bombshell_librarian
New in Town
- Messages
- 20
- Location
- US
My grandparents! My maternal grandmother had a Japanese pen pal right before WWII broke out, and then lost contact with her during the war. My dad's dad was a Hungarian immigrant who learned English really quickly, and my dad's mom was the daughter of Polish/German immigrants. Both sets of grandparents kept LOTS of stuff from pre-WWI and WWII, as well as telling LOTS of Depression-era stories (not so bad on my mom's parents--being in WV, it wasn't until you went somewhere "big" like Columbus or Cincinatti before you'd learn there even WAS a Depression, most of us hillbillies are so used to being self-sufficient and having men off to war in various branches of service that to us, it's just how we live). My parents' love of jazz and my saxophone lessons got me into jazz and swing, and in the 80s, when the Stray Cats came along, a lot of the kids in my class (graduated HS in 1989) already knew how to swing because of our grandparents. We didn't see it as anything unusual in my family, because we all love sharing family stories and as kids my brother and I just played with whatever was there, "antique" or not. Both grandmothers were VERY practical people who didn't bother with "fancies" or "pretties" (i. e. "Oh, no, the child mustn't touch the Precious THINGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS") and as long as we weren't willfully destructive, we got to mess with a LOT of cool stuff! My mom's dad worked on the railroad and generally likes tinekring with stuff, so we played with lots of old tools and car parts and things like that. When my grandmothers died, I inherited a LOT of nice jewelry, a couple of fur hats, a fox stole, and a few other rarities/oddities from the 20s/30s, as well as a kimono from pre-WWII Japan. My favorite picture is of my Great-Great-Grandma Golumbusch (Hungarian, not sure if I spelled her name right), when she "rolled off the boat" and they moved to New Jersey. She looked very old, very tired, and very strict.