quote:Originally posted by ClevelandDad:
These stories are wonderful - better than any novel and better than a movie. The stories are like snowflakes in that each one is compellingly different. Very emotional as well. Please don't be bashful, everyone has a story to tell.
I agree and enjoying many similarities. Both sets of my grandparents came through Ellis Island, my father's family also before the Revolution in Russia. The story goes they were wealthy educated people, forced out for religious persecution. My grandfather's family was so rich, they hid jewels in furniture to have resources when they came to America. They all agreed to meet in NY, but somehow my grandfather's family got on the wrong boat and ended in South America. Immediately after they came here, my educated grandfather, without those jewels, found work and immediately went to school. My mother's family were from Poland, but most of her family did not make it to America and most were lost in the holocaust and the rest migrated to Israel after the war. These were stories passed down to us, but from researching the logs from Ellis Island, we found this to be true.
My husband's father led an interesting life. He came from Russia as a baby without his parents. He was raised by his older sisters and brother, in the ghetto in NY and they were very very poor. To make money for the family, his brother became a boxer, like teh boxers you see in the movie Cinderella Man, and very much mixed up with the dark side of the streets of Brooklyn,NY. But they took care of him and saved for his education. My father in law was all of 5'4" and persecuted, he became a sprint runner and won many medals and money from marathons which put him through art school. He was most likely one of the best artists of his time, but out of need he went to work for a dress manufacturer and later became one of the most famous dress designers of the 50's through the 70's. Recently I saw a copy of one of his prints on a dress in Macy's a return to the 70's look. I know it was his because I have the original picture of the dress and fabric.
Part of his job in his very early years was visitng the fabric mills of New England to watch the fabrics roll out which was a very tedious process. During that time he took it upon himself to find bits and pieces of fabric and took them home, gathering a huge collection. This became his hobby and passion and in his twilight years he lectured on early calico and european fabrics. We have fabric dating back to the civil war and from the late 1800-1900's from europe. That was his passion, plus a fascination for Egyptian art, which is a whole other story unto itself.
My husband as a kid had no interest in any of this. But many years after he passed on, we realized that he had aquired the largest private collection of antique fabric in the world. For anyone that has a passion for fabric, this is a HUGE business. My husband copywrited his father's lecture and traveled all over the US for years. I went on many of those trips, it was free travel for us. He has been everywhere from California to Boston and he worked hard at having his dad's own fabric collection named and printed and just recently collaborated on a book about his father and his collection. On our drive to Omaha, we found our way to Paducah, KY where his father's collection had been on exhibition at the museum and sells the book. Paducah is a great trip, filled with lots of history and really nice people. According to PG, there is a gas station there that has great fried baloney sandwiches.
My father in law was very rarely home when son was growing up and he was the only child from that marriage with a very ill mother most of his life. He doesn't have lots of the memories that we all have growing up with brothers and sisters. He played baseball up until HS and very rarely had a parent there to watch. Every spring he would cut school on a regular basis to catch a train or bus to NY to watch Yankee day games, always telling his folks he had a great day at school. There were times he barely got through the HS curriculum and no one seemed to care if he really went to school or not.
When my daughter was born, by 3 he was carting her to every spring training weekend game and then to minor league games. Then our son was born and when he was 3 it began all over again. My son learned to play the game by watching Yankee spring training games and minor league games (I think the team was called the Pompano Miracle before moving to Miami at the time and Mike Lansing was a crowd pleaser) here in Fort Lauderdale. When DK was 10 at a Braves/Expos ST game in West Palm, during a freak at bat by Henry Rodriquez husband was hit in the eye and knocked out cold. He basically suffered the same injuries as JBB's Erik, but has lost partial sight in one eye and it took 6 months for recovery.
During that incident, my son was befriended by Moises Alou who played for the Expos at the time. That friendship had a lot to do with my then 10 year old developing a deeper passion for wanting to become a pro player. His agency is the same as Alou's, it is very ironic how our paths in our lives cross over numerous times without realizing it until later on. I often wonder if that lack of parental bonding (you know how dads and sons bond spending time at games) made my husband obsessed with dragging both of his kids to ball games when still in diapers.