Then there are those moments when you look at all those names and dates, lines and boxes and you start to hear whispering from them. Soft voices call out to be recognized, to be seen, to be known. Some are more insistent than others and you begin to pursue the person behind the data. You might look for pictures of the houses they lived in, pictures of them, newspaper articles that may reveal moments of their lives, mentions in books, anything to give you the chance to put flesh on the frame.
The most haunting pursuits are when you find an ancestor living through a life changing moment, probably one that led to your existence and you can't stop thinking about the emotions and the color behind that paperwork you have. What did that 13 year old girl feel when he feet touched the deck of the ship that would bring her to the New World in 1638? How did he feel as he walked through the gates of Point Lookout Prison Camp, sick and knowing the South was losing? When the curtains caught fire in the Iroquois Theater, what thoughts ran through her mind in the last moments before mass panic?
Frequently even the mundane catches my fancy- Did they curse? What was their favorite food? Were they happy? Did they ever play in the rain? That whole crazy, messy, wonderful thing that encompasses a human life draws me in. I want to know MORE than "this is my 4x great grandfather and he fought in the Civil War."
Lately I have been spending lots of time thinking about my great-grandparents, Jacob and Alvina. I had the good luck to have known Alvina, Granny to me. She died when I was 9 and I have a handful of memories related to her in the last years of her life. All my life their story drew me in. They were born in Latvia, one of the Baltic countries that was under the control of the Soviet Union when I was a child. They came here to the US in the early part of the 1900s in the great way of immigration that came through Ellis Island at that time. They were in that tide of "tired, poor, tempest-tost" immigrants the Statue of Liberty stood as a beacon to.
That story in itself was amazing to me. I was the granddaughter of an immigrant, my grandma Senta was 2 1/2 when they left Latvia. In my growing up, it was a country which had gained and lost its independence but remained resolute in its identity. We were LATVIANS, not "soviets"or "Russian." It seemed a magical and haunted place that still resided in the hearts of my immigrant family.
As I got older I got more details around the departure of our family, more of the whys. In 1905 workers across the Russian Empire rose up to revolt against Russian rule. In Latvia they marched in the streets of Riga, demanding freedom and reform. There were riots, people were killed, Russia fought back to crush the revolt. In the end, Russia prevailed and Latvia was once more under the control of Russia. For my great grandparents, this made life perilous because according to family lore, my great grandfather, Jacob, was among those fighting for Lativan freedom.
In May 1906, My great grandfather boarded the ship Northwestern and left his homeland for the very first and very last time. He arrived in Philadelphia in early June of 1906 and stepped off the ship to create a new life from the wreckage of his old one. The following year, my great grandmother, her mother Dora, and my 2 year old grandmother and her 4 year old brother, Roman, landed on Ellis Island and were met by my great grandfather, who by now had settled in Wilmington, Delaware and was working as a finish carpenter for the Rail Car Shops of Harlan and Hollingsworth.
Those years, 1905-1907 have been populating my thoughts quite a bit lately. To be truthful, 1897-1907. That would cover the time between when my great grandparent met, married, started a family, fled their home, and started a new life. Not much, really?
I have a studio portrait of my granny taken in Riga in 1897. She is in the center of the picture, flanked by two other young women. It is labeled in my grandmother's distinctive hand, "Mom (center) and two friends." Just a wealth of information, not. So there she is, my granny. Not the 90 something woman with braids wrapped around her head, a bowl of sour balls on the table beside her, and time to amuse small children that I knew, but a 20 year old girl with her friends. They are lovely, their waists fashionably pinched in corsets, leg o'mutton sleeves floating above their shoulders. Her hand delicately holds a card as it rests in a shell held up by a cupid statue, her other arm rests on the back of the chair one of her friends is sitting in. Each of her friends look lik
e they have rings on indicating they may be married, but granny is 3 years from her marriage date. All three girls are looking in different directions. One girl looks directly into the camera, granny to the left and above, the last girl looking directly off to the left, like someone has caught her attention. I can see details- an errant wisp of hair, a peep of shoe toe, a faint herringbone pattern in the fabric of granny's dress. It's a moment in time and I almost feel like I am there.
She's so young, so beautiful and so on the cusp of an incredible decade. She's going to meet and marry the love of her life, have two children, watch her life in Riga explode into uncertainty and leave her home to start a new life. What was she like? What did she think? How did she feel? So many questions. I need to walk away for now, but I'll be back to write a few more posts related to this one. In the meantime, here she is, on the cusp of when it all changes.....
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