Amber (Scribbles about Ancestry)

Before my grandfather died, he wrote a brief memoir. In it, he talks about his parents Antanas and Amelia, both of whom were orphaned serfs. The little stories he shares about them as children in rural Lithuania are simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. They had very little, but it seems as though they did their best to be children and have fun when they got the chance, swimming in the river or playing the concertina. I've been thinking about them a lot, and how hard so many people have worked for me to be right where I am.

Even more than that, though, I'm stuck on the last two paragraphs Gramps wrote, about when he first met my grandma Katherine. They were maybe one of the most loving and complementary couples I've ever met. Grams could be infuriating. She was stubborn, witty, and nearly always right. In my fading memories, Gramps was almost the polar opposite: proud and demure, yet extremely learned. On more wistful days, I imagine what their conversations must have been like, piecing these ideas together with the clues they left. Almost teasingly, his memoir concludes right at the good part. My imagination fills in the rest, probably more happily or perfectly than reality ever could have been:

My law fraternity had one formal party each year, and as new members Al Ragan, Charlie Strubbe [my grandmother's brother] and I had to go. Trouble was neither of us had a “date,” or much money, or the required “white tie and tails.” Al and I dipped into our tuition savings for the next year, and got ourselves outfitted in tailor-made to measure garb for the exorbitant price of forty dollars. Next came the girl part. I was footloose. So was Charlie. It turned out that each of us had a sister of suitable age and free on that particular evening, and made suitable arrangements to proceed accordingly. On the eventful (for me) Saturday night in 1939 my life was to change forever. 

Charlie lived on the northwest side of Chicago and I on the southwest side, about twenty miles away. I had a car, a ’37 Chevrolet purchased by pooling the resources of my parents, Teddy, Emily and myself (the price was $778). Monthly payments were $35.54 shared by all. On that fateful (as it eventually turned out) Saturday night, Emily wearing a beautiful evening dress, and I, in white tie and tails took off for Charlie’s house. I had never been there before. As we entered, there in the living room stood this very good looking girl garbed in evening dress. No one else was in the room. Addressing the smiling girl, I said “You must be Katherine. I’m Bernie and this is my sister Emily. Is Charlie ready?” She said “Pleased to meet you both, Charlie is nearly…………………………………………………………

-taken from Amber, by Bruno Verbeck