the death of vocation and the loss of place account for the nomadic living my family has experienced. my grandmother was born in san fransisco with no family history. my grandfather was born on a dairy farm that no longer exists. one of my great great etc. grandfathers died while he and his son (my ancestral father) crossed the river to enter pennsylvania. his son watched him drown. but then i was born in colorado, and my siblings now live in ohio. i have never seen a gravestone bearing my family’s name.
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i love having insane family lore like a family member that died on the titanic (she was 3rd class and moving to the us at 21) and a great grandpa who was in a plane that crashed in the wilderness
my grandpa has a whole room full of archives about our family which I feel like I definitely didn't appreciate as a kid but now think is very cool
Nov 9, 2024
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When my grandma's sister passed away around the time my mom was 10 (this was 1982), her husband decided to not really speak to my grandma's side of the family even though my mom and grandma had a really good relationship with their kids (my mom's cousins) and they didn't really communicate with each other as much, and two of their kids ended up becoming pretty well known (one is a chef and the other does stuff with MSNBC) so now I have famous relatives who I only met once when I was 5. They live far away from me and I'm pretty sure they have no idea who I am, and my grandma's sister's husband lives in my state like 30 mins away from me and runs a doctor's office but I have never seen him in my life for the reasons mentioned above. So yeah I have a whole side of my family I don't really know at all. It's also crazy how my mom just casually told me this.
Through that grandparent I'm also related to another bunch of well-known people who came from a town/city in Slovakia according to ancestry.com (back when it was called Austria-Hungary) who likely have no idea of my family's existence but that's a whole different story
Jul 7, 2024
here are 3 of my most exciting pieces of lore:
1) my dad was in the south tower on 9/11 and he made it out, but was still in the building when the plane hit. the plane went through his office window, but he was already evacuating and on around the 40th floor when the plane hit
2) my paternal grandfather (jewish) was born in austria but his family moved to milan in ‘33/34 when hitler came into power. in ‘44 when the nazis occupied northern italy, his family escaped into the mountains northeast of milan near bergamo (he was about 13 or 14 years old at this point). his family helped smuggle guns to the partisans since they could speak german with an austrian accent and bypass nazi checkpoints. my grandfather had to shoot a fascist at one checkpoint going wrong, and so at 14 he joined the partisans full-on and lived with them until the war ended. i have a bunch of photos from his time with the partisans (attached some). apparently the group he was specifically with was led by this kinda crazy guy who threatened the security of the whole partisan operations, so he was actually killed by other communist partisans. a few years ago i found a man who researches this exact group in bergamo, and now i have an 80 yr old italian pen-pal who published some photos of my grandfather in his book.
3) my maternal grandfather was orphaned really young in cuba and was really poor. he met my grandmother when he saw her riding her bike down the street and instantly fell in love with her (yes, just like cinema paradiso). she was really rich and her family hated him, so he would wait outside her window just to see her. eventually they get married and have my eldest uncle (because love always perseveres). this part of the story is fuzzy, but i believe he got into some gambling issues and so my grandmothers family shipped him to the US (probably with hopes of getting rid of him for good). but he began to build a life for his family there. then the revolution happened and he continued to go back and forth, but then castro put in the policy that children born in cuba had to stay, so they moved to nyc permanently. but my grandfather loved castro, as most cubans did. so my family is not part of the typical exile cuban-american demographic, which i always found fascinating.
Feb 19, 2024
Top Recs from @zekehaha
i have never seen a movie better than Bones and All. there is nothing better. america is lonely.
Dec 17, 2024
good for the rain. good for every fit. imperialistic? a little. “we come from america to save your country.“ bars. this squadron flew over china in the pacific theater to repel the japanese invasion. they weren’t too successful, but it’s a valiant cause. also it’s comfortable and looks good.
i found it in the basement of my dorm building. i left it there for a week. nobody claimed it. it’s mine. it found me. i found it.
Dec 17, 2024
“And the Savior knew that, even though he gave himself up completely, He was not saving that Judas, whom he loves. And it was then he knew infinite suffering.”
When I was 12, my friend Henry died in a car accident. He should not have been there. He died a fool, and was surrounded by fools. He snuck out of the house and died in a car accident. He denied Christ beforehand.
But I must believe He is merciful, that He is loving, because that is what we have been told of Him.
Peter denied, and Jeannette claims she would not have. But Peter was saved.
Children bring such suffering. “What a pity, it was a life that had so well begun.” Mary wept and was so sorrowful she seemed to have aged a decade in three days. What is this suffering? Henry’s mom, too. She brought into the world something so brief, and it ended like this.
I hope that he will be loved like Peter.
Dec 27, 2024