So, What have we been doing the last few days?
We took about an hour and a half to watch the most beautiful moon rise over the ridge.
We got our land plowed and spent time just chatting with neighbors.
We took most of yesterday afternoon up till around 10PM gathering and burning brush and watching how pretty the flames can be. How the darker the night, the more that even dying light shines brightly.
School. My lovely college assignments (hiss) and some really great classes with the kids. Bible class has been especially great and with that I have noticed almost an increase in available time. Funny how when we have puny Bible class, the day flies by with nothing much by way of substance. But, when we have really great Bible classes, the day takes on almost a magical quality. Time seems drawn out so we can enjoy things like the moon and stars coming out, playing together, and still get everything done that needs doing. Pretty cool.
So, ethnic identity? My Aunt seems to identify largely with the Italian American South Philly group. She's the only one I know in the family who seems to have delved into that. I identify myself as Southern American. A vastly misunderstood and diverse group. But as far as where my people came from? Shoot, I'm completely in the dark about it. In talking with a couple of relatives lately, it seems like I had all the facts WRONG about our cultural past. I think we're just American Mutts. There seems to be so much emphasis on this topic lately and not just in college- like since the Clinton administration.
I grew up thinking my Grandpa Carl was German, but he was Austrian British, and his name wasn't actually Carl at all. Not that it tells me anything more than that. I still know squat about his background. I found out that my great gramma Lucy wasn't really sent over here to Pennsylvania by her poor family to escape the pogroms in Poland before WWII, but that she came over here to Massachussets(!) to be a nanny. My religious Dutch ancestors didn't really marry the Native Americans to help them escape persecution, but they were actually river traders, nonreligious, and married the Native Americans because they thought they were prettier than the Dutch women. At least they settled in NC. Though how the other part of the family ended up in South Jersey where my gramma Betty was born, I still can't figure out.
My Great Gramma & Grampa were Mert and Bert. Heehee. They ran a boarding house- I think it was in NJ. She was the Dutch/Native American and he was German. Though, that info might be faulty as well. It seems that Great-Grampa Frank was not just an old alcoholic coal miner from Lithuania, but had a genius IQ and could speak 5 different languages. No wonder he drank. I'd probably drink too if I had to work in those dark, dingy old mines. How did he end up that way??? I may never know. Grr. Ok, so as far as I can figure I'll put it like this:
MOM= her mother was of Northern Italy/Sicily decent; her dad was Austrian/British
pretty basic as far as it goes, right? Well, that's all I've got except her mom's dad may have been of Celtic descent with his red hair and blue eyes. A friend from the Ukraine said a lot of the Northern Italians show those Celtic roots.
Dad: he's got to be split
Gramma Betty: mom:Dutch/ Native American (though my Aunt says there is some Jewish adoption somewhere in the family tree) dad: German
Grampa Stan: mom: Polish (her dad was a burgermeister or something, not rich but a position of prominence in his village); dad: Lithuanian, though a friend from Europe says his name is Polish.
And that's all I know. It might not even be accurate as far as it goes. For some reason I'm stuck in itallics. It's not for dramatic effect; the computer is just being weird and won't let me change it. Fixed? Whew.
So, do any of you know any more? Since I think my audience comprises my mom, one of my aunts, and one of my cousins (;-) maybe one of you can tell me. In the big scheme of things I'm sure it doesn't really matter. I'm just really curious.
Anything else going on? Well, we're just trying to take each day and really live it. Enjoy the fleeting moments of this life with as much peace, happiness, and love as possible. We even enjoyed the sleet last night. You may think we're just easily amused country folks. I choose to see it that we have a childlike wonder for all the really beautiful things that God still blesses this world with. And having lost that before, I am cherishing it for as long as the good Lord allows me to keep it this time.
I hope everyone has a really lovely weekend!!
ttfn
Oh, the image above was taken from my Aunt Judi's BLOG. It's miscelaneous relatives I know nothing about. I'm pretty sure that the two people on the far left (upper and lower row)are my maternal grandparents Carl and Rose Drexler. ;-) And on second look, I think the lady fourth from the left on the bottom row is my great grandmother- I don't know her first name and her last name I can't pronounce, let alone spell. Sbraglia?? She does not look Italian to me, but Jewish. Though the family says there is no Jewish blood on that side of the family at all. Hopefully I'll get introduced to them all in heaven and get to know them there. Now that would be really great! ;-D
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I'm sure Aunt Judi could do a much better job of telling you who everyone is in that picture. I only know the adults there, none of the cousins. But, that's one of my very favorite pictures. And, great-grandma's name was Santa. :-)
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that my dad identified a LOT with being italian. He always has and I in turn have as well. Guess he and Aunt Judi are similiar in that way. Does your mom not think of herself as italian?
I love history, especially family history, so I've always loved hearing stories growing up from my dad and from grandpa or Aunt Anne about their lives. Now I get to fill in some of those blanks with Aunt Judi's blog. She's so knowledgable about a lot of our history. It shows us where we came from and I find it all so fascinating. I wish sometimes that I had been better about asking questions of our grandparents when they were alive and written it down. Don't you wish they had blogs back then?! We could have all that information right at our fingertips. :-)
http://www.abruzzo2000.com/abruzzo/chieti/torrevecchiateatina.htm
ReplyDeleteThat's a website that describes the area from where my mom came. I had written a really long comment, but it erased when I looked up the website, listed above.
My dad was always AMERICAN. He would not recognize that he was German, PA Dutch, or anything else.
My son, Phil, has gone back in both the Drexler side and the Sbaraglia side to the mid-1800s. There is no British on our side of the family. Just PA Dutch (German/Austrian) and Italian, SOUTHERN Italian.
My grandfather Sbaraglia did have red hair, and his family could have come down to Southern Italy from northern Italy, where there are a bunch of red-head Italians, but his family was firmly entrenched in Torrevecchia Teatina Chieti Abruzzi in Southern Italy for many years, at least since the mid-1800s. He got the recessive genes, I guess. No one since has had red hair.
And, if you want to get the scoop on all this you can go back to the real early Runnemede Remembered BLOG items and check it all out.
The picture is the Italian family in 1936. My mother and Father are in the upper left. Aunt Anne is in the picture. Uncle Joe. Aunt Fran and Uncle Howard are on the front row. Missing is Aunt Daisy and her husband. We did build "the family" after that picture and there are many, many more cousins not in the picture.
Lower right on front row is Cousin Micki -- I wrote about her last April. We're going to visit her again in a few weeks, we hope. May not happen. You know how that is--the best laid plans, etc. She's having surgery next week and she's 84. Hip surgery.
You also have a cousin in Bristol TN and another one in Crossville, TN. One of which is in the picture, David, lower left.
If you need more info, e-mail and let me know.
Good report.
I'd love to have more info. I have kin in Bristol?? That's great! I'd really love to start getting together with the various family- especially you! Love ya!!!
ReplyDeleteLOL! I got so much of this wrong, it's crazy. No, Lori- Mama did identify with being Italian and German. I love our Great-Gramma's name!! It would be a nice thing to add that one back in if I had another baby- Santa Snow. heehee! :-)
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to follow your lead and make my mom talk about growing up in Runnemede. Though I don't know if I'll do a whole nother BLOG on it. She's pretty closed-mouthed about her youth. Maybe I can get her to gossip about Aunt Judi and Uncles Mark and Carl, though...
I'm with you, I'd love to know more. How would you feel about a visit from us hillbillies in a few months? Let me know, ok?
Lots of love to you both!!