Last weekend I was supposed to visit Aunt Ginnie and all of her siblings; however, the trip was canceled. In fact, I doubt I'll be able to reschedule it. When I called Aunt Ginnie last week, I was shocked to find out that my Uncle Chet (her husband) had suffered a heart attack while he was shoveling snow and soon after underwent open heart surgery.
I am glad to hear that Uncle Chet is recuperating well, in fact, I'm almost chuckling to myself. Before you think I'm some horrible, sadistic person, let me explain. Chet and Ginnie have been married for over half a century, and even though I've only known them for half that time, nothing about them has ever changed. They've lived in the same house, with the same furniture, and with the same habits. One of these habits has always been to ignore their respective ages. So when my kids visit them, Aunt Ginnie, at age 83, can be found RUNNING during an hour long game of tag on the front lawn. Yes, running, not shuffling or speed walking--running! It comes as no surprise that Uncle Chet, at age 84, would spend his winter mornings shoveling away the heaps of lake effect snow that Chicago has been so kind to usher over to Michigan City this season.
Will everything change now? Will Ginnie and Chet finally slow down?
One thing is for certain, my project may have just changed. Without the final and most substantial interview, I may be left with only a few stories--not nearly enough. And a draft is due next week. Yeah, I'm not freaking out or anything...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Our Extraordinary Mail
Every day in residential America, millions of adults approach small magical boxes located outside their homes and apartments with fear, excitement, and disappointment. This custom ceases to fascinate me. In fact, the daily interaction between Americans and their boxes is so amazing that it must be examined and shared.
The practice of going to the box has occurred throughout my entire life and, as I have been told, it has occurred throughout America for a couple hundred years. It seems that going to the box is inevitable and unavoidable, because otherwise almost no one would do it.
The slips of paper that appear magically in the boxes by the day's end usually seem to have an upsetting quality. The person sent or compelled to gather the paper bundles will shuffle through the paper slips and often display olympic disapppointment. Occasionally, a slip of paper will cause the person holding it to smile, laugh, or even dance. Positive interactions are most likely to occur the bigger and more brightly colored the papers are. This is a rare occurance. Even rarer is the day when no paper bundle is to be found in the box. Oddly, this also has a negative impact on the emotions of the paper gatherer.
Once the papers have been gathered and brought into the person's dwelling, the papers are distributed. Men, women, and children each receive a share of these papers and the emotive quality of each piece of paper never seems to lose it's potentcy. The emotional interactions with the papers keep occuring no matter how many people in the house or apartment touch the papers.
Once each recipient has either throughly examined his or her paper slips or dismissed their contents entirely, the papers are stored. Some people place the paper bundles on bureaus and in desks, or on top of refrigerators and in cabinet drawers. Others throw the entire contents away in waste baskets. Some people cry and burn the slips while others cry and store the papers in shoeboxes. This practice of storing the papers is so complex, but one thing is clear: Americans will do whatever they have to to deny that these paper bundles ever existed.
Once or twice a month Americans will procure magic paper bundles of their own and place them back into the box located outside their residence. Once again, the outgoing papers are interacted with in the very same manner that the incoming papers were.
In conclusion, this look at the magic practice of receiving and sending paper bundles has certainly shown that millions of Americans will subject themselves to daily disappointment despite the terrible odds of ever receiving a happiness-producing paper. Perhaps this ritual is reflective of an overall American tendency to seek out happiness in the most unlikely places.
The practice of going to the box has occurred throughout my entire life and, as I have been told, it has occurred throughout America for a couple hundred years. It seems that going to the box is inevitable and unavoidable, because otherwise almost no one would do it.
The slips of paper that appear magically in the boxes by the day's end usually seem to have an upsetting quality. The person sent or compelled to gather the paper bundles will shuffle through the paper slips and often display olympic disapppointment. Occasionally, a slip of paper will cause the person holding it to smile, laugh, or even dance. Positive interactions are most likely to occur the bigger and more brightly colored the papers are. This is a rare occurance. Even rarer is the day when no paper bundle is to be found in the box. Oddly, this also has a negative impact on the emotions of the paper gatherer.
Once the papers have been gathered and brought into the person's dwelling, the papers are distributed. Men, women, and children each receive a share of these papers and the emotive quality of each piece of paper never seems to lose it's potentcy. The emotional interactions with the papers keep occuring no matter how many people in the house or apartment touch the papers.
Once each recipient has either throughly examined his or her paper slips or dismissed their contents entirely, the papers are stored. Some people place the paper bundles on bureaus and in desks, or on top of refrigerators and in cabinet drawers. Others throw the entire contents away in waste baskets. Some people cry and burn the slips while others cry and store the papers in shoeboxes. This practice of storing the papers is so complex, but one thing is clear: Americans will do whatever they have to to deny that these paper bundles ever existed.
Once or twice a month Americans will procure magic paper bundles of their own and place them back into the box located outside their residence. Once again, the outgoing papers are interacted with in the very same manner that the incoming papers were.
In conclusion, this look at the magic practice of receiving and sending paper bundles has certainly shown that millions of Americans will subject themselves to daily disappointment despite the terrible odds of ever receiving a happiness-producing paper. Perhaps this ritual is reflective of an overall American tendency to seek out happiness in the most unlikely places.
Women and Genealogy
As I began working on my family history project (and I still feel as if I'm quite new to it), I quickly discovered three family members who have done some research in the past. My great-aunt Ginnie was the first person who introduced me so-to-speak to my great-great grandparents Freyer. Through a few lengthy phone conversations and one five hour visit that almost never happened, I discovered within Aunt Ginnie a desire to pass down the stories and facts that she had acquired over the past nine decades. She spoke to me with urgency, yet simultaneously with an immense sadness. "So many things I wished I could have asked your gram, Hidi. You know? Back then, no one ever thought to ask these sorts of things," she said more than once as she drove me through the neighborhood in which she has spent her entire life.
At the end of our visit, Aunt Ginnie pointed me in the direction of her sister-in-law, Caroline (Rebac) Jasch, who has also been practicing genealogy for sport over the past twenty-five years. Though I have yet to see the culmination of her research, it was fun to speak with her over the phone. I think the last time I had spoken with her was as a shy 8-year-old on Easter Sunday. My mother would dress me in these frothy pastel nightmares and in stockings that ran just by pulling them on and then parade me in front of relatives at Aunt Caroline and Uncle Ed's. Aunt Caroline scared me back then. She was always yelling at someone as she filled tables with dish after dish of food I was not about to ingest. I ate a plateful of dinner mints. Now, on the other end of the phone, there was Aunt Caroline yelling, "Ed! Get down, Adolph! Get the damn dog outta here! I gotta get outta this room. Yer Uncle Ed's got the set turned so loud, I can't hear a thing. He's trying to make me watch those shows and I don't want to watch those shows. That's better. Your Aunt Gin tells me you're doing a project. Now, you, see I've got a lot of information over the past twenty-five years. I can e-mail it all to you..." Yes, all of this and I hadn't said a word to her since Uncle Ed had passed her the phone. I could only smile to myself thinking about how little she'd changed.
The third woman in my family who works on genealogy is my great-great aunt Bernice. (I should add that she is not likely a Jasch by blood, but was raised as one, and as far as I am concerned, she is a Jasch). I have never met or spoken with my Aunt Bernice. My Aunt Ginnie tells me that she lives in Utah and has done a lot of work on the Freyer side of the family.
In my family, these three women are the only people who actively engage in genealogical research, either through historical societies, like Aunt Ginnie, through online resources, like Aunt Caroline, or through libraries, like Aunt Bernice. This leads me to believe that genealogy, at least in my family, is a gendered practice. That said, there are many factors that lend this "hobby" (as they define it) well to females. Most of these women spent the majority of their lives raising few to no children, only one that I know of was ever seriously employed outside of the house, and none of them have been employed over the past several decades. Also, my family of origination is very traditional in the sense that there are women's things and there are men's things. The passive practice of passing written and spoken things down from generation to generation has always fallen under the category of women's things, whereas the active practice of hunting and fixing things has generally fallen within the scope of men's things. From this, I will assume that, traditionally, genealogical practices are typically gendered.
At the end of our visit, Aunt Ginnie pointed me in the direction of her sister-in-law, Caroline (Rebac) Jasch, who has also been practicing genealogy for sport over the past twenty-five years. Though I have yet to see the culmination of her research, it was fun to speak with her over the phone. I think the last time I had spoken with her was as a shy 8-year-old on Easter Sunday. My mother would dress me in these frothy pastel nightmares and in stockings that ran just by pulling them on and then parade me in front of relatives at Aunt Caroline and Uncle Ed's. Aunt Caroline scared me back then. She was always yelling at someone as she filled tables with dish after dish of food I was not about to ingest. I ate a plateful of dinner mints. Now, on the other end of the phone, there was Aunt Caroline yelling, "Ed! Get down, Adolph! Get the damn dog outta here! I gotta get outta this room. Yer Uncle Ed's got the set turned so loud, I can't hear a thing. He's trying to make me watch those shows and I don't want to watch those shows. That's better. Your Aunt Gin tells me you're doing a project. Now, you, see I've got a lot of information over the past twenty-five years. I can e-mail it all to you..." Yes, all of this and I hadn't said a word to her since Uncle Ed had passed her the phone. I could only smile to myself thinking about how little she'd changed.
The third woman in my family who works on genealogy is my great-great aunt Bernice. (I should add that she is not likely a Jasch by blood, but was raised as one, and as far as I am concerned, she is a Jasch). I have never met or spoken with my Aunt Bernice. My Aunt Ginnie tells me that she lives in Utah and has done a lot of work on the Freyer side of the family.
In my family, these three women are the only people who actively engage in genealogical research, either through historical societies, like Aunt Ginnie, through online resources, like Aunt Caroline, or through libraries, like Aunt Bernice. This leads me to believe that genealogy, at least in my family, is a gendered practice. That said, there are many factors that lend this "hobby" (as they define it) well to females. Most of these women spent the majority of their lives raising few to no children, only one that I know of was ever seriously employed outside of the house, and none of them have been employed over the past several decades. Also, my family of origination is very traditional in the sense that there are women's things and there are men's things. The passive practice of passing written and spoken things down from generation to generation has always fallen under the category of women's things, whereas the active practice of hunting and fixing things has generally fallen within the scope of men's things. From this, I will assume that, traditionally, genealogical practices are typically gendered.
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