Nanie
This is a copied directly from something my grandmother wrote for me:
My mother died after child birth. I was 15 and Mina was 19. I had an older brother, Paul, a younger one, John, a younger sister, Maya and then the baby and, as you heard me say, her name is Bertha. My father never got married anymore and Mina was home (at the time of our Mother's death, Mina, I and brother Paul were working and lived where we were working)... coming back to where I said Mina was working, she came home and took care of the baby and family until baby Bertha was a year old and then she went back to the same place of employment and I came home until Berta was 3-years-old.
Then my sister Maya graduated from school and at 14-years-old, she, with our father's help, took over.
By that time John was working too (and I with the family he was working for) as a farmhand and later married the daughter of the farmer and had one baby but by that time the war broke out and he and Brother Paul are both MIA in Russia.
We had two aunts who worked as cooks here in the U.S. One was Emilia in Long Island and Tante Marie in Jersey. Mina worked at the time in the city of Kanstanz. You heard her talk about it many times but she wanted to earn more money in order to help our father more, so Tante Emilie arranged for her to come to the U.S. Mina was here about two years and I decided to come here too to get rich faster. At the time, I worked for a family in Zurich Switzerland and when I think back, had just as much in monthly wages (75 franks) as I had here. The only thing was a pair of shoes were a month's wages and the first pair I bought here (and they were nice ones) cost $5 and I made $45 a month.
In 1928 I came to the U.S. on the ocean liner Columbus and landed and was wondering what will be. It was at Ellis Island. A good thing the people I was working for knew some German as Mrs Simpson's mother was Swiss. Miss Tess, she was the daughter of the family Mina worked for, picked me up there and from the first day on I had a job working for Miss Tess's sister who was Mrs. Simpson and expecting her first baby. Mina and I were always domestics but at times worked in restaurants.
I didn't know your grandfather in Germany. I came from the state Wuttenberg and he was from the state Bavaria and the region he comes from is called the Rhine Pflaz and his father and two of his brother's plus grandpa worked in the coalmines in the Saar region. Grandpa's family were 5 boys and 3 girls and there is nobody left except nieces and nephews. When he came to the U.S. he intended to work in the mines in Pennsylvania but when he saw the conditions there he wanted no part of it so he took any job he could get. Got his driver's license and at one time worked as a lumberjack delivering coal and when the war started worked in a shipyard in Brooklyn until 1953 when he moved from Floral Park, Long Island to Monroe and here he worked for Lindross Associates. They made furniture for home and office until he had a heart attack at the age of 59 and died.
Grandpa and I met through Mina. She had knew him through some friends of hers where Uncle Julius lived... friend's who had what you called a boarding house and he and two other guys rented a room there.
---- And that's where it ends. I wish it didn't end. I could read her entire life story. For her story is my story.
My mother died after child birth. I was 15 and Mina was 19. I had an older brother, Paul, a younger one, John, a younger sister, Maya and then the baby and, as you heard me say, her name is Bertha. My father never got married anymore and Mina was home (at the time of our Mother's death, Mina, I and brother Paul were working and lived where we were working)... coming back to where I said Mina was working, she came home and took care of the baby and family until baby Bertha was a year old and then she went back to the same place of employment and I came home until Berta was 3-years-old.
Then my sister Maya graduated from school and at 14-years-old, she, with our father's help, took over.
By that time John was working too (and I with the family he was working for) as a farmhand and later married the daughter of the farmer and had one baby but by that time the war broke out and he and Brother Paul are both MIA in Russia.
We had two aunts who worked as cooks here in the U.S. One was Emilia in Long Island and Tante Marie in Jersey. Mina worked at the time in the city of Kanstanz. You heard her talk about it many times but she wanted to earn more money in order to help our father more, so Tante Emilie arranged for her to come to the U.S. Mina was here about two years and I decided to come here too to get rich faster. At the time, I worked for a family in Zurich Switzerland and when I think back, had just as much in monthly wages (75 franks) as I had here. The only thing was a pair of shoes were a month's wages and the first pair I bought here (and they were nice ones) cost $5 and I made $45 a month.
In 1928 I came to the U.S. on the ocean liner Columbus and landed and was wondering what will be. It was at Ellis Island. A good thing the people I was working for knew some German as Mrs Simpson's mother was Swiss. Miss Tess, she was the daughter of the family Mina worked for, picked me up there and from the first day on I had a job working for Miss Tess's sister who was Mrs. Simpson and expecting her first baby. Mina and I were always domestics but at times worked in restaurants.
I didn't know your grandfather in Germany. I came from the state Wuttenberg and he was from the state Bavaria and the region he comes from is called the Rhine Pflaz and his father and two of his brother's plus grandpa worked in the coalmines in the Saar region. Grandpa's family were 5 boys and 3 girls and there is nobody left except nieces and nephews. When he came to the U.S. he intended to work in the mines in Pennsylvania but when he saw the conditions there he wanted no part of it so he took any job he could get. Got his driver's license and at one time worked as a lumberjack delivering coal and when the war started worked in a shipyard in Brooklyn until 1953 when he moved from Floral Park, Long Island to Monroe and here he worked for Lindross Associates. They made furniture for home and office until he had a heart attack at the age of 59 and died.
Grandpa and I met through Mina. She had knew him through some friends of hers where Uncle Julius lived... friend's who had what you called a boarding house and he and two other guys rented a room there.
---- And that's where it ends. I wish it didn't end. I could read her entire life story. For her story is my story.
posted by Tracy at 7:06 PM
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