It's funny that, although "date of birth" is one of the most basic and integral bits of genealogical data we collect about our ancestors, unless there was an associated tragedy, we generally don't know much about their natal day, and often nothing about their birth anniversaries. Even though I have buckets full of inconsequential little "personal" notices from a variety of old newspapers, commenting on everything from shopping trips to overnights with the grandparents, none of those seem to mention birthday parties. Surely those weren't just a modern invention? I mean, I know my father had at least one...
From Dad's personal photo album, I have these two snapshots. In his own distinctive adult script, he has labeled the back of the pictures "E.A. Feltz Jr. birthday," so I'm pretty sure it was his party. He also added the street address "28 W. Noble."
The camera work isn't great (is it just me, or is that a theme of birthday party pictures?), but they're intriguing, nonetheless. Dad was born in August of 1924; if these kids are, what, maybe 5-7 years old? then that puts this at 1930 or so, Depression-era. It's interesting that someone had a camera at all, and it also looks like a pretty sizeable gathering, balloons and streamers and all.
Here's the funny part... that is NOT 28 W Noble. The house at 28 W. Noble -- the place Dad's parents lived while he was growing up and even when I was born -- is a sort of ranch-style, L-shaped house. It has never had a big porch with wide steps leading up to it. This is 12 W. Noble, the home of Dad's maternal grandparents, the house where his mother grew up, three houses down the street. I knew that immediately -- he MUST have known it, too. Was he just noting his home address at the time the pictures were taken? Was his mind on something else and he wrote the address automatically?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear the story of his grandparents throwing a big bash like this for their only grandchild? Did anyone attend from his father's side of the family? Did Dad even know his father's adoptive mother, Lena Mohr, as "grandmother"? Gosh, would it have killed the photographer to take a picture of the adults? (We're never satisfied, are we?)
I don't have pictures of any of Mom's birthdays as a girl, but she did write about the year that she turned seven. Her birthday was five days before Christmas and she'd had Scarlet Fever, so the household was in quarantine -- signs on the doors, no one in or out, groceries delivered to the front steps. She wrote that she got the most beautiful doll, with "real" hair and an elaborate, ruffly gown that her grandmother had sewn but a couple of weeks later, when the quarantine was lifted, the doll was thrown onto the bonfire of things that were deemed too contaminated to save. Decades later, she was still sad about it.
A friend arranged a surprise party for Mom's 60th birthday. The weather was terrible, a driving, heavy snow and I thought we were going to die several times on the two hour drive over to central Iowa for it, but it was a wonderful party (and she was very surprised).
Based on Mom's letters to her own mother, my parents gritted their teeth and threw themselves into creating magical birthday parties for me because that's what all the other parents were doing. Once they chose a theme, Dad would create poster-size wall art and custom piñatas, like Snoopy's Sopwith Camel in the picture below. Mom came up with desperately awful party games and gamely supervised their completion. It was all a great deal of work and I'm not sure anyone had fun but I did love those decorations and can still smell the permanent markers Dad used to color them.
The older you get, the fewer people there are who remember all the different people you've been throughout your life -- that's one of the many reasons siblings are so special. I wasn't in the room when Patrick was born but a family friend came to school to tell me about it. We had moved from California back to Mom's hometown in Iowa because, at forty-five, Mom knew there was a better than even chance that something might go wrong, and she wanted to have her mother and her friends around if anything happened. The only job Dad had been able to find was in Michigan, so he was two states away that day. Mom's mother and her friend-since-high-school, Bev, went to the hospital with her; "Patrick" was Bev's maiden name, given to the baby in gratitude for her support the day he was born.
As expected, it wasn't an easy delivery. The nurse in the room that day also was on the job one year and five days later, when Dad died at that same hospital. She sent the kindest note to my mother, saying that raising a baby without a husband was about the hardest thing she could think of to do, but she knew how tough Mom was because she'd seen her fight to bring that baby into the world -- if anyone could do it, she could.
Patrick definitely got the short end of the stick in a lot of ways, not least being a boy growing up without a father. Mom's determination to have friends and family around the new baby definitely paid off -- albeit not at all for the reason she'd imagined -- and Patrick was, indeed, raised by a village.
His first year was particularly rough -- he was red and blotchy and irritable much of the time. Finally, he was diagnosed with an allergy to wool. Sheets were laid over all the upholstery and rugs and he turned into an absolutely adorable and sunny child almost overnight.
His unblemished state didn't last long, however. I truly don't know how we never had a visit from Child Protective Services because he was completely fearless in his passion for doing whatever we warned him not to -- clapping both chubby hands around a red-hot outdoor grill, throwing himself off the footbridge in the park... he was the most bruised, scabbed, scarred and splinted child I've ever known.
I tried hard to be a good sister to him, to protect him and care for him. I didn't always succeed. But he is a good man, with lots of friends who love him very much, and a wonderful family he has made for himself. Although we don't see each other often, I feel like we each know the other will always have his or her back, should the need arise. For us, I guess, that's what family is.
댓글