EXTRAORDINARY PIES

Long before sunrise one Thanksgiving morning many years ago, I pulled myself out of bed to bake pies, an apple and a pumpkin, for our dinner in the early afternoon. Sleepily, I mixed together filling ingredients, pumpkin, eggs, evaporated milk, sugar, spices and a little salt. As I poured the mixture into the shell, I noticed that it appeared a bit grainy. The leftover mixture went into a custard cup. After putting pie and custard cup into the oven, I went on to make the apple pie, cutting up apples, adding sugar, cinnamon and flour. The second pie went into the oven when the pumpkin pie was done. By 8 am, I had two lovely golden brown pies and my custard cup on the counter. The stuffed turkey was in the oven.

By that time my husband and four sons were prowling around the kitchen looking for food and threatening to eat my precious pies. Eggs, bacon and toast diverted them and filled up their stomachs for the moment. Somehow no one noticed the little custard cup that I had pushed way back to an inconspicuous corner of the counter. Since I had cleaned and straightened the day before, I was not too anxious to let our four sons play around the house all morning. My husband kindly volunteered to take them for a hike. They would all build up an appetite for the feast, and the house would stay neat.

I continued working on dinner preparations, glad for the calm of the empty house. When everything seemed under control, I decided to relax and have my snack before the guys came home. I took the still-warm pumpkin custard into the living room to eat while I read the paper. With a sigh, I sank down into a comfortable chair, opened the paper, and began to read. After a minute or two, I took a big bite of the custard. Immediately, I gagged, leaped up from the chair and dashed to the kitchen sink to spit the stuff out. It was so salty that it totally dried up my mouth and made me physically sick. After rinsing my mouth with copious amounts of water, I opened the sugar canister, and tasted a tiny bit of the contents. It was salt. I had put a cup of salt into the pumpkin pie and another cup into the apple pie. At 5 in the morning, salt looks just like sugar, but does not act like it. No wonder the raw pumpkin mixture looked gritty.

I was furious! All the results of my early rising and hard work were now being tossed into the garbage. And we had no dessert for our Thanksgiving dinner. Who in the world would fill the sugar canister with salt? It must have been one of our sons, thinking that this was a clever trick to play on Mom. When they returned from their walk, I immediately started grilling them all. The boys all looked so bewildered and innocent, that I began to realize they were not the culprits.

At that point, my husband walked in. “What? Salt in that canister? Yeah, I put it there. The opened bag of salt in the cupboard was beginning to leak and scatter salt all over. I thought you’d be impressed by my ingenuity.”

CARDIAC REHAB PERSON OF THE MONTH

As the person of the month, I was asked to write up my story. Here it is:

I have never had a heart attack.

“So, why are you in cardiac rehab?” you might well ask.

In 2003 after breast cancer surgery, chemotherapy and radiation on the left side, I started on Tamoxifen. Less than a year later, I learned that I had endometrial cancer, fortunately not a metastasis of the breast cancer. A complete hysterectomy followed, and I was very relieved that this cancer had probably not spread. My breast cancer preventing medicine was changed to Arimidex.

Over time, I learned that chemotherapy, radiation and Arimidex could all damage my heart, and perhaps bring on a heart attack. Arimidex also tends to deplete bone calcium and sometimes causes arthritis. In fact, scans to measure my bone density have shown a significant decrease in the last few years. Exercising is a great way to build up one’s body, encourage bone growth, tone muscles, and strengthen the heart. Exercising by myself worked to some degree, but I often found myself “too busy” to follow a daily exercise routine. Basically, I needed help.

After finding a doctor who would prescribe it, I started attending Cardiac Rehab at Rapid City Regional Hospital in February 2006. The warm supportive atmosphere immediately encouraged me. The staff is great, always cheerful and helpful. It is comforting to know that professionals supervise our activities and that medical help can be immediately available.

Exercising with a super group of friendly people is a real plus. Some are an inspiration through their determination and hard work. Others help keep the mood light with jokes and stories. We are all on a mission to live healthy lives. On the days when I do not feel like going, knowing that I will be among friends motivates me. At the end of each session, I always leave invigorated, cheerful and limber.

Another great benefit we have in the Cardiac Rehab program is our weekly cardiac yoga session with Karla. Yoga serves to calm and center my thoughts through relaxation techniques and to increase range of motion through gentle stretching and a variety of poses.

Hopefully this exercise, weight lifting and yoga routine will help lengthen my life. Certainly, it adds to my quality of life every day. No one can ask for more than that!

Immigration

A part of my French passport, showing my picture and description. It was issued in Switzerland just before I returned to France and then went on to Le Havre with my father to board the ship to the United States.



There are pictures, which were never taken, which live only in our mind’s eye. For me, the most memorable of those imaginary films is the one of a ship, the SS Uruguay sailing into New York harbor on a June day in 1946. My father points out the Statue of Liberty, welcoming us to the United States, as our tugs maneuver us toward our pier along the East River. From very early in the morning, we, along with many of the other 350 displaced persons coming to America, have been stationed at the ship’s rail to catch the very first sight of our “new world.” My father then explains to me that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France, and I immediately feel assured that this ally of France will welcome me, a French citizen. Soon the ship docks at our pier. From our spot at the rail, we can see a crowd down below. People are waving and shouting as they recognize family members. All of a sudden, my father spots his two brothers, Otto and Hugo, who have come to meet us. He waves frantically, all the while trying to explain to me where they are standing in that huge crowd of people. Since I have never seen either of these uncles before, I am of course unable to pick them out. Eventually it is our turn to descend the steeply sloping gangplank. When we reach the end we finally step onto American concrete. We are immediately herded between rows of tall white wooden barricades. The people who have come to meet the ship crowd along the other side of the barrier. Eventually my father spots Otto and Hugo and they clasp hands across the wooden rail. Then we are pushed along with the crowd to pass through customs. There is a long, heart-stopping moment while our customs inspector carefully looks over our papers, our passports and visas. Then we have to open our luggage so that they can inspect it. Finally, they decide that we may really enter the United States, and we continue on to meet my father’s brothers. The usually reserved and unemotional adults hug and kiss each other and speak excitedly in German and English. There is so much they have to say to each other after a nine-year separation and a world war. Meantime, I stand beside my father not understanding anything. Finally they turn to me and try to speak French for my benefit, but neither uncle speaks it very well. All of a sudden, I realize that I am in a country where no one can understand me, abandoned with a group of strangers I don’t know. At that moment, I want to run back to the ship and return to France where the language makes sense and where I have loving relatives.

Setting Up the Totem Pole

A few weeks ago, Perry decided that he wanted to “plant” a hefty tree trunk. He had cut down a large dead tree about a year ago, had salvaged most of it for firewood, burned the slash and then had a lovely thirty foot long trunk left. After skinning off the bark, he had the inspiration to carve it into a totem pole. When our son Andy visited us in March, Perry challenged him to chainsaw a face on the trunk. Actually, Andy carved two faces. Perry then added another. When our son Mike’s family arrived at the end of June, Perry was ready to set the heavy tree trunk upright. With his backhoe he dug a hole for it. Then he and Mike chained the top of the totem pole to the backhoe bucket. We sent the two children to sit in chairs some distance away. Tami and Mely stationed themselves at a distance with their digital movie cameras ready to record the historic event. We even convinced Mike to back away from the tree so that it would not crush him if it fell.

Perry started the backhoe, and Tami and I began to film. Slowly the bucket started to rise, pulling the top of the totem pole up with it. Everything seemed to be going all right, until suddenly the little backhoe was overpowered by the weight of the tree. The smaller front wheels came off the ground. We all gasped in horror! For a moment it seemed that the whole backhoe would flip over its large front wheels and crush Perry under it. Somehow, Perry managed to put down the stabilizers and the loader bucket on the other end. Then he was able to lower the tree trunk slowly to the ground. Whew!

Nine Young Men - 2

As I said in my previous entry, my father’s family placed great importance on the family name. When these nine young men were assembled for a family gathering it was entirely fitting that their picture would be taken. They were the hope for the continuation of that name. Girls would marry and lose their name, but boys would marry and have sons. It is interesting to see what actually happened. In the group of three brothers, one died unmarried in World War I. The second married and had a son who died unmarried in World War II. The third moved to Brazil and was disinherited by his father. He died in 1944, leaving two sons who eventually came to the United States. My father had two daughters and his youngest brother had one. His next older brother never had any children, while the fourth brother had two sons. One of those sons has three sons in turn who presently carry on the name. The female descendents meanwhile have children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Perhaps the women in the family should carry the famous family name!

Nine Young Men

In looking through my father’s papers, I have come across many photos taken in the beginning of the 20th century. Sometimes the pictures are labeled, perhaps with a date or place and rarely with names of people. Most of the time there is no label. So it is quite a challenge to figure out who these people might be.

A while ago, I found this picture:



At first it looked like it might be a picture of 8 men and boys and a little girl. That is how I labeled it. But then I looked more closely and found my father. He is the fourth from the right wearing a dark jacket and white pants, the only one of the older cousins not wearing a three-piece suit. To the right of him the proud young man is obviously his brother, Otto, standing very straight to show that he is taller than his older brother. The curly-headed young boy hiding next to Otto is their brother Hugo. The last little one, looking very unhappy, is the youngest of the brothers, Robert. His fancy little outfit was what very young boys wore in those days. So who might the other men and boys be? From their fancy three-piece suits to their white shirts with stiff collars and formal neckties to their polished shoes, they look elegant. Only Hugo in his sailor outfit with short pants and high boots looks comfortable.

They are obviously lined up in order of age. The man on the left with the receding hairline looks considerably older than my father. It also appears that three families might be represented. The two men on the left are dressed similarly. The three in the middle are also dressed similarly, but differently than those on either side of them.

I decided to look in my father’s genealogy to see whether I could find any kind of family pattern that would make sense. On my grandmother’s side of the family, I did not have enough information to make any kind of a guess. However, my grandmother was the oldest child, so it would be reasonable to assume that her younger siblings would have younger children, not older ones as shown in the picture.

I then examined the family of my grandfather on my father’s side. My grandfather was the youngest of six siblings, two of whom did not survive infancy. It would make sense that his brothers might have had older sons. I can’t help but remember the importance of our family name to the men of the family. A gathering of the young men and boys who would carry on our name would be well worth photographing.

My grandfather had two older brothers. The eldest moved to England and eventually took the name William when he became a British subject. He had three sons. The other brother, Gustav Adolph had two sons.

This picture appears to be a group shot of the stair-step grandsons of my great-grandparents, Hermann and Pauline:

From the left: Gustav Adolph’s children:

Hermann Hans Friedrich, April 1889
Gustav Adolph Wilhelm, October 1892

William’s children:
Hermann Maximilian, February 1893
Oscar Adalbert, August 1894
Richard Wilhelm, January 1896

And the children of my grandfather, Carl Rudolph:

Albert William, May 1896
Otto Hermann, September 1897
Hugo Rudolph, February 1906
Robert Erich Sebastian, December 1907

My cautious German cousin, HH said that perhaps I might be correct, but he reminds me that this is only a guess. We cannot be sure of anything. Come back and read my next blog to learn more about this and other related pictures!

The SS Uruguay

About a month ago, I joined a genealogy service, Ancestry.com. They have photographed records of passenger lists from ships arriving in different ports in the US from sometime in the 1800’s up to 1957. When I searched for my record, I immediately found my name “daughter M” and clicked on it. Up came the two ledger pages with my father’s and my data. It absolutely amazed me how much information was packed into those two lines that our names occupied.

Dad was
“stateless”,
50 years old,
5’ 9” tall,had gray hair, blue eyes,
was a mechanical engineer,
spoke and wrote French, German and English,
was mentally and physically in good health and
was coming to the United States as a permanent resident.

I was
French,
seven years old,
a student,
4’3” tall, had blond hair(!?!) and blue eyes, and
could read and write in French only.

We arrived on a ship of the Moore McCormack line called the SS Uruguay. At that time the owner was the US War Shipping Administration. There were 563 total passengers, of whom 351 were aliens like us. The date of our leaving France was listed as well as the date of our arrival in the United States. To learn more about our ship, you can visit the following web site:

http://www.moore-mccormack.com/SS-Uruguay-1938/SS-Uruguay-Timeline.htm