:
His grandmother - my great-grandmother - was a bar wench.
His grandfather, who was an orphan, was from the area around Warsaw, and as he traveled across Europe towards the Atlantic and ultimately the United States, he stopped at a tavern. The tavern owners had a daughter, and she eventually followed the traveler from Warsaw across the Atlantic to the United States, and she married him. She crossed the ocean by herself. Where were her parents? Where was the man who became (or who had already become) her husband? My father doesn't know, and so I don't know.
But I do know this - my great-grandfather came from the area around Warsaw, and his in-laws owned a tavern, and the woman he married was working there when he met her.
They had two girls and two boys, one of whom was my grandfather. My father told me once that his mother - my grandmother - thought her husband's brother was a Commie pinko, and she wouldn't let him in the house. My grandparents were politically conservative. My grandmother thought Richard Nixon was wonderful because she considered him a friend to Israel.
My father likes to joke that we come from peasants and pig-farmers. We don't. We come from tavern-keepers and small-business owners.
This is the story my mother tells, because she finds it funnier than my father does:
On their first date, my parents went rowing on the Charles River, and my mother sat in front and rowed and my father sat in back and drank the wine.
My mother has been known to embellish a story, to fill in details she doesn't know or just make it more interesting to tell. But my father was there, and if she gets it wrong, he can correct her. And the fact is, they did take a canoe out onto the river on their first date, although I now know it was the Concord and not the Charles, and my mother was impressed enough with my father that she went out with him again.
And this is the story my father tells, because he finds it funnier than my mother does:
When they went out for dinner so my father could tell his brother and sister-in-law that he was engaged, my uncle and aunt congratulated each other.
My parents were introduced by their sisters-in-law, who lived down the street from each other and played bridge together. These are verifiable stories - the story of how my parents met, the story of their first date, the story of who they told and how when they got engaged. Most of the interested parties are still alive, and if I were to ask my aunt for her reaction when she learned her brother-in-law was engaged to the woman she'd set him up with - the woman to whom she had said “In a year you'll be my sister-in-law”, before my parents had even met - she might not understand why I wanted to know, but I could pester her enough until she told me.
I do not have children, nor do I ever plan to. But if I did, what stories would I tell them about their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents? What stories would they tell their children? Would I invent details or share family speculation? Because I would not be able to stop with just When my grandfather was thirteen, he fell off a train.
topic: open topic
(note: this is actually non-fiction)
This is the story my mother tells:
When he was thirteen, her father - my grandfather - fell off a train.
He had left Lithuania with his mother and older sisters to come to America. (His father and older brother were already in New York, in the tiny upstate town where my mother grew up. His younger brother and younger sister were not yet born.) Somewhere between Vilnius, where they had lived, and Rotterdam, where they were to board the Finland, the ship that brought them to Ellis Island, my grandfather fell off the train. His mother - my great-grandmother - went to the conductor to tell him to stop the train. He didn't, of course. She and her daughters and the woman who was traveling with them (nanny? governess? she did not come to New York, in any case) disembarked at the next town.
How were my grandfather and his mother and sisters reunited? How did they get to Rotterdam in time to board the ship? Where was he standing that he fell off? How was he not killed? My mother doesn't know. She can add some details and speculation, but she doesn't know for certain, and so I don't know. I don't know how she even knows this story - did she learn it from her father? An aunt? Her grandmother?
I only know this for sure - when he was thirteen years old, my grandfather fell off a train.
One of my mother's aunts was a cab driver, in the tiny town in upstate New York where my mother grew up. One of her uncles, after whom I'm named, was a reconnaissance photographer in World War II. He took pictures out of planes. He married a woman who wasn't Jewish and he died before I was born. This is all I know about him. This is all my mother has told me.
We know the name of the ship that my grandfather and his sisters and his mother took across the Atlantic to New York. We have copies of the whole family's naturalization papers. We have my grandfather's discharge papers from the Army - he joined up in October, 1918, and received an honorable discharge a month later when the war ended. During World War II, he grew a victory garden like everyone else and belonged to the American Legion. My parents used to have his uniform in the basement of their house. They might still.
I have never been told how he met my grandmother. I should ask. I want to know.
This is the story my father tells:
His grandmother - my great-grandmother - was a bar wench.
His grandfather, who was an orphan, was from the area around Warsaw, and as he traveled across Europe towards the Atlantic and ultimately the United States, he stopped at a tavern. The tavern owners had a daughter, and she eventually followed the traveler from Warsaw across the Atlantic to the United States, and she married him. She crossed the ocean by herself. Where were her parents? Where was the man who became (or who had already become) her husband? My father doesn't know, and so I don't know.
But I do know this - my great-grandfather came from the area around Warsaw, and his in-laws owned a tavern, and the woman he married was working there when he met her.
They had two girls and two boys, one of whom was my grandfather. My father told me once that his mother - my grandmother - thought her husband's brother was a Commie pinko, and she wouldn't let him in the house. My grandparents were politically conservative. My grandmother thought Richard Nixon was wonderful because she considered him a friend to Israel.
My father likes to joke that we come from peasants and pig-farmers. We don't. We come from tavern-keepers and small-business owners.
This is the story my mother tells, because she finds it funnier than my father does:
On their first date, my parents went rowing on the Charles River, and my mother sat in front and rowed and my father sat in back and drank the wine.
My mother has been known to embellish a story, to fill in details she doesn't know or just make it more interesting to tell. But my father was there, and if she gets it wrong, he can correct her. And the fact is, they did take a canoe out onto the river on their first date, although I now know it was the Concord and not the Charles, and my mother was impressed enough with my father that she went out with him again.
And this is the story my father tells, because he finds it funnier than my mother does:
When they went out for dinner so my father could tell his brother and sister-in-law that he was engaged, my uncle and aunt congratulated each other.
My parents were introduced by their sisters-in-law, who lived down the street from each other and played bridge together. These are verifiable stories - the story of how my parents met, the story of their first date, the story of who they told and how when they got engaged. Most of the interested parties are still alive, and if I were to ask my aunt for her reaction when she learned her brother-in-law was engaged to the woman she'd set him up with - the woman to whom she had said “In a year you'll be my sister-in-law”, before my parents had even met - she might not understand why I wanted to know, but I could pester her enough until she told me.
I do not have children, nor do I ever plan to. But if I did, what stories would I tell them about their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents? What stories would they tell their children? Would I invent details or share family speculation? Because I would not be able to stop with just When my grandfather was thirteen, he fell off a train.