It Was Good to Know Emily

Mrs Vache Folle's grandmother passed away yesterday. Since her primary caregiver, her eldest daughter, died suddenly a few months ago, she had been living with her son in Colorado. It must have been hard on her to leave the house she had lived in since about 1930. We didn't know her until a few years ago. She had been estranged from half her children, including Mrs VF's mother, and so Mrs VF had almost no contact with her or the caregiver aunt. I had been estranged from my father for decades and had reached out to him and forgiven him, and this had been a great boon to me. Mrs VF decided to reach out to her aunt and grandmother and began to visit and call from time to time. We learned a lot about the history of the family and began to understand Mrs VF's mother better for having known more about her upbringing and family history. The aunt gave us the lead that allowed us to find Mrs VF's Lemko kinsmen in Poland last year. I am grateful that we were able to make amends and get to know these women before they were lost to us.

Emily, as Mrs VF's grandmother was known, was born in 1910 just outsdide Wilkes-Barre, PA to recent immigrants from Augustow in northeastern Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. Her father and uncles, who lived with the family, were colliers. Emily had an older sister Martha, not known to most of the family but whom I had seen listed in the censuses of 1910 and 1920. When I asked about her, Emily started a strange story with the phrase "I blame my mother". It seems that Martha's beau, the boy next door had given Martha's mother Josefa a ring to pledge his troth to Martha but Josefa had concealed this fact. The beau came over one evening in 1922 and shot Martha and then himself to death, all in the presence of young Emily. This story might never have become known if we hadn't cultivated a relationship with Emily.

It seems that estrangement ran in the family. Emily's father Wladyslaw returned to Poland in the 1920s to settle an estate. Josefa refused to send him money for taxes on the estate or for passage back to America, and he remained in Poland. Emily recounted this with some glee, so I surmise that there was not much in the way of closeness between her and her father.

Emily married Mrs VF's grandfather while still in her teens and went on to have five daughters and a son. Her husband was a miner, and she worked as a seamstress sewing pockets onto trousers, for which she received a modest pension. Her son became an oral surgeon, and several of her daughters went on to acquire advanced degrees despite receiving no help at all from their parents who, as was the custom in those days, invested in the education of their son and trusted the daughters to marry well. Emily was widowed in 1960 when her husband died of consumption. She lost touch with several of her daughters, including Mrs VF's mother, as soon as they were old enough to leave home.

Emily was a long time survivor of breast cancer. She was a devout Catholic. She made her own wine and kept a cat. She and her daughter lived independently in the house on Spruce Street where she had lived for nearly half a century until this year. It is believed that Emily suffered from a form of autism which interfered with her ability to empathize with others or to form attachments, and I am pretty sure that some of her descendants show signs of the same affliction. Knowing this about her ought to make her daughters a little more forgiving, but I suppose it is too late now to make amends. It is not too late to put down the burden of resentment and anger and to secure the blessings of forgiveness. It is a pity that estrangement from the mother has led to estrangement from siblings and estrangement among cousins. Perhaps the memorial service would be a good opportunity to cultivate relationships.