The Sunday Memory Drawer - Filling In The Gaps

Like a lot of people these days, I am looking at my own genealogy.  I know a bunch of folks were gifted this past Christmas with those spit kits that can tell you where your ancestry is from.   Indeed, I gifted myself with such a device as I continue to search for all the missing pieces on my mother's side of my DNA. You'll hear all about this here when the saliva results return.

In the meantime, though, I got into a protracted conversation with my childhood best friend Leo over lunch last week.  After all these years of friendship, he still astounds me with his intellect and just might be the smartest of all my pals.  As a former engineer, he has always presented a very thorough and linear method to solving any problem. 

Well, when we started talking about our respective family backgrounds, he naturally had all the pertinent facts on these family search websites.  And, being the friend he always has been, he dove into a couple of them and started to research my family.  I was fascinated by what is out there.   And aghast at some of the specifics.

For instance, you can examine US census records at ten year intervals.   The first time my grandparents (Dad's mother and father) were counted, their birthplace was listed as Russia.   Huh?   Ten years later, the same report listed Poland as their homeland.   One more decade and they came from Germany.

Crazy.

Moreover, my dad's date of birth, always set in the Bronx, meandered across two different years.   Same with one of his older brothers, of which there were three.  I was named after one of them.

I then drifted myself over to some World War II military records.   And then, for some reason, I accessed military casualty records.  This should be no surprise to me.  I knew what I would find.   Of the four brothers all serving their country during World War II, only three would come back.   The one I am named after did not.

I saw it in these records.   And was completed unsettled by the information.  There it was.   My name.   And the letters "KIA."   That's not the car, folks.   

"Killed in action."

The flood of memories and emotions flowed one more time.

My "Uncle Lenny" was killed in the south of France about two weeks before the Nazis surrendered and almost at the same that Hitler bought the big one in the bunker.  I remember when I first saw that date.  How ironic.  So close and yet...   I wondered if anybody in my family acknowledged and lamented that bitter irony.

As usual, nobody said a thing.

Oh, my grandmother would casually mention him in a story.  There was a Purple Heart (I think it was purple) that hung in her living room.  I recall once her pulling some mementos out of a drawer.  There was a small flag that you could hang in your window during World War II and it signified how many in your household were serving in the military.  And there was another hanging cloth that let folks know you had lost a loved one.

Years later, I personally ran across some papers after my grandmother died.  There were several letters from the War Department letting my family know in what French cemetery he was laid to rest.  The actual longitude and latitude of his gravesite was listed.  Not that anybody went to visit it.  Ever.  There were other notes and documents that effectively closed out my uncle's life as far as the military was concerned.  Oddly, the telegram providing the grim news was not saved.  Or, perhaps, it was thrown away in a hailstorm of emotions.

I don't know.  More questions.  And now and forever, no answers.

Another level of confusion pops up.  I think about my uncle's grave in the south of France.  What was the thinking behind this?  Was there any thought to bringing him home to the United States?  I asked my grandmother once and she didn't remember.  Or want to remember?

I once heard a rumor that my mother was dating my uncle before ultimately hooking up with my dad.  When I would pose this query, I'd get the usual wave of the hand.  True?  False?  Or simply "go away, kid?"

Now I did know that my uncle was engaged to be married to a woman named Stella when he died.  I'm in on this intel because my grandmother sent her a Christmas card every year.  I used to write them out for her, so I would use the opportunity every December to do a little fishing.

"You sending a card to Stella?"

Of course.  But little else came.  Except that she was a nice girl and lived in the Bowery.

Like a bum, I asked.

I was told I asked too many questions.  Frankly, I didn't ask enough.

So the non-information continued to flow.  And, ultimately, the number of relatives available for that thought-provoking press conference started to dwindle.  In fact, that whole generation...my parents and all my aunts and uncles...wiped out in one ten year period.  The last generation to succumb mainly due to liquor and nicotine.

This is why I now feel a little lost when it comes to my family roots.  While there is plenty of information to access on my dad's side, even the brilliant Leo ran into dead ends trying to find out anything about my mom and her sister who found up in an orphanage after their own parents died in succession back in the day when there were no antibiotics.  

It is why I spit into a beaker about a month ago.   Will I get to fill in more gaps when those analyses come back?  I hope for the best.   And expect...nothing.

Dinner last night:  Sausage and mushrooms.