Through the Generations

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What? It was last week? Are you sure?

Hmm, ok. Sorry about that! I've been really busy and fighting a persistent cold-not-quite-a-cold-not-allergies bug and time has gotten away from me.

My sense of time isn't helped by the never ending scenery outside my window. WINTER. SNOW. COLD. The only indication that spring is waiting impatiently in the wings for winter (the over-staying party guest) to leave, is the lengthening day light. And the birds are doing a lot more singing.

I did make the requisite corned beef, colcannon and Irish soda bread last week. I like to braise my corned beef in the oven, not simmered on the stove. It was good but salty. It was a new brand I've not had before and I should have soaked it in cold water for an hour or so before cooking.  Colcannon is an unholy marriage of sauteed cabbage, onions and mashed potatoes with a whole lot of butter, salt, pepper and freshly chopped parsley. I almost felt like I needed to go to Confession after that.

When I was a kid I spent almost 10 years in Irish dance class. Every Saturday and one night a week I'd head over to Mrs. McNamara's house where several kids were taking dance lessons and we'd learn new hornpipes, jigs, reels and line dances. My Mom made me a couple of dancing outfits, my favorite was a teal blue with elaborate embroidery on the circle skirt, chest and yellow shoulder cape which were designs from the Book of Kells.  I danced in the Chicago St. Pat's parade, a number of Irish bars and restaurants (Hackneys!) and after we moved from Chicago to Milwaukee, I danced in the Milwaukee Folk Fest, St. Pat's parade and at other venues. It was a lot of fun.  I also competed in several feis, (pronounced "fesh") which are dance competitions. I outgrew my favorite dress, got a job and lost interest as I moved through high school. I had friends in High School who continued their studies and one went on to do some professional dance work in the Irish dance community.

My Dad took great pride in being Irish. Ironically, he wasn't very Irish. He never knew his father's side of the family, he was the son of a single mother. He had spotty memories of their family and always referred to them as "Buckley" which is an Irish name. My Dad's last name (and mine) was an invention of sorts so my Grandmother could  protect herself from small-town ridicule when she had my Dad...she went from Miss Sorg to Mrs. Adams. Her beau's last name was Adams, but his mother's last name was Buckley. My Dad extrapolated that to his desire to be half-Irish. My Grandma was always very tight-lipped about my Dad's father's family and after she passed, we found very few papers related to his patronage. I know my Dad had always hoped to fill in the missing pieces of his family. His mother's family was German, full of rich names like Harkenrider, Sorg, Landstoffer and Martiney.

After my Mom died, my Dad's health slipped from precarious to dire to doomed. I was with him every single day for over 4 months and when you have that much time with someone, you start to look for things to do. I decided to spend some time researching his family history and through the magic of the Internet and Ancestry.com, I was able to introduce my Dad to his Grandfather and Grandmother, his aunts and uncles but unfortunately, not one of his own father. We discovered where the family lived, where his people came from and about the devout nature of their faith. (They were reform Ana-Baptists, closely related to the Amish in their beliefs but not necessarily adhering to their non-modern lifestyle.)  I was unable to find a photo of his own father, but my Dad was so happy to finally have found pieces to his family puzzle. He learned he bore a striking resemblance to his Grandfather.

My Dad learned that his family wasn't named Buckley, but rather, Buckey which is an Americanized version of the Franco-German Bouquet. One distant relative did hail from Northern Ireland, which pleased him. He learned he had a relative named for Abraham Lincoln. He had another that fought in the war of 1812. He had other relatives who were part of local militia who fought in the War of Independence and further back, discovered a relative who came to the Colonies from England and lived for a time in Plymouth before leaving to found a new community in New Jersey. 

More importantly, he learned that his mother and father weren't permitted to marry because of religious differences. I think my Dad always felt a sense of abandonment, that his father walked away from he and his mother.  My Dad was raised more by his Grandma Mary and for the first few years, Grandpa Mike as his mother worked at the local dairy as a butter stamper. Grandpa Mike died when my dad was almost 6, he'd owned a ditch-digging business and the Depression had been very hard on them. He had a massive stroke one day and that was it. My Dad said he could remember blazing rows between Grandma Mary and the "other" family when they would come to visit, Grandma Mary saying "no one was going to take her Baby Joey away from them!"  Grandma Mary was the oldest of 11 children and no doubt, fiercely protective of her own.

My Dad always said I reminded him of Grandma Mary. I have her sense of humor, her love of food and cooking and no-nonsense approach to life. I never had the chance to meet her, she passed away less than a year before I was born. My Dad sat with her in the hospital as she lay dying. He said she'd had a ruptured appendix and she died from sepsis. She would have been in her early '80s, and up until that time, had never been sick a day in her life.  I have a number of her keepsakes, her china hutch from the 1906 Sears catalogue, her wind-up mantle clock, her own Grandmother's immigrant trunk.  They have always felt familiar to me, as if I'd had been the one to pick them out and use them.

When I researched Mary and Mike's sides of the family, (Harkenrider, Sorg, Landstoffer, Martiney) I discovered the families originated in the French-German area known as Alsace-Lorraine and the Black Forest. Hmmm, that explains my love of Black Forest Torte, Quiche Lorraine, beer, wine, pork in every form and cheese!!

As HB and I were exploring options for a vacation this year, we were looking at a trip to Alaska with some friends who are also celebrating their 10 year anniversary. We discussed all of our day trips and activities and while we would like to see Alaska someday, we just couldn't find enough enthusiasm to engage in activities that either make us seasick, car sick or suffer crippling vertigo. So we started talking about going to Europe. After all the ancestry research, I'm now familiar with names such as Strasbourg and Kehl and Colmar and the Rhine.  We've decided to go on a winter river cruise down the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel.  It intrigues me to no end to know that what goes around comes around. Hopefully somewhere long the way I'll have a chance to tread lightly on my homeland and feel the spirit of my long-ago relatives in the air.