What Did You Learn From Your Grandparents?
My friends are always telling me about their Uma, Nagyi, Bubbe, or their Abuela. My mother had a Babcha. She was Polish and was a midwife both in Poland and in Roslyn, NY. When my brothers and I visited relatives in Long Island, we would hear many stories about Babcha and her extended family.
She arrived in Pennsylvania along with her pregnant daughter, three grandchildren and her son-in-law, who was a coal miner in Willke’s Barr around 1913. There was a Polish community there, where all the men worked in the coal mines. It was hard and dirty work. The families lived in housing provided by the mining company. Then, there was a mine accident and her son-in-law lost his eye. The family moved to Roslyn, NY where the family worked for the wealthy estate owners as gardeners or maids. (This was an irony since that is what they did in Poland before they left—worked for the “aristocrats”).
These were not highly educated people, nor were they “high” society. They struggled to make ends meet, saved their money to build a house, and everyone pitched in, putting their various skills to work, to make a living. They also had a strong faith. And, they kept their extended family together. The main family and their cousins and in-laws all lived within three blocks of each other in the beginning.
These were not highly educated people, nor were they “high” society. They struggled to make ends meet, saved their money to build a house, and everyone pitched in, putting their various skills to work, to make a living. They also had a strong faith. And, they kept their extended family together. The main family and their cousins and in-laws all lived within three blocks of each other in the beginning.
LESSONS LEARNED
Here are some of the things that I learned from my various grandparents on both sides of my family:
- The importance of service: Use your skills and your time to make sure others are cared for and have what they need.
- Use your talents wisely: My grandparents all were mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, midwives, homemakers, cooks, and seamstresses. They used the talents that they had to accomplish what needed doing.
- Keep God close: Times were very hard, and the Church at that time tended to have strict rules and a variety of expectations. These people were thankful for the blessings that they had and asked for guidance when they experienced challenges and losses; and they went to Mass on a regular basis.
- Family is most important: When young parents died unexpectedly, leaving a houseful of children behind. The eldest daughter arranged to take on the youngest children and raise them as her own, even if that meant postponing her own wedding for 7 years.
- Do not let fear stop you: Both sides of my family sailed to America in a boat from various parts of Europe. Some came by themselves, still as teenagers; others came with their families, pregnant and with toddlers. One grandfather, went back and forth between American and Poland to make sure that his family there were safe and had enough money to take care of them. He did this three times over five years before he was actually able to bring his immediate family and mother-in-law back to America with him. Imagine the worry that these people must have had about sailing across the Atlantic with little children and with their own elders. And, imagine how scary it would be coming to a culture different from your own, where people spoke a different language! Life was not easy for my grandparents, but they charted their own paths; paths that set the stage for me to chart mine.
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