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January 7th, 2008
12:59 pm - Family Stories
My grandmother's passing (and notices of such going up on sites like this) got me to thinking a great deal about stories that she told ... and those that have been told about her.
That is, what precisely does this say?Niedzwiecki: of Middleboro, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008, Valeska E. (Rutkewicz), 99. Widow of Wallace C. Niedzwiecki. Calling hours are 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the O'NEILL FUNERAL HOME, 59 Peirce St., Middleboro. Her funeral will be at 9 a.m. Thursday from the funeral home, followed by a Mass at 10 in Sacred Heart Church. To be honest, it's not much more informative than this, from a little over a decade ago:NIEDZWIECKI -- In Taunton Dec 24th, Wallace C. Of Middleboro. Husband of Valeska E. (Rutkewicz) Niedzwiecki of Middleboro. Father and father-in law of Wallace and Sandra Niedzwiecki of Middleboro of Holliston, Daniel & Josephine Ruthwicz of Middleboro, Constance Garney of Middleboro and Paula Wallace of Brattleboro,VT. Brother of Helen Chahalne of Rockville, MD., Veronica Goc of Lynfield, Jennie Hankus of Salem, NH., Elizabeth Brzezcki of Bristol, CT., Theresa Olson of Brockton, Virginia Levandowski of Virginia Beach, VA., Josephine Kava of Brockton, Gregory Niedzwiecki of Middleboro and Victor Niedzwiecki of Chelmsford. Ten grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews also survive. Friends are invited to attend a Funeral Mass to be celebrated in Sacred Heart Church, Centre St., Middleboro on Thursday, Dec. 28th at 9:00 a.m. with burial to follow in St. Mary's Cemetery, Middleboro. Calling hours Wed., from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. in the NICKERSON-BOURNE FUNERAL HOME, 59 Peirce St. (Corner of School St.) Middleboro. They're facts. They provide information - context - but they skirt the issue of narrative. They don't address the "Who?" and "Why?" questions that are so important to those closest to those who have passed. Perhaps that's what prompted Orson Scott Card to write Speaker for the Dead, which has also been in my head of late.
On Saturday morning, my cousin dedicated the last third or so of her public radio show (streamed from the station's web site) to my grandmother, and she mentioned several things that I had only half remembered, while somewhat misremembering certain things that I recalled clearly. When she made mention that she was probably getting some of the details wrong, her co-host spoke to the power of narrative and how it's not that important to get all the details right so long as you get the gist of the person.
Well, actually, he referred to this as "folklore," and since I'm married to a folklorist, I know better than to talk about that without great care. ...but the point remains, even if I somewhat disagree with the bit about details not really mattering.
My grandmother was born in April of 1908 and grew up around Nashua, NH. As she grew up, though, the nurses that attended her mother wouldn't quite get the name right, so she and her siblings had similar, if slightly different, legal surnames. She recalled a time when it was an event to walk to a neighbor's house to listen to the radio. Though I don't remember the tale, my cousin talked about how my grandmother saw television for the first time at a World's Fair. Her family wasn't that well-off, so she was forced to leave school earlier than she or her family would have liked in order to work at the local mill. Later, she went back to school and became a nurse, learning her trade at a hospital that was only a couple blocks away from where I would, decades later, live for two summers while I was in college.
...but that, too, is context. It sketches the outline, but it doesn't tell the story, and I don't know if I ever could do her complete story justice.
Machute (as I called her) told me several times of her father, who went back to Lithuania to serve in the Czar's army so that his sister could receive her inheritance. Apparently, he initially served in the infantry, which was rather poorly provisioned, until one of the officers found out that he could read and write, at which point he rapidly rose in the ranks until he served as a palace guard for Czar Nicholas II. He apparently thought the Czar's children were charming and that Rasputin was rather unsavory.
...but that is, likewise, context, and it doesn't tell much of who my great grandfather or my grandmother were.
Ultimately, I suppose that my cousin's co-host was right. My memories of my three now-departed grandparents will, I hope, remain with me for as long as I live. Granddad playing the piano, working in the garden, or reading a book. Djadek teaching me how to play checkers and beating me soundly (and, significantly less happy, the look on his face as he had his fatal heart attack). Machute's smile, her laugh, and her readiness to talk about everyone in the family but herself. Those memories are what matter, along with the gist of the stories we recall about our departed loved ones. The details are merely context for the lives that these people lived. Important context, but context nonetheless. Their lives, humble or acclaimed, passionate or serene, are what give shape to those details, animate our memories, and define these people as more than just the sum of their parts.
Perhaps one day I'll be able to do justice to the questions of "Who?" and "Why?," but for now, I'll keep hold of those details. I'll talk about the context. I'm simply not in a place where I can tackle those questions quite yet.
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Comments:
Thank you for sharing, Kyle. It's special and important, and I'm glad to know more.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/62129068/1348946) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) greybar |
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| Date: | January 7th, 2008 09:34 pm (UTC) |
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I think I'm quite lucky that my Nana (paternal grandmother) turned rather autobiographical and biographical (for her second husband) before the series of strokes that eventually took her life. As a result we have some nice images of their lives, some surprising. For instance, apparently some Army wives were encouraged to take up rifle practice and Nana became rated a expert marksman. I wouldn't have even imagined her holding a gun before I read that.
Anyway, so in the absence of her reports, do write down your own memories of her stories. If you're an NPR listener, you're probably familiar with the StoryCorps project - maybe hook up with them so that little bit of Machute can be preserved.
And until then, just smile and let the memories bring a tear to your eye. That's whats happening to me just thinking about my grandma as I sit here in a cube...
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/27620801/6534184) | | From: | unforth |
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| Date: | January 8th, 2008 02:52 pm (UTC) |
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I'm very, very sorry to hear about your loss. :( Condolences, of course, to you and your family. Thanks, too, for sharing this post - it's interesting, and I think it's spot on - when we lose the people we care about, we still have them in those memories; whether we've got the details right or wrong, the way we remember them and narrate them tells a lot about who the person was to us, what they meant to us. I hope in this sad time that the memories of her can still make you happy. |
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