February 8, 1997: Sean and Lurana's SIXTH ANNUAL Mardi Gras Party asked the question:
"Tell us About Your Ancestors ."
Tammy Metz Starr (Honolulu, Hawai'i)
"daffodils and lilac trees"
My grandfather, a very handsome and stern and giving man, lived in this mobile home on this property on a hill. The driveway was gravel with
those two lanes where the tires belong and the grass in between. Their
home was right on Rt 344 in Leetonia Ohio, and when you turned into their driveway (it curved and had a slight incline) there were lilac trees that would brush against your passenger window. I guess they are bushes more than trees.
He had this wonderful barn turned into a garage that I loved the smell of. One of my favorite things in the garage was the coal stove. I loved feeling the heat when you stood close and somehow were extremely cold and hot at the same time. I love the look of that old shovel and my
grandfather, in his work green overalls, with his hands in the blackened
white work gloves, scooping coal into the furnace. I know exactly what it
sounds like to push a shovel into a heap of coal and throw it into a hot
oven with that glide and retreat motion that allows the coal to slide
right off into the glowing embery inferno.
Ann Elizabeth Armstrong (Williamsburg, Virginia)
My ancestor's home (great grandparents on my mother's mother's side) has tall white columns, an enormous porch, a portico, stain glass windows in all shapes and sizes. Nooks and crannies to play in. A Mahogany stairway and rail which was great for sliding down. Weird bathtubs with feet and showers that surrounded you. Sitting rooms, tall ceilings, Victorian molding, molding, panels and molding. More bedrooms than you could count, with a sink in each one! Window seats too. It was a fantasy land, I imagine 6 sisters growing up there, each had her own world.
My ancestor's home (great grandparents on my father's father's side). Somewhere in Savannah. Cramped houses. Working class neighborhood. No privacy. Lots of people, little space. You go to the river a lot. That was home.
TanNa Young (New York, New York)
Mom's side - Large families. Poor. China. Farmers. I don't think I need
to paint a picture. Almost stereotypical.
Dad's side - Immigrants from Germany. Poor. Strong and determined.
Michael Barnes (Austin, Texas) What do you mean by ancestors and by home?
Robert Bell Jr. (Williamsburg, Virginia) Akron, the home of my ancestors.
Rosanna Staffa The home is in Albania--there is a b/w picture of a castle covered with vine, it is summer + my father is standing squinting in his Fascist uniform--a priest stands by him--he is smiling. The priest took my father to the family castle--maybe he is not a priest--It is the war, it is Albania, there are no priests--My house is in a small town near Venice--we smoked cigarettes to the filter waiting for the evening--nothing ever happened--we made it up--we were grateful for floods, shotgun marriages--we bore a grudge to spinsters and holy men--we wanted stories--but actually I have too many homes--I don't understand the questions, and I'd like wine.
RKevin Doyle The Ancestral Doyles (or "D'oiles", which means "from the oily bogs on the river") lived in filthy hovels in Kilkenny Ireland. We were so poor that when the potato famine came, we were the one family that benefited. Sadly, the other now poor families, jealous of our situation, hounded us from Ulster to Cork till, at last, we fled to America, changing our name from D'Oile to Anderson, to no avail. Now, we live in pitiful 75 room mansions, cut off from our roots, laughing maniacally at the poor.
Stephanie Conching (Honolulu, HI) My great grandfather lived in an apartment above a JC Penny in Iowa. Boone Iowa to be exact. Stories about him and his wife talk about how nice and helpful they were. My other ancestral side goes to Austria Hungary before it became Czechoslovakia.
Jon Sypert (Honolulu, Hawai'i) Coming to Amerikay, My grandpapy's peoples came from Morocco, Africa while Granny grew up around Louisiana (hey what-do-ya-know!) They met half-way and my mom (one o' twelve childrens) popped out in Texas. Me, I made my first breach into this wild world in Atlanta (Sum. Olymp! '96) and did a little cross country travlin' to this little piece o' paradise.
Thanx to Mom I received the bountiful blessing of African, French and American Indian heritage. My pappy gave my temper care of the Fightin' Irish. Oh, 'tis great don't ya know!
Steph Sanchez (Honolulu, Hawai'i) My ancestors were people who lived in beautiful houses here in Hawai'i nei, the friendly isles of Ilocos Norte in the Philippines, slums of New York, and who knows where else. That's pretty much it because I am an oppressed minority all around!!! JUST KIDDING!
Tony Pisculli (Kailua, Hawai'i) Well, my mother's British so my ancestors on that side live in tiny little 2-story row houses. In Nottingham. One was apparently one of Robin's merry men until he saved up enough loot to buy a tiny little row house. Boring, eh? On the Italian side, my Dad's side, there's an olive farm. No joke. It's been abandoned, but my parents visited. The olive farm (complete with ancestral villa) sits high on a hill behind locked iron gates.
Carlos Thelin (Honolulu, Hawai'i) The houses my dad grew up in China were both converted by the Revolutionary Government to more proletarian uses. One became an Air Force Officers' barracks. The other one appeared abandoned as we approached it 40 years after he left China. Through a broken window, we observed 2 water buffaloes, several bales of hay, & a bunch of farm implements. The place had become a barn.
Aaron Anderson (Honolulu, Hawai'i) My grandfather made money first as an iron miner and then as a motorcycle racer (he raced motorcycles uphill--that is how he met my grandmother, he was the only one who made it to the top one race, and she met him at the finish line). Anyway, he retired and put all his money in a resort in Wisconsin. He hired someone for $1 per cabin to build him a resort on some land that he had purchased. Next to this land (or so he thought) was a lake which had great duck-hunting. He used to sneak over to that lake and hunt ducks, and only found out years later that he actually owned it. It turns out that he owned two lakes and over a dozen cabins, which he later sold, invested in the stock market, and made a fortune. My father grew up on that resort. I have been there, and to the duck lake. It is very beautiful--and we didn't even have to sneak.
Caroline "Virginia" Sutton (Honolulu, Hawai'i) I hear that my great-grandmother and great aunt ended up being crazy old ladies in a crazy old house. Their names were Arizona and Missouri, known as Zona and Zouri. I wish I had known them and I look forward to being a crazy old lady myself one day in a crazy old house.
David DeBlieck (Honolulu, Hawai'i) My father grew up on a farm near Walnut Grove, Minnesota (land of Laura Ingalls). He and his brother Dennis had to drop out of all activities and run the farm during high school because my grandfather was very ill. My mother lived somewhere different every year or two during her entire childhood until she discovered her father had died in his sleep in the car in Lovelock, Nevada. Then it was time to pack up the kids and settle down in New Richland, Minnesota. My Mother was 13 at the time.
Jennifer Sakamoto (Honolulu, Hawai'i) If my grandparents count, they lived in a little white house in MI. Grandpa Brune ran a "Mom and Pops" store that was right next to our house. When grandma died and grandpa sold the property and the store, my mom helped to clean out the attics and she threw out boxes and boxes of old comic books that hadn't sold and never gotten around to sending back to the vendor. I was around 10 at the time and just read through those that I liked and tossed the rest. The next year I went into inter-school and through classmates found out that old (in this case probably dating back to the late '50s when g-pa first opened the store) are worth big bucks. So basically we threw out my inheritance. Oh well. Then Grandpa Brune and his new wife, Grandma Nonie, moved to a great little cabin on a pond a few blocks away from that old house. I loved that cabin and am still upset that my mom and uncle sold it after grandpa and Nonie passed away. At some point I would like to go back to Luzerne, MI and buy back the little cabin in the woods and just keep it for vacations and sentimentality.