Remembering Grandma

By Harold Ratzburg

               

When an old Geezer like me (at 85 years young) sits down to put his memories of his Grandma on paper, you know your are going to go back a ways into ancient family history.  But here goes----

                My Grandma’s history goes back almost 130 years ago when she was born in Germany (1885) and somewhat later immigrated to the USA.  My records on Grandma are somewhat sketchy but we do know that she married Grandpa (William Ratzburg the Second) in 1901 when she was only 16 years old.  Grandpa was 17 years older, so it seems that they did things differently for match making back in the good old days. 

                They lived on the Ratzburg farm, out on Highway G, south of Marion, WI, where Tim Nolan now has his horse farm.  At first, they lived in a log house, where old family stories tell that Grandma had to take a broom to make sure that there were no snakes crawling around on the dirt floor at bedtime.  A frame house, with six bedrooms, was built in 1906 and things got a little easier for Grandma and the family. 

                Grandma had a difficult married life.  Grandpa was of the old German belief in that HE was the head of the house and whatever HE said goes.  He kept Grandma pregnant a lot of the time.  They had 12 babies born to them, of which 3 died in early childhood.  That time amounted to 22 years of child bearing, of which Grandma was pregnant for 108 months, or, 9 years total.  Talk about study German stock.

Continued HERE.

 Harold Ratzburg was born at the start of the Great Depression and raised on a Dairy Farm in Wisconsin.  He served four years in the US Air Force in the 50's and was stationed in Germany, where he met his wife Anneliese, who helped get him through College to become a Civil Engineer.  After a time as a Highway Engineer and College Instructor, he wound up as a City Engineer of a small town in New Jersey.  Twenty four years later he retired to become an old geezer telling old stories on his new fangled computer.

The Madcap Adventures of Eliezer Gurevitch

 by Sandra Gurev

My father-in-law, Elias Gurev, was fifty-nine when I met him. He was tall, broad framed with a thick thatch of iron grey hair.  His legs seemed mismatched with his body as they were thin. They didn' seem like they could support his broad chest.  I never got to know him well due to a signicant permanent hearing loss from German measles  at age sixteen.  Our conversations were monologues and my attempts to ask questions went unanswered.  His loss of  hearing led to some degree of paranoia thinking people were talking about him.

When our sons were born in the late 60's, their grandfather would take Greg or Keith on his knee calling, "Come boychick, come and sit on grandpa's lap."  They enjoyed being bounced on his knee and gave him their complete attention when he regaled them with stories from long ago. His stories almost always touched on his heroism.  For instance, he told us about riding with Pancho Villa on his trusty mule, Rosita.  I listened in on his monologue with the boys and envisioned him wearing a colorful serape, sombrero askew riding hard through mountain canyons calling to Rosita, "Andele!"  The sunsets were brush stroked in lavender, mango, and magenta.

Other stories revolved around riding with the Cossacks through the Russian Steppes or as a sidekick to Genghis Khan.  Some of his leaders were ruthless barbarians but it didn't seem to matter.  Adventure abounded in his stories. Our boys sat with rapt attention , their eyes growing wider with disbelief with each ensuing tale.

One day my father-in-law became serious and his story took on a decidedly solemn tone.  He described a memory of a time when he was about  twelve. He lived in an expansive richly decorated home with his parents and sister in some unknown country.  He spoke lovingly of running his fingers over the ivory keys of the family's grand piano.  Then he said,  "We had to leave and I knew that I would never see it again."  Again his hearing loss prevented me from asking for more details, questions that I yearned to ask.

It wasn't until 2012 that I began to get answers to my questions.  I came across a yellowed creased petition requesting citizenship to the British protectorate of Palestine.  The year was 1930.  I learned that my father-in-law was born into a  Jewish family in Theodosia, Crimea.  His father had a well paying government position working for the Czar.  His family had enjoyed a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle.  Their  lives changed abruptly when an empathetic Cossack calvaryman paid an unannounced visit.  He had learned that the Czar's army was planning to launch a pogrom against the Jews of Theodosia.  The man urged them to leave immediately.  They needed to get on the first ferry to neighboring Turkey.  The family hastily piled documents, photos, perhaps a pair of silver candlesticks for the sabbath onto sheets and escaped through the cover of night.  His father managed to go to a bank before leaving only withdrawing enough money as he could without arousing suspicion.  They fled their home leaving the door wide open and safely escaped by ferry.  Most of  the remaining Jewish residents were terrorized and killed by the army.

Continued, Click HERE.

http://morecontinued.blogspot.com/2014/10/continued-madcap-adventures-of-eliezer.html

Sandy Gurev is a wife of fifty-one years and mother of two sons and four grandchildren.  Sandy was an elementary school counselor prior to retiring to Williamsburg, VA nine year's ago from Rochester, NY. Her volunteer work includes providing lunch to cancer patients and fitting women with wigs after they have lost their hair.  Playing competitive duplicate bridge and belonging to two book clubs rounds out her time.  Within the past two years she has written a memoir for her grandchildren and a couple of articles for the American Amateur Press Association. Sandy found that writing helped to reduce her perception of pain while she was awaiting back surgery.

Hello, House ...

By June T. Basemir

I was thinking about you today and how you sheltered our family for 44 happy years. Nine years ago I moved on and built a new house far away and you moved on too caring for a smaller family, albeit with some major surgery to your inside walls.

I wonder if the squeak in the attic over the master bedroom that occurred in high wind storms is ever heard? We sent our oldest son up there one time, in the height of a fearsome storm, to see if he could locate what beams were rubbing to cause the squeak – all to no avail. I was sure there was a flaw in the construction and after some stormy night the beds would be covered in the morning with broken wood and Sheetrock, but thankfully it never happened. 

Whatever caused that squeak couldn't have been too serious. Maybe you were just exercising your voice against the elements. I suppose it should have been mentioned at the closing but frankly we didn't think of it. Besides those high wind storms didn't happen very often. After all this is only Long Island....not Oklahoma!

And remember whenever it rained how the water in the gutters on your north side over the kitchen window would fill up and water would pour down into the window well below until there was no way to stop the cascading overflow as it ran down the inside of the basement wall - flooding it? It wasn't your fault. We tried a number of ideas including a plastic shield to protect the window well from filling up but the ground became so saturated with the brick path on the other side trapping the water, it naturally had no place to go but down the inside basement wall. Of course, we could have had a man dig out the window well and remove the clay dirt that he said kept the water from draining away but at the time the cost of $600. was more than we could pay. It just wasn't there. So with each heavy rain I continued to mop the basement. The number of times the basement flooded was never recorded. Each time it happened was thought to be the last. The N Y Sunday Times did double duty in soaking up what our old towels didn't. I shutter to think of it now. We eventually bought an indoor/outdoor vacuum which shortened the process considerably.

And speaking of the kitchen window(s) what about the “pollen” that I saw floating down from above one summer day? It turned out that it wasn't “pollen” at all but the shavings of the carpenter bees drilling their 1/2” holes in the fascia board behind the gutter. I thought to stop their activity with hammering in wooden plugs the same diameter in each and every hole to trap them. Little did I know the habits of Carpenter Bees...that they drill the holes and lay their eggs deep inside; then come out the same hole again. No exterminator that we called (and we called three) would touch the removal of the bees due to their fear of being stung. My youngest son and I removed the board; heard the buzzing bees; and quickly walked away. A new fascia board replaced the old one shortly thereafter. [The old one had 17 holes in it.

For years we woke up each morning with a rat-ta-tat noise coming from under the bedroom windows. Finally it was discovered that a beautiful but territorial male cardinal bird was attacking his reflection in the basement window. How he could see himself in that dusty cobwebbed “mirror” was beyond me. After several seasons, we finally felt sorry for him and hung some newspaper against the inside of the glass. Eventually he stopped but the next year he (or his son) was back attacking the side view mirrors on both cars parked in the driveway. I pictured his beak becoming shorter and shorter as there was evidence of residue on the mirrors. 

First I hung a fake owl on the bushes nearby but he was not fooled. Then I was given a Japanese garden “cat” with black glass eyes that Japanese farmers use in their gardens with success. It was placed on the same bushes but that didn't scare him either. The bird knew no honest cat would be sitting on those high bushes. So I finally hung a sock on the mirrors which did the trick...but what a nuisance when it rained and they had to be removed in order to drive either car.... where to put a wet sock when all I wanted to do was hurriedly go out grocery shopping.

Now I have to ask...Does the Cardinal bird or any of his male offspring visit? Have the Carpenter bees come back? Does your basement flood in heavy rain storms and what about the squeak heard in the master bedroom during high winds? 

I hope I haven't caused you stress by recalling these stories but I was just wondering................................................. and thinking of you today. Do you miss us?

copyright 2014, June T. Bassemir

 June Tuthill Bassemir is the widowed mother of four and grandmother of 10.  An artist and writer, she  volunteers as a docent in a 1765 farm house.   June loves old cars and antiques, and has also enjoyed furniture stripping and rug hooking.  "I used to say I was a stripper and hooker.but with so many trips around the sun, no one raises an eyebrow anymore. They only laugh."  June has given up furniture stripping, but is still an avid rug hooker.